Where did all the anarchists in crypto go? I came into this space when it was filled with people building tools and protocols that would sever reliance on state actors and ancient bloated institutions. People used to recoil when government or political parties were mentioned, because they could be captured by authoritarians or an adversarial mob. We were building a trustless base layer of last resort, it would literally be impossible to exclude anyone from using it. Those were the values and aspirations that pulled me into this space.

Interested in ZK, FHE, PUFs, hardware, system design, ai safety, and smart contact security.

Those institutions are decaying further now. And a good chunk of people here are cheering it on. I understood in 2016 throwing out the most potent protest vote that you possibly could have, saying "fuck you!" to the systemic corruption. It didn't work, it kept chugging along like nothing happened. I understand wanting to burn it all to the ground to start fresh. What made me dig even deeper into this space was the option of building alternatives that can outcompete the established institutions, no burning necessary.