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A telling moment occurred during the "BlackNet" thought experiment May proposed: an anonymous, encrypted marketplace for trading secrets (e.g., corporate data, government leaks). He joked that even the plans for BlackNet itself could be sold on BlackNet-a self-referential paradox highlighting crypto-anarchy’s potential for chaotic, self-sustaining systems.
Years later, May grew disillusioned with the "crypto hype" of the 2010s, quipping that Bitcoin enthusiasts had strayed from the original anti-state vision. He once compared modern crypto projects to "barbed wire"-a metaphor from his manifesto for systems that restrict freedom-ironic, since he’d initially used "barbed wire" to represent government control that cryptography would cut through.
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In 1992, May read his "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" at the founding meeting of the Cypherpunks, a group of privacy activists who believed cryptography could dismantle state power. The manifesto, written in 1988, predicted anonymous digital markets and untraceable currencies-ideas that seemed outlandish at the time but later materialized in Bitcoin and Silk Road.