"Strong cryptography can resist an unlimited amount of violence. No amount of coercive force will ever solve a math problem."

— Tim May (Cypherpunks Mailing List, 1993)

#cryptography #violence #mathematics

"Instead of trying to convince our current government not to try, we'll develop the technology (e.g., remailers and ecash) that will make it impossible for the government to succeed."

— Wei Dai (Cypherpunks mailing list, 1995)

#ecash #remailers

"I am very concerned that large transaction systems are being designed with no regard for privacy. Once in place they could lead to a world in which all transactions are tracked."

— David Chaum (Communications of the ACM, 1985)

#privacy #surveillance #transactions

"The cypherpunks were troublemakers: controversial, radical, unrelenting, but also practical. They made things."

— Jamie Bartlett (Cypherpunks Write Code, American Scientist)

#cypherpunk #code

"If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don't understand the problems and you don't understand the technology."

— Bruce Schneier (Secrets and Lies, 2000)

#security

"Bitcoin is not just a currency. It's a platform for trust."

— Andreas Antonopoulos (The Internet of Money, 2016)

#bitcoin #trust

"Truth happens. We will succeed. Don't wait around for others to take action. We must dive head first without regard for consequences, and break the inertia of passivity."

— Amir Taaki (The libbitcoin Manifesto, 2013)

#resistance #freedom

"It is important to realize that while distributed consensus is a hard problem, ordinary consensus is much easier and better studied, and can be solved some trillions of times more efficiently by use of trusted identifiable signing parties. Therefore, cryptocurrencies which compromise by introducing trusted parties, even under limited circumstances, should consider whether their new trust model is one for which consensus is easily achieved by some other mechanism."

— Andrew Poelstra (On Stake and Consensus, 2015)

#consensus #trust #cryptocurrency #bitcoin

"Security is a process, not a product."

— Bruce Schneier (Secrets and Lies, 2000)

#security

"I've noticed that cryptographic graybeards (I was in my mid 50's) tend to get cynical. I was more idealistic; I have always loved crypto, the mystery and the paradox of it."

— Hal Finney (Bitcoin and Me, 2013)

#cryptography #cypherpunk

"I believed in the idea of giving people the freedom to buy and sell and connect with each other without the all-seeing eye of government watching every move."

— Ross Ulbricht (Letter to Judge Forrest, 2015)

#freedom #privacy

"WE STAND TODAY on the brink of a revolution in cryptography."

— Whitfield Diffie and Martin E. Hellman (New Directions in Cryptography, 1976)

#cryptography #revolution #privacy #publickey