Re: A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace - We all should read it
⭐ Merited by JayJuanGee (1)
Maybe you can provide more insights here or at least what's your impression because in my opinion, David Chaum is a very interesting person.
How can someone get his own coin so wrong while being around in crypto for DECADES?
How can someone get his own coin so wrong while being around in crypto for DECADES?
What happened to Chaum is very difficult for me to understand. He was called "Houdini of crypto". He invented blind signatures. He invented the first digital coin, named Cyberbuck, which was based on blind signatures. His company, DigiCash, launched in 1989, managed to convince giants like Mark Twain Bank from St. Louis, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Norske Bank and Bank Austria to use Cyberbucks. Other big players became interested in Chaum's creation: Visa, Netscape, ABN Amro Bank, CitiBank and ING Bank. Even Bill Gates tried to embed DigiCash in Windows '95. Sadly, these last deals were not signed and his company went bankrupt. Why did he fail back then? Was he way ahead of his time? Or was it because his coin was centralized...?
Furthermore, he wrote very important books for cryptography, such as Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms", "Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments" or "Security without Identification Card Computers to make Big Brother Obsolete.
Then he returned with a new coin which, again, failed...
I sincerely don't know how to explain all these. It feels like Cristofor Columb, which touched so many times the shores of America without realizing it. This is why America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, which realized that it is a new continent, and not after Columb. It also reminds me of Moses, which led his people for 40 years in the desert and died just before reaching The Promised Land.
I think what best describes these situations and also Chaum's fate is life's irony.
There is nothing anarchist about Bitcoin. In fact Bitcoin is the most governed system in the world. There are tens of thousands of law enforcement with zero corruption or possibility of corruption called full nodes that are watching this system 24/7 to keep it healthy and clean of any corruption.
Actually, I have to disagree here. According to Wikipedia, "Anarchy is a society without a government. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy". This is exactly what happens inside Bitcoin network -- the nodes do not have any central authority to govern them. Each chooses to be online or offline. Nobody can coerce the nodes to run or not.
The whole text you shared is just pretty words but empty and meaningless underneath. Complaining about US regime's corruption while you vote for them and pay their salary makes no sense! Specially when it comes from someone who is (or was) part of that corrupt system.
What makes you so sure that John Perry Barlow voted? About paying the salaries, unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done, unless going to jail for not paying taxes. What would you expect? For all people which blame regimes and their corruption to accept to go to prison for not paying taxes, in order for you to not be able to say that they should not complain since they are paying their salaries?