Timothy C. May, Cypherpunks Co-Founder and author of the “Crypto Anarchist Manifesto”, has passed away at the age of 67.
According to a Facebook eulogy posted by Lucky Green, a self-described cypherpunk, Tim May passed away last week at his home in Corralitos, California. The death appears to be from natural causes, although autopsy has not been performed yet.
In his publication, “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto”, May seems to have predicted some of the elements of current decentralized cryptocurrencies:
The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration. Many of these concerns will be valid.
In his Facebook post Green stated that May was one of the founding members of the Cypherpunk mailing list, the others being Eric Hughes and John Gilmore. According to said post, Cypherpunk was perhaps the single most effective pro-cryptography grassroots organization in history.
May wrote for the Cypherpunks mailing list from the 1990s through 2003, where he focused extensively on cryptography and privacy. He is known to be one of the most voluminous contributors to this mailing list, and the writer of “The Cyphernomicon”, a substantial cypherpunk-themed FAQ.
In October, May wrote a piece about his thoughts on the Bitcoin white paper and the cryptocurrency space, featured in the crypto news outlet CoinDesk, where he said:
I can’t speak for what Satoshi intended, but I sure don’t think it involved bitcoin exchanges that have draconian rules about KYC, AML, passports, freezes on accounts and laws about reporting “suspicious activity” to the local secret police. There’s a real possibility that all the noise about “governance,” “regulation” and “blockchain” will effectively create a surveillance state, a dossier society.
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