Last year was historic for the crypto industry, and many believe 2025 will drastically outperform 2024. With this anticipated growth also comes the expectation of increased mass adoption, but the rapid financialization of the crypto sector has some people concerned that the blockchain revolution is losing its cypherpunk roots.
On episode 52 of The Agenda podcast, hosts Ray Salmond and Jonathan DeYoung spoke to Gnosis vice president of technology Sebastian Bürgel about his cypherpunk perspective on crypto and the state of privacy in 2025.
Cypherpunk values oppose crypto’s hyperfinancialization
Rising cryptocurrency prices have naturally led to an influx of people looking to interact with crypto, but Bürgel said that “cypherpunk values” are “a counterculture to the memecoin, get-rich-quick” desires of many investors.
“I do see Gnosis as a counter-movement to this hyper-financialized world that wants to see number go up at all costs. Gnosis doesn’t ring that way. Gnosis doesn’t go that way. Gnosis is really all about resilience that empowers the individual, and that’s how I see my personal values and Gnosis highly aligned.”
According to Bürgel, Gnosis is more focused on building infrastructure and giving users “the most secure and truly self-custodial power over” their money.
“Empowering the individual is, I would say, a common denominator here.”
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Bürgel emphasized that a mutually understood raison d’etre that is centered in the cypherpunk ethos aligns with project builders’ goals within the Gnosis ecosystem and that this alignment shifts the focus to “something that’s not just optimized for getting rich quick, but trying to really contribute to society and the larger ecosystem here.”
Profit-seeking and mainstream adoption could bring corporatism and censorship to crypto
“Building technology that has resilience at the core and resilience to empower the individual versus nation states” is a core focus of the blockchain projects Bürgel is involved with, but he cautioned that hyperfinancialization could increase the powers of large multinational corporations.
“Today, if we look at the digital world, we log in with Gmail, Facebook. This is basically an identity layer that is controlled by large multinational corporations, and that’s pretty scary. And the next obvious one is the race of totally non-open AI. So, AI that got captured by the interest of billionaires and their companies. That’s bad. That’s not good for humanity.”
When asked if crypto had permanently lost its cypherpunk roots or if the advance of oligarchy and corporatism in various countries could reinvigorate blockchain project developers with freedom-focused sentiments, Bürgel said:
“I would say it has just shifted back. So, crypto started as a cypherpunk movement. There have been cypherpunks pre-blockchain, obviously. So, if you read, for example, the Cypherpunk manifesto — which I would really recommend to a lot of people out here. It’s like, has this been written last year? No, this has been written decades ago. It’s surprising, and it’s yet so applicable right now.”
To hear more from Bürgel’s conversation with The Agenda — including his future vision for Gnosis, the Hopr privacy project and the crypto sector — listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!
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