This is a paper that I wrote for my surveillance studies class, Sociology 903, at the end of 2016. This was my first attempt to try to use an interdisciplinary social lens to examine what had mostly been studied and described from computer science, law, or economics lenses. Particularly, ideological aspects of blockchain systems are of particular interest to me, which in the space tends toward issues of data control, security and privacy/anonymity. Most of what has been written here I think is still applicable, and in some cases supported by current events and additional documentation I have found since.
One example of this might be the comment about altcoins not needing to take over bitcoin's popularity to make an impact, and the concept of certain types of exchanges like Shapeshift helping to facilitate that. The movement away from a "winner takes all" approach is noted in the Bank of Canada paper Competition in the Cryptocurrency Market
by Neil Gandal and Hanna Hałaburda, as well as my previous post about decentralized exchanges. Similarly, as my research has continued, I have seen in person examples of institutional interest in blockchain, and the very different ways that they would be interested in implementing (examples being private and permissioned blockchains), that in my view lose out on some of the technological advantages as a result of their pushback against certain concepts like decentralization.
Also, the comment on trajectory of the area I think has received significant support since the time of writing. At the start of November 2016, the BTC price was around 700 USD. That price jumped to 17 500 USD in early December 2017 likely as a result of the massive media hype built around the digital currency at that time, and has since settled back to its current price of about 6500 USD - still significantly higher than when the paper was written. This price change has also brought on other issues, such as the explosion of transaction fees (which is partially related to the current valuation and network congestion) and scalability issues, and as such, some of the comments about sending money using bitcoin for low fees may not be as accurate as when it was written.
In any case, I am still very involved in the blockchain space, and hope to continue to be engaged after my Masters thesis is put through the ringer here, as I still believe there is much untapped potential in the area and a lot of room for development, growth and expansion.
Anyway, I think that's enough reflective pre-commentary, here, is the piece.
Bitcoin Use as Privacy Protests and Surveillance Resistance
for Dr. David Lyon
Sociology 903
November 30th, 2016
Introduction
As society continues to move toward increasingly pervasive and ever present surveillance by any number of entities, citizens concerned about personal privacy and free speech look for ways to avoid tracking and surveillance. The creation of a data double through consumer surveillance is a difficult area to avoid as individuals embedded in capitalist societies. We must consume, but data related to our consumption is increasingly being collected and compiled. In what ways can new technology that often enables more seamless collection of data, also help citizens to avoid consumer and economic surveillance? I suggest in this paper that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies based on blockchain may serve as a tool for citizens to continue to consume as required within capitalist societies, while also avoiding at least to some extent, the collection of data on their individual consumption. Given the possibility of being able to subvert consumer surveillance, corporations and governments are anxious about losing these forms of data collection, and are actively looking at ways to write surveillance back into the system. This paper will also look at ways in which institutions and corporations are trying to co-opt bitcoin into their systems and maintain their ability to monitor and collect data using the currency. How can bitcoin technology help users gain control over privacy and data, and how does this relate to the concept of privacy protests? What implications are there to using this or other cryptocurrencies? How can these technologies be leveraged for social action? These are questions that I hope to explore and answer in some detail. Given that the technology and use of it is currently still emerging, I draw upon a variety of both academic and non-academic sources in an interdisciplinary manner to explore these points.
What is Bitcoin and the Blockchain?
The most logical place to start here is to briefly explain some basics on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The technology that underlies bitcoin itself is called blockchain, which is essentially a publically maintained online and distributed ledger that tracks the existence of all bitcoins ever created, as well as both where they have been, and where they are currently. The ledger is distributed peer to peer through the bitcoin core application, it exists throughout the network of the internet, and is a decentralized ledger by the nature of the application. Given that the ledger is both public and distributed, it makes transactions more visible – the data on transactions is available to anyone as it is open and peer to peer based. However, each transaction on the blockchain is not easily identifiable and traceable back to individual users, as it is considered a pseudonymous technology. Users of bitcoin are not required to provide any identifiable information in order to interact with the blockchain or bitcoin technology, though some more user-friendly wallet services and currency exchanges require some personal information depending on location and applicable legislation in their area. Generally, the information is required for anti-money laundering purposes, and is particularly evident with currency exchanges that accept traditional government backed money for bitcoin purchases (Simser 2015; Stokes 2013).
Bitcoin is not stored in the same way as traditional currency. It is digital by nature, and is represented by recording the location and movement on the blockchain. Each movement of bitcoin on the blockchain depends on the distributed nature of the blockchain and utilizes distributed computational power to record and verify each transaction on the blockchain. Each block on the blockchain refers to the previous block, which seems to explain its name quite well. This characteristic and method of recording also provides a high degree of security to the entire blockchain, as forging or stealing bitcoin would require rewriting the entire chain, which is distributed to users throughout the world. In short, it would be very difficult to achieve such a feat, and fool the entire distributed blockchain into believing that your address rightfully owned the bitcoin or cryptocurrency that you were trying to forge or steal. This characteristic is also the reason that the applications of blockchain for uses far beyond currency exchange are being seriously looked at and implemented in any number of areas.
Privacy Protests
Now to classify this surveillance resistance into a specific term. Elizabeth Joh (2013), describes a number of activities meant to resist surveillance, as “privacy protests”, such as using Tor to surf the internet, using disposable or encrypted email services, paying with cash, amongst other activities (1000-2). She also notes that most Americans can hardly live in current society and remain untargeted by a number of surveillance techniques, and “many, if not most people acquiesce to these demands for information about them, either out of acceptance or resignation.” (Joh 2013:1000). This statement bears strong ties to the description of the surveillance “surveillance society” described by David Lyon (2015), as “widespread, systematic and routine ways in which personal data are processed in the twenty first century” (7). Again, this is presented in a way that is less than nefarious, and in many cases, may have no intelligible impact on many people’s lives that live within the surveillance society. However, there are many individuals that may be uncomfortable with the near-constant surveillance that they find themselves subjected to, as well as individuals that are negatively affected by surveillance, and resist as a result. These acts of resistance also need to be thought of as more than simply a resistance for reasons of avoiding law enforcement and undertaking criminal activities, but also as resistance for reasons such as free speech, “out of ideological belief, or personal conviction”, and for “political, philosophical, idiosyncratic, or just paranoid” reasons (Joh 2013:1000, 1002). In fact, though they may share similar methods or qualities to surveillance avoidance for criminal activities, they can be very different in motivation. Interestingly, Joh notes that in the US, as far as the law is concerned, there is little difference between avoiding surveillance for criminal purposes and as a privacy protest. She also notes that sociologists and surveillance scholars point out that there needs to be more attention paid to resistances to surveillance, which informed the use of this angle for this piece.
Disrupting Consumer Surveillance as Free Speech and Social Action
Though individuals often have means to dispute governmental policy that they disagree with in ways such as lobbying legislators or organizing campaigns for or against issues, or attempting to gain traction on social media for a cause, some choose to act in different ways to subvert what they see as a social problem. Joh (2013) again describes privacy protests as attempting to achieve many of the same goals as these organizations, but on an ad hoc and individualized basis, and for a host of personalized reasons. Given that contemporary society fits quite comfortably within the description of a surveillance society, the act of individualized forms of protest in addition to larger organization are likely to be an increasingly important form of mobilization for social action (Joh 2013:1003).
There are several examples that can be used to demonstrate both individualized forms of protest being used as a means for social action, as well as bitcoin being tied to social action. For one, the internet collective Anonymous is often active in a number of areas of social action, though action is largely individualized, and motivations for each individual in an action may vary widely across the entire group. This leads to observers of the group that don’t understand the individualized nature of Anonymous thinking that their actions as a group can be hardly considered cohesive, and at times seem contradictory – but this is the nature of individualized social action. Again, this can be looked upon with both an approving or disapproving gaze, but it is important to look nonetheless, in order to understand the significance of this style of social action. It can manifest itself in particularly ugly ways, which are easily shown through examples of extreme internet trolling leading to suicides, but also in ways that could be perceived as in some ways benevolent, such as enabling speech, communication and organization against dictatorships that would prefer to oppress their citizens.
While this may initially seem like an aside point, it is important to talk about a group like anonymous for several reasons. Firstly, they as a group embody the idea of individualized social action on the internet. Acting with no centralized leadership or hierarchy, the group is able to act efficiently in a number of ways that may not be possible or desirable for a group that exhibits traditional forms of organization. Secondly, they are a group that is often mobilized for action against attempts to control the internet in specific ways, and are generally against censorship (Uitermark 2011). Privacy and anonymity should be understood to be important to this collective, given their name and the means that they use to achieve action, which relies on anonymity and individualized collective action to achieve goals. Thirdly, Anonymous represents a worldwide group, enabled by the world wide web, and is as such borderless. As Uitermark (2011) states “The Internet is the ultimate expression of flowing geography”, and this feature is taken on by both Anonymous and various cryptocurrencies (179). They are not confined to one geographic area, and this is one of the features shared by bitcoin and cryptocurrencies – that they are global in nature as a result of being a digital currency used on the world wide web. They have no set borders within which they must stay and act, they are able to seamlessly move throughout the world using the infrastructure of the internet, and can act anywhere at any time.
To explain this further, I am describing the activities of Anonymous and the borderless nature of the internet for conceptual reasons. They are illustrative examples in similar ways to bitcoin, given that they can be borderless and used in both ways that are desirable and undesirable in the eyes of the general public. Another particularly illustrative tie between Anonymous and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin is the way in which they act. As stated by Gabriella Coleman (2015):
“Although Anonymous participants are veiled by a pseudonym whenever they act in public, it is also vital to emphasize that most of the actions themselves are in no way carried out in secrecy… Most Anons, in other words, are not hiding out in the Internet’s equivalent of the Tora Bora caves, scheming in total darkness. They are acting primarily in the light of day, albeit with a measure of safety— just enough to allow them to act at all.” (416-7)
I think that this is a particularly interesting way to describe the group, as well as bitcoin – given that users also tend to act in a way that is in the light – registering transactions on the blockchain, while also allowing the use of a pseudonym or other non-identifiable data to obscure their identity from the public. Given the similarities in action and behavior between the group and cryptocurrencies, it seems to follow that similar modes of action could be employed for social change by each entity.
Another way to express the significance of privacy protests and surveillance resistance is through a quote that to the best of my knowledge is simply credited to an anonymous writer: “Apartheid was legal, the holocaust was legal, slavery was legal, colonialism was legal. Legality is a matter of power, not justice” (unattributed quote). Once again, in cases where these crimes against humanity are looked at in hindsight, they are understood to be wrong. But it required resistance to change these, and people who resisted the mainstream thoughts on these issues were not always popular. Both the quote above and history have shown that it is important for individuals and groups to be able to voice concerns, take dissenting views, and mobilize against governments or policies that they see as oppressive or wrong. Legality cannot be the only way to determine morality, and one of the ideals of democratic societies is the ability to voice dissenting opinions.
Here we start to get to the importance of privacy and anonymity to the functioning of democratic society and the relation between free speech and economic freedom. While democratic ideals support the expression of dissenting views, this is not necessarily a popular stance to take, and can often come with personal risk. Edward Snowden for example, a whistleblower on widespread and over-reaching government surveillance via the NSA, who had to flee the United States to Russia after leaking this information to the public. The ability to provide information without divulging particular aspects of one’s identity is very important to individuals who possess information that they believe should be revealed for the public good. Whistleblowers, journalists, and activists, are all examples of groups that may need some degree of privacy or anonymity in order to carry out their function efficiently and safely.
Economic freedom can also be tied to free speech in ways that may not be initially obvious to the casual observer. Wikileaks, a website devoted to whistleblowing and publishing leaked documents and information, was cut off from receiving donations through Paypal and major credit cards after significant pressure was put on these private organizations from government entities (Simser, 2015). Individuals that still wanted to support the organization needed another way to transfer funds to Wikileaks, and bitcoin became a way of supporting by circumventing the overtly stated government wishes that support for the organization be halted, and the economic censorship that became associated with the freezing of Wikileaks’ Paypal account and withdrawal of support from major credit cards. The Wikileaks incident became a strong illustration of how economic freedom can be closely tied to free speech.
While this example is for one particular organization, it can easily be extrapolated to any number of entities, morally good, bad or ambiguous, and across the political spectrum. Again, this example need not be restricted by thoughts of countries or borders, given that bitcoin itself has no borders by nature of its existence through the internet. It is truly a global currency that is beholden to no particular geographic location. In this also lies a great deal of power, given that it allows it to be an actant wherever necessary – from supporting a cause that has been deemed unsupportable by typical means through pressure as seen in the Wikileaks example, to donations to a political party that may not subscribe to mainstream views, to providing funds to a rebel group in order to overthrow oppressive regimes, to supporting terrorist activities, to circumventing international sanctions. Again, this leaves morality and judgement to the user in their application of the technology, and is therefore resistant to censorship.
Reclaiming Control of Data
Another large aspect of bitcoin and cryptocurrency use is the ability to regain control over your own data. The ideal of personal privacy is built into the technology of bitcoin, allowing the user to decide what and how much of their identity to share with anyone else (D. Tapscott and A. Tapscott 2016:41). This is another way that users of bitcoin can resist consumer surveillance, by removing reliance on payment methods that retain large amounts of personal data such as credit cards. By using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, users are taking responsibility for their own data security and storage, and reclaiming that power that was previously held by the credit card companies. This does put some onus on the user to have adequate passwords and data storage, but if many consumers are able to take this step, they are removing much of the incentive to consumer cybercrime in that single users are much less lucrative than full databases of consumer data. Tapscott and Tapscott (2016) give a good example of this, as in 2008 “data breaches at such financial firms as BNY Mellon, Countrywide, and GE Money accounted for over 50 percent of all identity thefts reported that year” (39). Lastly, by reclaiming control over personal data, users are taking steps toward dismantling aspects of the “data double” as described by Haggerty and Ericson (2000) by removing parts of the surveillant assemblage. Unless users are actively avoiding other forms of surveillance that make up the assemblage, they may not be avoiding the data double completely, but they are attempting to remove some of the indicators used to make up the data double. This is described in Blockchain Revolution (2016) as a movement from big data to private, or little data (D. Tapscott and A. Tapscott 2016:45).
Consumer Surveillance, Data Doubles, and Life Choices
So now that we have briefly described the bitcoin system and technology, as well as privacy protests and connections between economic freedom and free speech, why else would individuals want to resist consumer surveillance at the risk of being labeled a deviant or a criminal? What other possible motivations could there be for this resistance that could be perceived as radical? This can be answered by addressing the creation of data doubles through the surveillant assemblage, and how this stands to have an effect on individual’s life choices. This was touched upon in the data reclamation section, but will be further explored here.
Haggerty and Ericson (2000) citing Patton (1994) introduce the concept of assemblages as “consist[ing] of a ‘multiplicity of heterogeneous objects, whose unity comes solely from the fact that these items function together, that they “work” together as a functional entity” (608). Moving forward to the concept of surveillance and the surveillance society, and particularly our contemporary society which exhibits countless examples of mass surveillance, it is the coming together of many forms of surveillance to create a cohesive body of data on individuals. Haggerty and Ericson (2000) further go on to describe the functioning of the surveillant assemblage to create something different, but individualized: “abstracting human bodies from their territorial settings, and separating them into a series of discrete flows. These flows are then reassembled in different locations as discrete and virtual ‘data doubles’” (605). Lyon (2015) describes the increasing number of implications of this data double, and its integration into the “superpanopticon” (55). This integration has wide ranging effects on individuals, everything from typical uses of surveillance in criminal and workplace settings, but much further beyond that to “geo-demographic lifestyle groups, psychological classifications, educational differences and health distinctions. Some of these reach back to birth or even before birth in an attempt to gauge future life-chances” (55). The data double permeates many areas of life, and may affect such social factors as social class and status, and may have both positive and negative effects on aspects of life such as future options being linked and in some cases limited by previous choices or classifications, ability to qualify for mortgages to enter the housing market, amongst a host of other effects. It is also proposed that there is an unequal distribution of harm based on the data double, which is particularly significant where life chances and options are reduced.
