Nice piece, but it fails to capture an essential point - cypherpunks never aimed to dismantle the state itself, it was to empower individuals. And I see many individuals doing the "sovereign individual" thing around us. And yes, it also empowers individual states, should they adopt Bitcoin and there's little we can do about it.
I never believed in the Konkinian agorism - it is not possible to dismantle the state using countereconomics, the math just doesn't work that way. You need very little funds to have clear monopoly on violence. There are countries with 50%+ in the informal economy ("countereconomy"), yet the state chills out and does violence all the same. But adopting Bitcoin as individuals within that state to improve their lives is clearly a winner here. You don't need to do it all the way - even iranians who lost access to transact still have much better fighting chance escaping, or living through the horrible situation and ending up at least well enough on the other side.
So to me - Bitcoin in particular, and cypherpunk in general delivered on their promise. But they never promised to remove the states for everyone, but to allow minimizing state inference for anyone who wants to. And that's a difference.
Well worth a read anyway though: https://mises.org/mises-wire/bitcoin-not-freedom-delusion-digital-escape
Juraj
npub1m2…lr8p9
2026-07-01 18:20:30 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1m2mvvpjugwdehtaskrcl7ksvdqnnhnjur9v6g9v266nss504q7mqvlr8p9Published at
2026-07-01 18:20:30 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Nice piece, but it fails to capture an essential point - cypherpunks never aimed to dismantle the state itself, it was to empower individuals. And I see many individuals doing the \"sovereign individual\" thing around us. And yes, it also empowers individual states, should they adopt Bitcoin and there's little we can do about it.\n\nI never believed in the Konkinian agorism - it is not possible to dismantle the state using countereconomics, the math just doesn't work that way. You need very little funds to have clear monopoly on violence. There are countries with 50%+ in the informal economy (\"countereconomy\"), yet the state chills out and does violence all the same. But adopting Bitcoin as individuals within that state to improve their lives is clearly a winner here. You don't need to do it all the way - even iranians who lost access to transact still have much better fighting chance escaping, or living through the horrible situation and ending up at least well enough on the other side.\n\nSo to me - Bitcoin in particular, and cypherpunk in general delivered on their promise. But they never promised to remove the states for everyone, but to allow minimizing state inference for anyone who wants to. And that's a difference.\n\nWell worth a read anyway though: https://mises.org/mises-wire/bitcoin-not-freedom-delusion-digital-escape",
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