A Political History of DAOs

The Cypherpunks used their mailing list to document various attempts at building an electronic coin network. This included “e-gold,” in 1996; an anti-spam proof-of-work algorithm called Hashcash by Adam Back; an anonymous proof-of-stake electronic cash network in 1998; and Bit Gold, a proof-of-work string of cryptographic hashes by Nick Szabo in 20... See more

This presented the idea of Bitcoin, a “peer-to-peer electronic cash” representing the first public, permissionless, cryptographically secure peer-to-peer protocol.

So, pursued the development of decentralized, cryptographically secure digital infrastructure.

They hoped these technologies would make it possible for people to inhabit “temporary autonomous zones” — the socio-political tactic of creating temporary spaces in the physical world or cyberspace that elude formal systems of control.

The Cypherpunks were interested in harnessing cryptographic tools to build anonymous communication networks and markets without government censorship.

FROM CRYPTOGRAPHERS TO CYPHERPUNKS (1990S - 2008):

In 2008, a group of developers released a whitepaper on the Cryptographers Mailing List.

Engineer Paul Baran made a number of breakthroughs that are relevant to the public, decentralized technologies to this day, including “message blocks” (a component in blockchain technology) and advocacy for private digital networks via cryptography.

In 1975, the government introduced the Data Encryption Standard, a national encryption standard for public and commercial use. Thus limiting citizens’ access to cryptography knowledge and tools. This is part of a decades-long battle over data privacy known as the “Crypto Wars.”

FROM CYPHERPUNKS TO WEB3: