## Sense-making at the Frontier
**數位程密: plurality x progcrypto**

@oskarth, ETHTaipei
Taipei, 2025

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## What I'm not going to talk about

- waku (p2p private censorship-resistant comms)
- mopro (client-side zk proving)
- zkintro (my book on zk)
- instead...

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## What's going on?

- Philosophies (Cypherpunk, Solarpunk, Lunarpunk, d/acc, Plurality, BAM, etc)
- Technologies (cryptocurrencies, programmable crypto, bio defense, etc)
- Social experiments (DAOs, network states, popup cities, citadels)
- (Biased subset; many ways to slice a cake)

Note:
- Taking a step back

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## Explosion of philosophies

- **Cypherpunk** -> Privacy-first
- **Lunarpunk** -> Mystical privacy enclaves
- **d/acc** -> Accelerate defensive tech
- **Plurality** → Big tent for diverse viewpoints
- **BAM** -> Vitalist enclaves

Note:
- Solarpunk, Bronze Age Mindset
- At these events and related

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## Are they in opposition?

- Conflicts:
- BAM vs Solarpunk (heroic elitism vs communal optimism)
- Romantic cypherpunk vs tempered transparency
- Reform or reject institutions
- Overlap:
- Skepticism of central authorities
- Pursuit of new forms of coordination (most)
- New World vs Old World

Note:
- Can we find shared ground?

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## Shared problems

- Shared trust problems
- How to trust at scale?
- Authenticity, privacy, accountability
- Without centralized top-down control
- Intersection:
- exit broken systems or build better ones

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## How to trust at scale?

- Cypherpunk: Trust in math
- Lunarpunk: Hide in the dark forest
- d/acc: Build defensive tech
- Plurality: Build plural systems
- BAM: Strongest shall survive

Note:
- A bit glib

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## What's the overlap?


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## Tribalism



Note:
- Big/Little endian Gulliver's travels
- Focus on similarities instead
- Uncommon ground; Tiny sliver

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## Uncommon ground


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## ⿻ Plurality

- ⿻: Plurality/數位, both digital and plural
- Digital democracy in the 21th century
- Neither mountain-man nor king-tyrant
- Tech for collaborating across social differences

Note:
- As nouns or verb
- Mountain-main Libertarianism, focused only on individual in isolation
- King-tyrant Technocracy, Big Tech top down control
- Taiwan as a case study
- Back to the roots of original Internet vision

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## Plurality as a big tent

- Accept different viewpoints
- Encourage parallel enclaves

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## Open society and its enemies (Popper)

- Paradox of tolerance
- Some extremes threaten system
- Intolerant towards intolerance

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(What does this have to do with tech?)

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## Programmable Cryptography

- What's connection?
- Cryptography: Securing digital information
- ProgCrypto: Cryptography + Computation
- Tools: ZK, MPC, FHE, IO

Note:

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## Programmable Cryptography (cont)

- Ex: Prove you 18+ with passport using ZK
- General-purpose privacy and succinctness
- ZK is single-player, MPC/FHE multi-player, IO god-mode
- Flexible lego blocks
- Solve trust issues with cryptography

Note:
Zero Knowledge Proofs, Multi-Party Computation, Fully Homomorphic Encryption
IO: new kid on block, any program obfuscated
We'll look at this more in specific examples

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## Digital democracy

- Enshrined ⿻ Freedom and rights as foundation for a digital democracy
- similar to OS and apps, kernel/user space
- Dimensions identified, builds on each other
- Identity, Association, Commerce, Contracts, Access
- Also applies to online platforms etc

Note:
OS, access control etc, robust foundation
Build on each other; on top we can build apps
Hardness - trustworthy, crypto, sound money
Look at each dimension in turn
Disclaimer: simplified view, mapping to progcrypto, not complete

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## Case studies

- Look at a few examples and how fit in
- Identity: Rarimo
- Association: Cursive
- Commerce: Privacy Pools and Railgun
- Access: ZKP2P and ZK Email

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## IDENTITY


- Challenge: Anonymity vs Centralized Control
- Without secure identity, digital democracy fails

Note:
"On Internet no one knows you are a dog"
Don't want either extreme
Without secure identity, digital democracy fails

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## Example: Rarimo ZK-ID


- Used in Ukraine, Russian and Georgia
- Liquid democracy

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## ASSOCIATION


Beyond public vs private; we live in *common context*

Note:
Too simplified only private or public
Free association requirement for free society
But it involves establishing and protecting context
Threat is e.g. unilateral oversharing

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## Example: Cursive


- Private set intersection
- Digital pheromones with MPC/FHE

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## COMMERCE

- Cash vs CBDC vs Crypto
- Cash: Dumb but works
- Digital world enables more (good and bad)

Note:
Native money for Internet, but how?
Private, fungible, not control/surveillance
Credit networks, community currencies
OSS contributions / group freedom interest

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## Example: Privacy Pools / Railgun



- Not CBDC nor transparency
- Privacy without NK

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## ACCESS

- Access as fundamental right
- Availability but also integrity
- Information integrity
- Deep fakes => signatures of content
- More signed data:
- ZK signed data and prove valid operations
- Prove emails with zk-email
- Openness and trust

Note:
Access as fundamental right
Not just availability, need integrity
Ability to verify and maintain privacy
Openness and trust
E.g. Reuters standard ops, grey/resize/crop
Time and place, ~trust Canon/Camera

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## Example: zk-email / ZK-P2P


- Fiat on/offramp
- Prove access to email

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## Programmable Cryptography
Hard and flexible, like bamboo and carbon fiber


> ⿻ develop tools that allow greater cooperation and consensus ... make space for greater diversity

Note:
We want to be both robust and flexible
Cryptographic hardness, sound money
But also flexible to the world we live in
Anchored in old, like bamboo
But also new into the digital future, carbon fiber
Programmble Cryptography allows us to build
new institutes and systems that leads to a more free and democratic world in 21th century

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## No intersection?

- Often surprising Uncommon Ground
- E.g. Bitcoin maxi vs multi-chain diff
- But desire for privacy same
- BAM enclaves vs egalitarian norms
- Maybe different popup cities?
- Ask: What in common?

Note:
- generally non-violent philosophies, compatible

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## No overlap


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## Intolerant minority

- Taleb: Intolerant minority often decides outcome
- Example: Preference for E2EE comms
- Signal onboarding
- Pick wisely

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## Attack on E2EE encryption


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## Back to Popper's paradox

- OK with gov imposed backdoors into E2EE?
- Undermines core values for free society
- Old world vs new world
- Something to be intolerant about?

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## Key takeaways

- Big tech shift and explosion of philosophies
- ProgCrypto: hard but flexible
- Plurality: diff viewpoints
- Recognize uncommon ground (world is big)
- Tolerance vs intolerance: pick wisely

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Note:
- zk book bridge 'normie tech' with zk-pilled

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## Thanks! Q&A

- oskarth.com / @oskarth
- zkintro.com
- Come up to me for a booklet