Sometimes, amid the memecoins and pay-for-access scandals, it can be difficult to remember that the crypto industry was built on the principles of privacy and autonomy. The elusive Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, after all. Even as Wall Street swallows blockchain technology whole, the core is still a spirit of disintermediation.
I joined Fortune in August 2022, the same month that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Tornado Cash, a virtual currency mixer that allowed users to input their (very traceable) cryptocurrency holdings and receive an anonymous output. The software, predictably, became a favorite of terrorist organizations and North Korean-affiliated hacking groups, but it also embodied the cypherpunk ideology that birthed the crypto sector.
