Crypto-anarchism is a political ideology that advocates the use of cryptography and other technologies to protect individual privacy, freedom, and autonomy from state interference. Crypto-anarchists believe that by encrypting their communications and transactions, we can create a decentralized and voluntary society that is immune to censorship, surveillance, and taxation. The term crypto-anarchism was coined by Timothy C. May in his 1988 "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto", where he declared: "Crypto Anarchy is the cyberspatial realization of anarchism, transcending national boundaries and freeing individuals to make the economic arrangements they wish, consensually." May was one of the founders of the cypherpunk movement, a group of activists and hackers who promoted the use of cryptography and digital currencies to challenge the authority of governments and corporations. The cypherpunks were influenced by libertarian and anarchist thinkers such as Murray Rothbard, David
Thanks to the disintermediation spurred on by Satoshi, Ross, and Cody, - agorists have the ATF, IRS, DEA, FDA, & Federal Reserve cornered. Uber, Lyft, & Airbnb have more or less gutted the taxi and hotel cartels, liberating the hospitality industry.
So who’s next? Counter-economists need a target.
The consensus which seems to be arising in agorist circles is that a death blow to the SEC will do a great deal to liberate individuals from state financial controls and thus lift living standards and the quality of life for the entire global population.
While I admit it sounds like a lofty goal, I assure you we will do it and we will do it using the same peaceful, non-violent tactics and strategies that Cody, Ross, and Satoshi exemplified. With the assistance of blockchain technology, it’s possible for individuals today to tokenize anything and everything they can get their hands on. And we will. Indeed, the process is already underway.
“100% of stocks and bonds trading on Wall Street today could be tokenized, and in 5 years, 100% of stocks and bonds trading on Wall Street will be tokenized.”
-Robert Greifeld
Former Chairman & CEO of NASDAQ
But first, to prepare a battle plan we must understand the strategy our enemy is using. The SEC is one of numerous executive agencies, all of which enjoy a wide array of sweeping powers. To get an idea of just how powerful these agencies are, lawmaking can sometimes be as nonchalant as a bureaucrat’s utterance or even a circulating office memo. In 2007, the SEC arbitrarily created FINRA, or the “Financial Industry Regulatory Authority” and tasked them with “investor protection and market integrity” (a phrase that is obviously nonsensical but somehow still seems to resonate with the fluoride drinkers).
In reality, FINRA is a cartel consisting of 4200 brokerage firms, maintained in a compulsory fashion by the SEC. If the reader is unfamiliar with the concept of compulsory cartelization, click here. Taken together, these 4200 firms employ around 630k brokers. Last year alone, the cartel extorted $132 million from American citizens.
Agorists: FINRA is our target. We will break the cartel, and by doing so, publicly castrate the SEC for all the world to see. Financial regulators from Europe to Asia will be put on notice.
Consider the following possibility. You own a string of local coffee shops valued at $1 million and would like to go public in order to access additional capital. You realize that paying lawyers and accountants exorbitant amounts of money to guide you through the SEC’s registration process and hopefully get the state’s approval to have your business perpetually subjected to their reporting requirements doesn’t sound so tempting. Instead you decide to tokenize your business.
Your fledgling coffee shop franchise is valued at $1 million, & you decide to issue 1 million tokens. Each token thus represents a .000001% stake in ownership and can then be traded securely and anonymously on a digital exchange. Thus far, we've focused on equities, but if we account for real estate and bonds, the global market cap for potential tokenization becomes an astonishing $508 trillion.
Patrick Byrne was one of the first entrepreneurs to realize the value of this opportunity and has sunk over $100 million into the creation of one such exchange, tZERO. Unfortunately, centralized exchanges make easy targets for the state, and Byrne is compliant with FINRA and the SEC. However, there’s nothing prohibiting the creation of token-specific decentralized exchanges (DEX) modeled on ethereum’s IDEX or the waves DEX (though at the time of this writing, I know of none).
It’s only a matter of time until an agorist (perhaps you?) creates a secure and anonymous, token-based, DEX on scale with Coinbase or Kraken. In fact, the way events are unfolding, you may not have to.
Blockstream’s Elements project allows individuals to issue assets, and their Liquid network is a commercial product created specifically to foment the safe and secure transmission of those tokens. Elements allows individuals to issue assets as a separate blockchain or as a sidechain pegged to BTC. Similarly, thanks to developments in the BCH community, Badger wallet allows individuals to create security tokens using SLP. The process for creating tokens using SLP is so simple Alexandria Ocasio Cortez could potentially do it. Also, a plan to bring tokens to the main bitcoin.com wallet is underway, which means millions of users will instantly have access to the token ecosystem.
Other tools agorists can look to include both Apollo and Cardano. Apollo is designed to be an "unregulatable" currency that offers a truly impressive host of privacy features AND will include both a token system and a DEX. Cardano is another innovative project that seeks to create a hyper-decentralized blockchain ecosystem that has long-run sustainability. Although user issued assets may not be fully functional on these platforms yet, counter-economists and cypherpunks would be wise to keep a close eye.
Other tools agorists can look to include both Apollo and Cardano. Apollo is designed to be an "unregulatable" currency that offers a truly impressive host of privacy features AND will include both a token system and a DEX. Cardano is another innovative project that seeks to create a hyper-decentralized blockchain ecosystem that has long-run sustainability. Although user issued assets may not be fully functional on these platforms yet, counter-economists and cypherpunks would be wise to keep a close eye.
One additional benefit of tokenization is that it combines the horizontal and vertical counter-economic strategies as outlined by agorist theoretician Per Bylund here. Historically, the greatest advances in agorism (i.e. Silk Road, 3D-printed firearms, & cryptocurrencies) have resulted from a synthesis of local production and an unregulated network of exchange. The tokenization of securities and assets, when combined with decentralized exchanges masterfully achieves this synthesis.
Soon, the FINRA cartel will be broken and the SEC will be neutered and the free exchange of equities, bonds and real estate will become an inevitable and unstoppable force. Major corporations will be at a disadvantage if they continue to offer shares on legacy exchanges and will thus be peacefully, and voluntarily incentivized to move to stateless markets. Billions of entrepreneurs around the world will suddenly have access to vast amounts of capital which will in turn, cause a surge in technological innovation and living standards, disproportionately uplifting those in the developing world.
This is the essence of agorism.
We should talk because not only is this possible on what I've already built but we're building more stuff to take it even further.
ReplyDeletewym? You've created a decentralized exchange for security tokens?
ReplyDelete