Lyon (2015) uses the term informational capitalism to describe the surveillance of consumers, and its contribution to the data double. It is important to note, that our current society in one way or another, essentially requires us to participate in capitalism, which is often informational and surveillant in nature. Unless you have gone completely off the grid and are able to produce all of the necessities for life without capitalist consumption, the movement to informational capitalism, the surveillant assemblage, and the data double affects you. Knowing all of that, it seems like much less of an uninformed assumption to think that some individuals within society would be uncomfortable with their purchases determining their life chances, and would opt to resist against the development of their data double if possible, particularly where diminished, limited, or full on exclusionary life chances are involved.
It is because of the virtually unavoidable nature of many of these concepts that demonstrate to the importance of individualized surveillance resistance. When individuals have no choice but to consume in order to gain access to the necessities of life, amongst other non-necessities, and those purchases are made through informational capitalism, the surveillant assemblage takes over in working with other surveillant technologies to develop the data double. It is for this reason that I propose the movement to bitcoin for purchases and integration with other altcoin cryptocurrencies show much potential as an avenue for individuals to engage in privacy protests and surveillance resistance.
Comparisons to Traditional Forms of Money
While much of the previous discussion has centered around the ways in which bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are different from traditional forms of money, it may also be helpful to look at the ways that they compare to traditional forms of currency as well. Beyond Bitcoin (2016) describes the aim of bitcoin is “to create a digital version of cash”, and Simser (2015) describes transactions on the bitcoin network as “a virtual paper bag of $100 bills” (157, 166). Both of these descriptions give a nod to the disconnection between identifying information and cash, and the pseudonymous nature of bitcoin, a characteristic that has been discussed at length previously, and is the characteristic that makes it a candidate for engaging in surveillance resistance. Beyond Bitcoin (2016) also outlines several advantages that bitcoin has over earlier money, in the areas of divisibility and durability. The smallest division of a bitcoin, or the ‘satoshi’ is an 8th decimal place of a full bitcoin, and the bitcoins never deteriorate – even with bitcoins where users have lost the key to access the bitcoin, it exists on the network as long as the blockchain continues to be operational, though this may be seen as a potential disadvantage to the user. Another advantage is the low cost of transfers compared to traditional forms of money, which makes it easier and more cost effective to engage in international money transfers.
One of the characteristics that differentiates bitcoin from contemporary money is tied to the concept of the pseudonymous identity, but is not necessarily related to privacy or anonymity. It is described in Blockchain Revolution (2016) as inclusion. The Tapscotts (2016) describe the issue that “there are two billion people without a bank account, and that in the developing world, social inequality is growing” and “mobile is often the only way of connecting” (49). Because Satoshi, the creator of bitcoin, also designed the bitcoin system to work without the internet if necessary, individuals can interact with the blockchain using a ‘simplified payment verification’ mode that can work on cell phones (D. Tapscott and A. Tapscott 2016:49). This, combined with a lack of identification or past history required to interact with the system allows the blockchain to be much further distributed and inclusive than current forms of currency or credit, which require extensive verification of identity and socioeconomic status. This is particularly important in the developing world, which may seem like an unlikely place for bitcoin to have significance. The Tapscotts (2016) describe the situation in terms of economics:
“corrupt or incompetent bureaucrats in failed states need funding to run the government, their central banks simply print more currency... The increase in the money supply debases the currency. If the local economy really tanked, as it did in Argentina and Uruguay, and more recently in Cyprus and Greece – these central bodies could freeze the bank assets of whoever couldn’t afford a bribe. Given the possibility, the wealthy could store their assets in more trustworthy jurisdictions and more stable currencies. But not the poor. Whatever money they have becomes worthless” (50).
As seen in this example, bitcoin could have a lower barrier to entry than many of the current forms of currency and credit, particularly in the developing world, and serve to include a much larger amount of the population. These concerns of impending economic crashes and wild printing of money may be less of a factor in the developed world, but that need not undermine the importance of such a feature for others throughout the world.
