Bitcoin, we’re told endlessly, is both the currency of choice for tax-dodging criminals and a vehicle to instant wealth for incautious dreamers (who in reality are destined to lose their money). But that’s not how many of the entrepreneurs who have latched onto it see things. There’s a kind of utopian ideology emerging from crypto-currencies.
If the archetypal internet pioneer was a ponytailed nerd in a T-shirt who believed in the liberalisation of information and free fruit juice for all, pioneers of bitcoin are more likely to be found in surplus army gear, coveting some obscure corner of the globe as their own little micro-state where like-minded people can escape the oppression of the traditional nation-state. Either that, or they have dreamed up some anarchist future where we all live in small autonomous communities.
Take self-styled anarchist Amir Taaki, for example. A British-Iranian, he founded bitcoin trading platform Dark Wallet, which allowed individuals to trade beyond the reach of governments.
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