Impact of

crypto-anarchy &

sharing economy

on our future

 

My accomplished, unfulfilled and expected predictions

• Cryptoanarchist and voluntaryist focused on technology and society hacking
• Founder of IT security ethical hacking company Nethemba & co-founder of bug bounty company Hacktrophy & contemporary art creation company Satori
• Co-organizer of the world's biggest crypto-anarchist conference in Paralelní Polis, Prague (www.hcpp.cz)
• Co-founder of Bratislava and Prague's hackerspaces
• Member of Czech contemporary artistic group Ztohoven

Let me introduce myself

• Based on inspiration of our Parallel Polis speakers (Frank Braun, Smuggler, Paul Rosenberg) and many other cryptoanarchists
• Sometimes my predictions are right (I described the concept of Uber sharing taxi and sent it to my friends three years before Uber was started)
• I am techno-optimist - everything is happening slower / later than I usually predict
• Special thanks to Paul Rosenberg and Juraj Bednár for their feedback/ comments

Consider the following presentation to be my cryptoanarchistic vision since 2013

• A lot of anti-Uber and anti-Airbnb demonstrations around the world, new anti-Uber/anti-Airbnb government regulations
• The rise of the truly anonymous cryptocurrencies (especially Monero, adopted by cryptomarkets)
• Bitcoin is more stabilized and legalized in most Western countries, but it is and will be highly regulated
• The first decentralized market (OpenBazaar v2) with Tor support was released
• The first open-source implementation of Uber-like taxi sharing service (Libretaxi) & Airbnb-like sharing service is released (CryptoCribs) - in Uber/Airbnb regulated countries.

Accomplished

predictions #1

Accomplished

predictions #2

• Prohibition of anonymous transactions (because of "threat of criminals and terrorists"), thanks to AML5, the sender and recipient have to be always identified (plus in the EU anonymous prepaid cards were prohibited, many crypto exchanges removed anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero and ZCash)
• The beginning of financial offshore based on cryptocurrencies (thanks to increasing regulation of the traditional fiat banking, including banks in offshore countries)
• Do not expect privacy in Bitcoin (Chainalysis and similar services are used by most crypto exchanges), nor censor-resistance (miners in Blockseer's pool do not include "tainted" transactions)
• Black markets will embrace truly anonymous cryptocurrencies (like Monero)

Accomplished

predictions #3

 

• Rise of decentralized legal systems
  • Decentralized courts Kleros is a fully working solution (using shelling point) - we can solve a lot of legal conflicts without the government
• Cryptomarkets will go mobile (this happened partially with the smartphone app Haven, but unfortunately the development is stuck because of the lack of money)

Partially accomplished

predictions (just happening)

• Mandatory government backdoors in all crypto solutions will be approved (we can see the recent plans of the EU "security through encryption, security despite encryption" to introduce backdoors to most used messengers....)
• Key disclosure laws have been already adopted in the Western world (the UK, Australia, New Zealand)
• Anonymous cash will be prohibited in Western countries (we can see countries like Sweden or Iceland where cash is almost no used)

Predictions I expect in the near future

Anonymous, decentralized crowdfunded whistleblowing

• Imagine that whistle-blowers (like Snowden) can be entirely funded by an anonymous crowd!
• People will bet on the date of the leakage of the specific document (e.g. the time of the leakage of TTIP)

This means a total decomposition of all government secret agencies and government "classified" agencies -> covert agents may be significantly economically motivated to earn anonymous money and anonymously leak sensitive information.

Predictions in 5 years (I)

Towards perfect corruption: the rise of anonymous prediction markets

• Do you want smaller taxes? Bet your cryptocurrency that there will be unchanged or higher taxes in the next two years.
• Do you want to have legalized drugs? Bet your cryptocurrency that there will be a prohibition for next years
• If you are a politician with the real power to change it, you have an economic incentive to make the opposite bet and win a lot of money in cryptocurrency :)
• More at https://steemit.com/prediction/@digital-liberty/the-democratization-of-corporatism-how-to-achieve-the-perfect-corruption-using-anonymous-predictions-markets

Predictions in 5 years (II)

