“Cryptocurrency as a tool of freedom. Calling it now: this is going to be the theme of 2019.”
-Jill Carlson
The world today finds itself at a precipice. Over the last 3 decades, internet technology has helped give voice to the voiceless, allowed dissidents to coordinate, and generally created a check against state-controlled media, money, and power. These same tools, however bring with them unprecedented power for surveillance. As it always does, the power structure is catching up.
One of the defining questions of the coming decade will be whether internet technology continues to be a force for liberation or cedes and becomes yet another pillar of control.
In this, the battle over money will be paramount. Throughout history, the ability to control money has meant the ability to control economics, control people, and wage war. For the first time, however, state-backed currency has competition.
We started Coinmine because we believe that easy, accessible, plug-and-play hardware experiences can onramp people into crypto in a way that actually allows them to participate in building the revolutionary peer to peer networks upon which crypto relies, and in fact, that this participation is the basis for a concept we call “Liberty Crypto.”
Liberty Crypto is the idea that the purpose of cryptocurrencies aren’t just to enrich speculators or make payments more convenient, but to fundamentally and irrevocably give people more sovereignty over their data and money. We see this concept all across the best parts of the crypto space, and decided we wanted to do something more to help that idea spread.
With that in mind, we’re excited to announce a new weekly newsletter called The Liberty Crypto Reader. Each week, it will highlight stories of governments and banks behaving badly; of how crypto is being used by real people around the world to better their lives and fight oppression; and of important stories from beyond crypto that impact the question of whether the internet will ultimately be a tool of liberation or control.
To produce this, we’re partnering with our friend and crypto curator Nathaniel Whittemore aka @nlw, who in his pre-crypto life helped launch Change.org and collaborated with impact organizations from around the world to build a university dedicated to helping students learn how to not suck at making a difference.
Check out the Issue #1 right now.