Finn Brunton

The first few chapters and last chapters are the best part of the book. In these chapters, the author provides some of the philosophy and historical background of the anarchists, utopians, and other sociological influences motivating creators to bring digital currency into existence. There are worldviews that have pushed the development of cryptocurrencies for decades and the author provides insight into the various perspectives that have led to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies and failed predecessors.

The middle of the book is a slog and feels like reading combined research papers on Extropians and Friedrich Hayek. If you want a deep dive into the early cypherpunk movement, cryogenic utopians, and pioneers in the crypto-technologies, you'll enjoy this research. The insights in the first two chapters provide a great framework for the development of cryptocurrencies but after that, the book takes a deep dive that may more biography and intricate history than the average cryptocurrency investor may want to read.… (mehr)

The book a collection of starting points for understanding and making use of obfuscation.
It is split into two parts - an analysis of the possible applications of obfuscation and obfuscation as a strategy for privacy protection; the ethical issues obfuscation raises and salient questions to ask of any obfuscation project. The authors took care to emphasize that in addition to privacy, it is not a replacement for one or all of the tools which we already rely on.
There is no simple solution to the problem of privacy, because privacy itself is a solution to societal challenges that are in constant movement.… (mehr)