Crypto-anarchy

[citation needed] The prefix "crypto-" originates from the Ancient Greek word κρυπτός kruptós, meaning "hidden" or "secret".

[5] This differs from its use in terms like 'crypto-fascist' or 'crypto-Jew' where it signifies that an identity is concealed from the world; rather, many crypto-anarchists are open about their anarchism and promotion of tools based in cryptology.

[7] Bitcoin is a currency generated and secured by peer-to-peer networked devices that maintain a communal record of all transactions within the system that can be used in a crypto-anarchic context.

Adrian Chen, writing for The New York Times, says the idea behind Bitcoin can be traced to The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto.

For crypto-anarchists, creating such a virtual or network state to increase freedom and reduce physical coercion has been a consistent talking point since at least 1992, when Timothy May initially discussed a version of these ideas in his article, Libertaria in Cyberspace.

[13] May said:This is the most compelling advantage of "Crypto Libertaria": an arbitrarily large number of separate "nations" can simultaneously exist.

[13]In his 1999 book, Virtual States, cypherpunk Jerry Everard explored these ideas through the lens of Foucauldian philosophy, especially in the context of discourse formation.

Technologist, angel investor, and former Coinbase CTO, Balaji Srinivasan, has fully fleshed out the idea of network states.

[12]He furnished a fuller, more complex articulation as well:A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.

"[12] In one prominent section, Srinivasan argues for a modern variation of Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis.

He makes the case that frontiers throughout history have been open, uncontested territories allowing exploration, experimentation, and settlement.