There are certainly detractors of bitcoin, and those who say that the technology is in and of itself a negative thing. One such example is the New York Times contributor and professor of Economics, Paul Krugman, who proclaimed “Bitcoin is Evil”, and described the main use of bitcoin as “a target for speculation, has been for online versions of those dark-alley exchanges, with bitcoins traded for narcotics and other illegal items” (Krugman, 2013a, 2013b). It is not difficult to see where one might get that idea, given the immense publicity that the drug market Silk Road situated on the dark web received when its founder was caught and charged, with bitcoin deeply implicated in the coverage. The negative connotations in the media don’t stop there however, as situations continue to arise around data security, and particularly cases of university computers infected with ransomware with data being taken hostage until a payment in bitcoin is made and the data released. This has happened over the past year at both University of Calgary and Carleton University (Logan 2016; Braga 2016).
Taking a more neutral stance, Angel and McCabe (2015) dispute Krugman’s stance as a product of his views on the values of central banking and taxation, and instead state that “payment tools as such are ethically neutral, but can be used in an ethical or unethical manner” (603). They describe this further by saying “one could similarly argue that paper currency is evil, given its current status as a payment mechanism for illicit activities. This raises again the old ethical question of how to balance a product’s potential for abuse with its benefits” (607). They later conclude that bitcoin is a tool, and as such is neither good or evil, but can instead be either, depending on the application and ethical or unethical use by users. This further supports the concept that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by their nature need not be associated with either good, neutral or negative activities, but understood that it may enable all of the above.
Altcoins – Privacy by Design
In addition to bitcoin, there are a number of other cryptocurrencies, also referred to as altcoins, that have been developed for a number of different applications. Blockchain has allowed for this diversity of different applications and development of altcoins by the nature of being open-source. Examples of altcoins developed specifically with anonymity and privacy in mind include Cloakcoin, Dash, and Zcash. There are also several wallets available such as DarkWallet that utilize payment mixing to further mask the actual transfers of coins from one user to another. Halaburda and Sarvary (2016) seem to dismiss these coins as very niche, by stating that none of these coins has overtaken bitcoin in popularity. They also go as far as to suggest another reason for this, that “an insufficient number of people care about this particular attribute” (Halaburda and Sarvary 2016:135). This is an oversimplification, and ignores the fact that once a user has access to one type of cryptocurrency, it is quite easy to transfer that value between other forms of a cryptocurrency, and could be use dependent. Services such as Shapeshift make this quite obvious, as an exchange that was created expressly for the purpose of exchanging cryptocurrencies for other cryptocurrencies, and with no account whatsoever required in order to utilize the service.
Given the ease of value transfer between various forms of cryptocurrency, I argue that there is no need for one cryptocurrency or altcoin to come out on top in terms of popularity, as users should have the ability to transfer value to a number of different formats, and again, may be use-specific. There is also no doubt that there are a large number of individuals that are concerned with the concept of privacy and anonymity, as seen from a number of quotes throughout the literature. Joh (2016) notes that “advice on “surveillance defense” and counter-surveillance products is readily available on the internet” (1000). Gürses, Kundnani and Hoboken (2016) discuss the “cypherpunks”, and the role that the group played in making cryptography and encryption available and accessible to the general public. They even go as far as to state, citing Hughes, that their motivations for doing so, which match up closely with the earlier discussed motivations for resistance and privacy protests, summed up as:
“confidentiality of information and anonymity, and the technologies for making these properties attainable for the public, were considered fundamental to the freedom of the individual in the face of organized surveillance of ‘governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations [that cannot be expected to] grant us privacy out of their beneficence’” (583)
Simply looking at these works (as a sample of a larger body) as indications that there are indeed both individuals and groups interested in anonymity and privacy in the face of a surveillance society surely underlines that the development of altcoins for the purposes of privacy have an audience, should cryptocurrencies in general start to reach widespread use and acceptance as a form of currency exchange.
