### The Mayflower Considering the amount of time we spend in the digital realm today compared to our parents' or grandparents' generations, it's clear that we're progressively shifting many things of our lives to the digital world. And thankfully we have Ethereum as the digital universe where we have the determinism by the cryptographic inventions that alternate how quantum physics decide the cat is alive or dead in the real universe. So, we're just constructing our own digital world on the internet and migrating our lives and testing there just like the pilgrims of the Mayflower. ### Dystopia Then, what does the frontier of our digital world where we're pioneering look like? I see a lot of problems and digital crimes there such as cyberbullying, revenge porn and money laundering. How, then, can we make this new territory safer? For example, how to prevent cyberbullying? Regulations might be an immediate thought, but how would these be enforced? Would an authority figure need to monitor all online activity? This approach often infringes on human freedoms, yet it seems to be the only viable option in our current digital dystopia. Technological advancements have improved our lives significantly, but they have also led us to rely heavily on "trustworthy"-looking authorities, effectively compromising our privacy and accelerating the dystopia-ing. Also, with the advent of AGI and post-quantum computing, we face a future where data transmitted through undersea cables could be decrypted by quantum computing and processed in real-time by AGI to label each individual. The threat of "Store Now, Decrypt Later" is also real and imminent. We are living in a dystopia or would live in a latent dystopia until we have a proper solution. ### The Manhattan Project Cypherpunks' main tool for the resistance against the current dystopia is the cryptography and keeping the privacy by having an anonymity. It is really akin to the Manhattan project because the anonymity can protect the privacy effectively but it can also be misused. Criminal activities are prevalent on the dark web and unfortunately Tornado Cash was used as the main money laundering channel by Lazarus for North Korea. Then, one question here is that the researchers are completely free from the responsibility? Well, if we know there exists the dark side, at least for me, it is really difficult to say that we're completely free from the responsibility. ### Utopia w/ Programmable Cryptography Luckily, programmable cryptography provides us a solution. It is possible to cloak oneself yet provide cryptographic proof that one's actions are harmless. For example, in the context of Instagram DMs laden with offensive content, censoring the messages by Instagram is the dystopian approach. With programmable cryptography, we can achieve it in the utopian way by encrypting the message while keeping it still homomorphically able to output a result whether it is harmless in a decryptable form by the receiver. ### The Guardians As we understand how to solve the current problems, we must continue our work. As guardians, we must protect our new digital territory from dystopia using programmable cryptography. To this end, we should concentrate on "safe" and "trustless" privacy technologies with the "responsible cypherpunk" philosophy. Technologies such as FHE, ZK, MPC will play crucial roles here. Moreover, we must prevent technologies from being monopolized and controlled by any overreaching authority. Once knowledge and tools are monopolized, our resilience to counteract these powers weakens. Therefore, embracing open-source culture is vital for enhancing our resilience. We must also recognize that our new territory is evolving and what happens in there. AGI is no longer a concept confined to science fiction; it is increasingly becoming an integral part of our lives. If AGI is controlled by "trustworthy"-looking parties, it poses a significant threat to cypherpunks. We must prevent people from losing their humanity due to AGI's alterations. Hence, human-generated works must not be used without proper licensing and acknowledgment, ensuring that creative works are not exploited without due recognition and compensation. And our efforts like folding schemes, general verifiable computations and etc will realize the future we envision. ### Summary To achieve the cypherpunk utopia, as guardians of humanity, we must persistently advance our technology, focusing on enhancing scalability and achieving safe, trustless privacy. With the 'responsible' cypherpunk philosophy at our core, we aim to contribute significantly to the realization of a true cypherpunk utopia in the territory we are pioneering. Our efforts should include embracing and promoting open-source culture, delivering robust software, and advancing technical improvements, all while maintaining our commitment to our mission and goals.