Hal Finney - "Protecting Privacy with Electronic Cash"
The most respected cypherpunk in Bitcoin's history told you transparent ledgers are designed to harm individual privacy, and the Bitcoin community pretends they never heard him, Monero is what Hal was actually describing.
Coinbase can blacklist your Bitcoin based on where it's been,
miners can refuse your transactions, and your "decentralized" money has a permanent criminal record,
Monero solved this with stealth addresses and ring signatures in 2014.
Vitalik just published a privacy roadmap for Ethereum.
Hidden balances. Private transactions. Censorship-resistant block inclusion.
Everything Monero has had for a decade.
When the biggest chain in crypto starts chasing your features, you were right all along.
Buying $XMR is an act of preservation, mining it is an act of rebellion. Supporting these domestic mining initiatives is the only logical response to the centralization of the Grid. In 2026, sovereignty isn't something you ask for, it's something you host. Each additional hash is a bar being sawn in the cell of the financial Panopticon.
It’s weird that in crypto, “fully public forever” became normal.
Imagine if your salary, savings, and purchases were displayed on a billboard downtown.
That’s not financial freedom.
#Zano is building something better.
Imagine if Uber emailed your entire ride history to everyone you've ever met.
Sounds ridiculous.
Yet public financial history became normal in crypto.
Use https://t.co/ULqGmAJunY
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In my five-minute, unscripted talk at the Network State conference, I disclosed a private conversation between Hal Finney and me shortly before he died: https://t.co/goJq3mJH9q
In my five-minute, unscripted talk at the Network State conference, I disclosed a private conversation between Hal Finney and me shortly before he died: https://t.co/goJq3mJH9q
Hal Finney - "Protecting Privacy with Electronic Cash" 1993
In this prescient and timely article, Finney shows how we can use cryptography to build a more private economy on public networks using electronic cash.
https://t.co/D8lGqoXx3s
Zooko on the «Hal Finney test»
«He was, a mentor to me. He was older. He was more experienced. He was a lot smarter. And Hal was super patient. He would teach me things even if it took a long time»
Many years before Bitcoin was invented Hal said:
«If you see a proposal for an electronic money system, check to see whether it has the ability to preserve the privacy of financial transactions the way paper money does today. If not, realize that the proposal is designed to harm, not help individual privacy»
Hal was the first ZCasher.
Bitcoin has failed at that.
Use the Hal Finney test, apply it to Bitcoin.
«Maybe it's useful for nation states to trade with each other or whatever, but it is not a payment system that can empower individuals the way the ZCachers and Hal would have wanted»
Source: «The Network State Conference 2025 - Livestream» @ 7∶11∶34
From «The Network State Podcast» on YouTube, Oct 3, 2025
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