[pcthrowaway]

> these libertarian digital currencies?

I know libertarians love crypto, but they also love net neutrality. Calling crypto "libertarian digital currencies" is like calling end to end encryption "libertarian anit-state-surveillance cloaking technology"

[provenance]

E2EE and blockchain/btc/alt are all, indeed, “just math”.

You’ve noted the status quo that is rapidly becoming cemented, albeit in an hn echo chamber presumptuous of a supermajority consensus on E2EE as it may or may not correlate to libertarian ideals vs. state surveillance (i.e. most don’t even have the technical proficiency to vote, thus this assertion is flawed from the start).

This issue is more complex and dynamic, given proliferation of ubiquitous technical surv not monopolized by nation states. Cooperation is the social lubricant of a functioning government, which is often lost on libertarians. Technical libertarians are often the worst offenders of provincial groupthink.

[verdverm]

I think they mean more a currency with libertarian aspirations, not a currency for libertarians. There is certainly an anti-state, above the law sentiment prominent in the ecosystem.

[pcthrowaway]

The politics is divorced from the technology, and I assure you cryptocurrency finds advocates among libertarians, totalitarians, and socialists alike.

[verdverm]

The politics is embedded in the technology, you can look to the original bitcoin paper or the genesis block contents.

[pcthrowaway]

Bitcoin !== crypto, and there are a lot of blockchains whose founding teams are far from libertarian.

Also, please point me to the places where the white paper espouses libertarianism?

The bitcoin genesis message isn't a direct criticism, and the politics can be interpreted in different ways. One narrative is certainly libertarian-aligned (government shouldn't interfere with businesses and just let market forces drive things). But it's not the only interpretation; for example, there's an argument to be made for a message like: letting banks overextend themselves and then needing to be bailed out is a regulatory failing, and peer-to-peer digital currency offers an alternative to a system that lacks regulation that protects consumers and instead relies on corporate bailouts.

I will concede that the Venn diagram with Bitcoin maximalists and libertarians is significant. But again, Bitcoin !== crypto, and if you look at other blockchains, there's a very wide range of ideologies in the apocrypha.

[verdverm]

Exactly, politics is embedded in the crypto ecosystem, where most want to be extragovermental. If you are building something that tries to be money or a security, where people are voting, or is a "token with utility" then you cannot avoid politics being part of it.