"Concerning cryptography, it must be acknowledged that no amount of violence will ever solve a mathematical problem." – Jacob Appelbaum, Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet (2016).

Between the 1930s and 1940s, two remarkable fiction books were written by visionaries deeply concerned about the future and the direction humanity was taking. The first one is "Brave New World," written by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932. The second one is "1984," written by George Orwell and published in 1949.

Both authors depicted clearly dystopian futures, where a small number of powerful individuals would exert great control and set their own agendas over a mass of ignorant and subservient people. However, to bring the authors' futures to fruition, a technological piece was still missing: a communication infrastructure capable of acting en masse, connecting in real-time all people and devices everywhere.

Initially discredited by critics of the time, the Internet took about 20 more years to be taken seriously by the general public, suddenly propelling humanity into the information age.

Nevertheless, since the late 80s and well before the general public was taken by surprise by the internet explosion, there was already a select group of thinkers concerned about the directions this new invention could take. Together, they concluded that the Internet would become the ideal tool for the realization of dystopias while also seeing computers as a great opportunity for humanity to break free once and for all from the shadows of tyranny.

One of these thinkers was Phil Salin, an economist and computer hobbyist who dedicated himself to studying the possibilities of advancing economic sciences through the use of computers.

In 1984, even before browsers and internet service providers existed, Salin created a platform that could be accessed by computers using telephone lines, called American Information Exchange (AMIX). The goal was to facilitate online buying and selling of information.

However, as programmed, there was no possibility of censorship or manipulation of data by the central server on AMIX. This was certainly an extremely radical idea for the 80s, far ahead of its time.

Three years later, Phil's work caught the attention of another very important figure, former senior scientist at Intel, Timothy C. May. Also a libertarian by nature, he saw a serious limitation in AMIX since the negotiations there were very transparent and open. Depending on what was being negotiated, privacy could be a desirable or even necessary factor.

In Tim May's view, AMIX should evolve to become "a technological means to undermine the power of all governments." To achieve this, he considered the use of encryption techniques as a way to ensure that the platform's transactions became private, anonymous, and immune to possible government espionage and intervention.

He called this new version "BlackNet." Later, May went on to write the famous "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" and founded the email group "Cypherpunks," thus becoming the father of the Cypherpunk movement in the early 90s.

It is important to understand that Cypherpunks would not exist without mathematical advances in the science of Cryptography. It is the fundamental key piece that was missing for people to maintain their privacy and their ability to resist oppression, even in a world dominated by the internet and instant communication.

And we are not talking about any type of cryptography, but a particular type called "asymmetric encryption," invented in 1976 and evolved into an unbreakable and indecipherable standard by any computer that humanity possesses or can build—at least until the arrival of quantum computers.

It is using strategies of cryptography similar to this that Bitcoin and other blockchains can ensure that no one can discover a private key from a public key, thus ensuring that the coins in a wallet cannot be moved by anyone other than its owner.

Unsurprisingly, this special type of cryptography is something frightening for governments. Just remember that the Allies' victory in World War II was largely ensured by the efforts of Alan Turing—the "Father of Computing"—who broke the common cryptography used in Nazi Germany's communications in 1943.

Fearing the implications of an unbreakable encryption system in the hands of ordinary people, the U.S. government has been conducting what is called "The Crypto Wars" since 1977, various attacks against researchers and companies that have contributed to this technology.

Some examples include scientist Mark S. Miller, who distributed several copies of a paper describing the functioning of asymmetric cryptography at the risk of being arrested, or developer Phil Zimmermann, who was investigated by the government after creating the PGP encryption software, which is now used to protect banks and financial institutions worldwide.

Despite losing most battles, the U.S. government still fights to exert more power over cryptography. In October 2022, for example, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement urging technology companies not to use end-to-end encryption in their products so that law enforcement can request personal information in investigation cases.

Tim May and the Cypherpunks were well aware of these implications when they decided to choose asymmetric cryptography and socio-economic sciences as some of their main tools of activism. One of the premises of the movement, in turn, was the creation of some kind of tool that would give more power and freedom to individual human relationships, or "peer-to-peer."

Just as the internet had created the free flow of information, they concluded that a digital, cryptographic, and anonymous currency would be necessary to create the free flow of wealth.

From this premise emerged significant names that have marked the crypto world, being contemporary activists of Satoshi and who have contributed significantly to the creation of Bitcoin and other great technologies that have revolutionized the world.