Neeraj K. Agrawal

Coin Center has a new publication: Peer-to-Peer. We believe that open source, privacy protecting, and self sovereign tools are key to resisting tech authoritarianism. This is our vehicle for contextualizing our work in the larger tech policy world. p2p.coincenter.org/p/peer-to-peer…

@glangley “All of this is done without a warrant. No officer ever has to establish probable cause, swear to the facts in a warrant application, and await the approval of a neutral judge.” insideinvestigator.org/silent-watcher…

@TaylorLorenz I’ve been happy with my subscription

User Mag is the #1 Substack in the Tech bestsellers category run by a woman. The tech category is almost entirely men, support my reporting by buying a paid subscription to my newsletter! I have zero advertisers 👇🏻 usermag.co

"Are you going to be held liable for how someone else uses what you've made publicly available to the world?" @LazPieper on the principle underlying ongoing crypto cases that would set a dangerous precedent for builders everywhere.

“smart” people have a tendency, when first engaging with crypto, to try and separate the innovations they currently approve of from the decentralized networks that created them. they praise the fruit and scorn the tree that bore it decentralized networks like Ethereum permeate the world’s edges, creating a breeding ground for products that solve problems tradFi can’t reach. stablecoins and tokenization emerged from public chains, which is why those chains are where most of the stablecoin/tokenization activity and network effects concentrate if you like stablecoins/tokenization, you should at minimum be open minded about what decentralized networks might create in the future. “blockchain not bitcoin” is even more ignorant now than it was 10 years ago

🎥 @RepBryanSteil asks @Coincenter's @jasonsomensatto why crypto regulations should recognize decentralized networks instead of treating them like traditional centralized financial systems. Somensatto argues blockchains are infrastructure, not intermediaries:

@BenJustman Wine lobby should hire you

Beer makes u gay. Drink wine. Sincerely, Your winemaker

the tech industry seems to suffer from a Homeric curse where its doomed to elevate its worst snake oil salesmen to be its public representatives

The beer lobby knows beer is your friend

In today's CLARITY hearing, @jasonsomensatto explains what's at stake with the BRCA. It's up to Congress whether CLARITY ends up only helping centralized crypto businesses without protecting the builders who make crypto useful in the first place. "Blockchain networks are not merely a new way to trade assets. At their best, they are open computing networks that allow individuals to hold and transfer value without depending on a bank, exchange, payment processor, or other centralized intermediary. They allow developers to build interoperable tools on shared infrastructure. They give individuals the freedom to transact peer-to-peer without being censored or unnecessarily surveilled, and they give developers the freedom to build novel infrastructure without asking permission. That is why developer protections are key to market structure legislation. If Congress creates clear rules for centralized cryptocurrency businesses but leaves developers exposed to open-ended liability for building non-custodial software, then the legislation will have protected part of the market while undermining the technology that makes the market possible."

Livestream for today's CLARITY hearing today at 10. youtube.com/live/fijdz8IDE…

A lot has already been said about this tweet. My brief additions: 1. The BRCA doesn't alter anything about money laundering law, only unlicensed money transmission law (UMT). That the DOJ continues to confuse the terms and sections of the criminal code bewilders and frustrates me. 2. The BRCA limits only unwarranted prosecutions of UMT when their is no ability to prove that a person specifically intended to transmit criminal funds. 3. The fact that DOJ opposes this is not a surprise. It asks then to do more work finding actual evidence that someone intended to move criminal money rather than simply built software tools for anyone to move money. 4. The DOJ should have to do that extra work even if they protest. Cops should not be able to lock you up for five years without proving that you had criminal intent. 5. If you disagree with my statement in four, that's fine, but don't let me catch you calling yourself a progressive liberal, libertarian, or fan of the rule of law. You have deeply anti-liberal intuitions about the need for cops to have unbound authority to charge serious crimes without evidence. 6. That leaked email may represent the now outdated opinion of one person at DOJ. Others disagree and the department as a whole continues to negotiate. 7. Pass the BRCA. Protect open source developers. Allow Americans to build free and open financial infrastructure.

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Who, exactly, is anonymity for? @sarahemclaugh breaks it down

@EconWithNick I see it

Alright... giving this a go with the new timeline. Posting my Substack typically gets no engagement but it has everything you need to stay up to speed on the latest in financial freedom! bankingbureau.substack.com

The line between a surveillance state and personal privacy seems to quietly shrink each year. Thankfully, @coincenter is doing something about that. Future generations will be thankful.

Something has shifted in the last few years... Digital rights groups have become very shy about cryptocurrency work even where regulation of those technologies directly impacts principles like code as speech and warrantless surveillance online. Crypto groups have become increasingly focused on institutional and financial markets questions and a bit less dedicated to the original mission: replacing government and corporate infrastructure with free and open peer-to-peer systems. We want to talk more about the peer-to-peer part and maybe earn some stronger alliances with the larger freedom tech movement. As a small first step, we're launching a new space to talk about tech authoritarianism and the peer-to-peer alternatives: Peer-to-Peer from Coin Center. Please subscribe and share.

There is a looming threat of tech authoritarianism around the world, where individual privacy and autonomy are being marginalized for control and profits by governments and corporations alike. We believe it’s important that you stay informed on these matters and on the solutions that exist to combat encroaching surveillance and censorship. Subscribe.

@valkenburgh Watch the keynote, “Glass Houses and Tornados”: archive.devcon.org/devcon-7/keyno… 🌪️🌪️🌪️

this is INSANE