Institutional and Corporate Interests – Building Surveillance Back into Blockchain
Bitcoin and blockchain are becoming big business in tech development, and startups are using crowdfunding or enticing investors for development of any number of applications, from simple applications like new wallet or safe storage services all the way to digital governance applications of blockchain. Just as there are startups that are utilizing blockchain technology to solve new problems beyond currency, there are also startups that are interested in building surveillance into the system, and are interested in maintaining the ability to keep an eye on users. It appears that large players in current institutions are interested in this as well, given the involvement of particular groups in funding rounds for startups. For example, a bitcoin surveillance startup Elliptic raised $5M in early 2016, funded by Paladin Capital group, which has a former NSA director, retired Lieutenant General Kenneth Minihan within its leadership. It was noted that one of the explicit intent for this funding was to help the company “expand in the US via the contacts and knowledge of US law enforcement and government agencies” (Higgins 2016b). The group intends to expand oversight of bitcoin transactions, particularly on exchanges where bitcoin is traded for government-issued currencies. (Higgins 2016b)
It is suggested in Blockchain Revolution (2016) that governments and large corporations are going to do everything they can to maintain control and build in surveillance technologies into applications of blockchain, and that the NSA must already be analyzing data coming through the blockchain (D. Tapscott and A. Tapscott 2016:274). Certainly larger companies are becoming involved with blockchain, as both IBM and J.P. Morgan are developing applications based on the technology. Seeing these large players enter the field, it becomes apparent that they are not going to be interested in maintaining the anonymity factors, and potentially some of the security benefits associated with controlling your own data, depending on the application. It is for precisely this reason that it is important to get a feel of where the initial leanings and benefits of bitcoin and other blockchain technology are before the larger players start to adopt and co-opt the technology into further solidifying the status quo as far as economic factors and surveillance goes.
It is also evident that larger players want to become involved and are seeing potential red flags when large bodies make statements on the issue. In February 2016, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU stated that it intends to bring virtual currency exchange under their anti-money laundering directive, and end the anonymity associated with the virtual exchanges. It was also stated that this was being done to restrict terrorist financing channels, despite a Europol report that concluded there was no clear evidence that the technology was tied to terrorist financing efforts (Higgins 2016a).
Current Events Supporting Movements to Privacy Protests
It would be remiss were I to go through this entire paper without bringing in current events, and their significance and potential for motivating individuals toward the concept of privacy protests or concern for free speech and economic freedom. One of the largest events of the past months was the US presidential election of Donald Trump. This election has put Trump in charge of the NSA, the Republican party in control over both houses of Congress, and Trump is expected to gain control over the Supreme Court through his ability to appoint Justices. This has raised concerns among Democrats and generally left-leaning or progressive members of society about their rights and free speech. This is illustrated by the number of new users signing up for ProtonMail, an encrypted email service, doubling following the result of the election, as well as the outcry from left-leaning individuals, worried about the implications to free speech and surveillance policy changes (Paganini 2016). It is in times such as these with shifts in power that individuals from across the political spectrum realize the value of free speech, economic freedom and privacy, and should work to defend these ideals.
Conclusion
While far from perfect, bitcoin and its potential integration with other cryptocurrencies provide the potential to serve as legitimate forms of expressing freedom of speech through economic freedom throughout the globe and across borders, as well as a form of surveillance resistance. While bitcoin has yet to reach widespread mainstream use, it seems to be gaining traction as a payment option. The open-source nature and adaptations to other areas beyond currency also provide some indication that the technology is on an upward trajectory. While applications and uses are important, people should be aware of the origins and initial ideals associated with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as some of these ideals are at risk by having the technology co-opted into the surveillant assemblage by strong institutional and informational capitalist forces that are vocally uneasy with the ideals of privacy and anonymity. If this is to truly remain an avenue for the purposes argued above, these movements and erosions of privacy that are currently built into the system need to be defended. If the concepts of anonymity, pseudonymity and privacy remain the standards for conducting business through the blockchain and using cryptocurrencies, their value for use as individualized privacy protests, free speech, and economic freedom will warrant further interdisciplinary study.
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