• Availability of anti-government insurance (in case of cryptomarket use, drug possession, bypassing surveillance laws, using cash, ..) thanks to decentralized and anonymous insurance companies (see https://steemit.com/anonymous/@digital-liberty/the-rise-of-anonymous-insurance )
• Providers of Tor exit nodes and OpenBazaar nodes will be cruelly criminalized
• Massive increase of decentralized Internet solutions (funk Feuer, Serval Mesh, ..) that will be out of the government control

Predictions in 5 years (III)

• Universal sharing economy mobile application allowing anyone to provide his/her services to anyone without government control/taxation will be available
• It will be fully decentralized solution impossible to shut down by the government (like Bitcoin) with use of anonymous crypto-currencies
• First anonymous crowd-sourced drone strikes
• The government will start to have difficult times (see Paul Rosenberg's book - A lodging of wayfaring men https://anarplex.net/hosted/files/A_Lodging_of_Wayfaring_Men.pdf

Predictions in 10 years (I)

• The states will lose their business license monopoly - people start to prefer a decentralized DAOs instead of the traditional government-licensed companies
• The governments will radically change the taxation model - no tax for virtual/Internet services, high taxation for real-world properties and real-world businesses, some countries will switch to head-tax
• Massive people immigration to seasteading islands / free ancap-based countries
• Many Tor/OpenBazaar nodes will be placed in the air (anonymous still-flying drones) or in still developing countries with old-school legislation

Predictions in 10 years (II)

• The existing financial system will break/collapse
• The new economic 100% controlled system will be introduced with fear after breakdown of the current system
• Free Banking based on crypto (?!)
• Seasteading-based free countries will be invaded by the US/UK/Western countries
• High separation of the real world and cryptoanarchistic world ("the second realm / temporary autonomous zones"), average people will switch to this world after they see cryptoanarchy succeeds

Prediction in 10 years (III)

• The current social system will collapse, the rise of virtual states with social / protection benefits
• Despite the fact virtual states (like Bitnation) are still not legitimized by the countries/governments, they start to be commercially attractive and offer many advantages/citizenship protections replacing the current governments

Predictions in 15 years

• For the governments, it will be impossible to shut down decentralized cryptomarkets
• New kind of financial freedom thanks to truly anonymous cryptocurrencies
• Decentralized Anonymous insurance against the government
• Anonymous prediction markets that make corruption perfect
• Crypto-markets (and decentralized organizations with the anti-government insurance) can be much more competitive compared to the government's regulated e-shops even for the non-illegal products and services thanks to this insurance

Fundamental events in our future

• People will switch to crypto-markets not because they respect freedom or privacy, but because a price - everything will be cheaper in crypto-markets than in the real world (anti-government insurance will reduce this price)
• ANALOGY - slavery was abolished because it was less efficient than market-driven capitalism (free people are just more productive than slaves)​, not because most people in that time considered slaves to be human beings :(

Free-markets are more effective and cheaper than the government's regulated ones

• The authoritative government will survive in the following 20 years and will be even more authoritative
  The people using crypto technologies and crypto markets (trying to avoid the state rules, like taxation) will be criminalized, there will be many exemplary lawsuits against many innocent people (Ross Ulbricht, ..)

Bad news

The rise of "the current authoritative system" problems:

• Impossibility to cope with sharing economies (Uber, Airbnb, ..) that avoid the government regulations
• War on drugs
• Crypto-markets

These problems DO NOT EXIST in the free society; the real issue is the current political system which is not stable and is undermined/ threaten by all new technologies

Good news

• War on drugs cannot be won
• Crypto-markets technically cannot be prohibited

 

Despite the precedents like Ross Ulbricht's case,
politicians cannot win their fight; they HAVE TO ADAPT to the crypto-anarchy / free-market rules.
Unfortunately, a lot of innocent people will be sacrificed during this battle.

Cryptoanarchy / Anarcho-capitalism is less vulnerable / more immune system

• A massive asymmetry between the government and individual
• It 's hard to protect your privacy in the real world (physical security is the weakest point)
• Most government attacks against crypto anarchy will use social engineering, few of them using 0-day exploits, the least will be against crypto
• They can always destroy you / compromise you if they want and have a budget
• Avoid the system, be agorist, do not be personal, do not create enemies

Be strong, protect yourself

Welcome in Parallel Polis & Institute of Cryptoanarchy

We are real!

pavol.luptak@paralelnipolis.cz