"What is the greatest unsolved problem in cryptography today? Lack of user awareness." — Martin Hellman (Charles Babbage Institute Oral History, 2004) #cryptography

"I can't speak for what Satoshi intended, but I sure don't think it involved bitcoin exchanges that have draconian rules about KYC, AML, passports, freezes on accounts and laws about reporting 'suspicious activity' to the local secret police." — Tim May (CoinDesk, 2018) #bitcoin #surveillance #kyc #regulation

"There is only one way this vision will materialize, and that is by widespread use of cryptography. Is this technologically possible? Definitely. The obstacles are political—some of the most powerful forces in government are devoted to the control of these tools." — Steven Levy (Crypto Rebels (WIRED), 1993) #cryptography #privacy #government #politics

"Crypto anarchy is not just about avoiding laws. It's about making certain laws unenforceable, and hence making them obsolete." — Tim May (Cypherpunks Mailing List, 1992) #cryptoanarchy #law #enforcement

"I think the greed and hype and nattering about 'to the Moon!' and 'HODL' is the biggest hype wagon I've ever seen." — Tim May (CoinDesk, 2018) #bitcoin #hype #greed #criticism

"The cypherpunk movement provides an intelligible, viable, and effective model of data activism and strategic agency." — Patrick D. Anderson (Of Cypherpunks and Sousveillance, 2022) #cypherpunk #dataactivism #resistance #agency

"You can't awaken someone who's pretending to be asleep." — Edward Snowden (Joe Rogan Experience, 2019)

"As we move to an increasingly online world in which physical cash is not practical for many transactions, we must also develop and foster electronic cash that is as privacy-preserving and permissionless as physical cash." — Jerry Brito (The Case for Electronic Cash, 2019) #electroniccash #privacy #permissionless #cryptocurrency

"Cryptography rearranges power: it configures who can do what, from what. This makes cryptography an inherently political tool, and it confers on the field an intrinsically moral dimension." — Phillip Rogaway (The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work, 2015) #cryptography #politics

"It is important to realize that while distributed consensus is a hard problem, ordinary consensus is much easier and better studied, and can be solved some trillions of times more efficiently by use of trusted identifiable signing parties. Therefore, cryptocurrencies which compromise by introducing trusted parties, even under limited circumstances, should consider whether their new trust model is one for which consensus is easily achieved by some other mechanism." — Andrew Poelstra (On Stake and Consensus, 2015) #consensus #trust #cryptocurrency #bitcoin

"The Clinton people were ripe for plucking. They didn't want to alienate the hard-liners. They were intimidated by sudden responsibility. And they were manipulated by the NSA and FBI, who gave them three choices: let crypto run free (and suffer the consequences of people dead in the streets), ban crypto totally (risking riots in Silicon Valley), or take the alleged middle-road, a supposedly plug ready key escrow path that had, well, something for everybody." — Steven Levy (The WELL - Crypto Discussion, 2001) #government #clinton #keyescrow #politics

"Bitcoin is a tool of resistance gifted to us by Satoshi. The idea has escaped and the idea of cryptocurrency will not be stopped." — Amir Taaki (The libbitcoin Manifesto, 2013) #bitcoin #resistance #cryptocurrency #freedom

"The notion that we can just fade into cypherspace and ignore the unpleasant political realities is unrealistic, in my view." — Hal Finney (Politics vs Technology, 1994) #politics #cypherpunk

"You can pay for access to a database, download a program, or have a prescription filled — without anyone being able to trace the transaction back to you." — David Chaum (Security Without Identification, 1985) #privacy #transactions #anonymity

"Advances in information technology have made possible the rise of a truly international currency that does not depend on a central bank." — Nick Szabo (Bit Gold, 2005) #digitalcurrency #centralbank #international

"Cash is more than a method of payment. It is a fundamental tool for individual privacy and autonomy, and it is necessary for an open society." — Jerry Brito (The Case for Electronic Cash, 2019) #cash #privacy #autonomy #opensociety

"Cash is also necessary to retain agency and autonomy. Autonomy can be understood as the power to make decisions for oneself without interference from others." — Jerry Brito (The Case for Electronic Cash, 2019) #cash #autonomy #freedom #agency

"Mathematics is not the law." — Tim May (CoinDesk, 2018) #mathematics #law #cryptography #philosophy

"Bitcoin isn't just money for the internet. It's a new form of money that is native to the internet." — Andreas Antonopoulos (Mastering Bitcoin, 2014) #bitcoin #internet #money

"In a world without cash (a bearer and peer-to-peer form of money) all transactions must be necessarily intermediated by financial institutions. Intermediated transactions are by their nature subject to surveillance and control." — Jerry Brito (The Case for Electronic Cash, 2019) #cash #surveillance #control #intermediation