Privacy and Transparency in the Wake of Telegram Founder Pavel Durov's Arrest—Moon Punk and the Dark Side of Cycles
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Privacy and Transparency in the Wake of Telegram Founder Pavel Durov's Arrest—Moon Punk and the Dark Side of Cycles
As the positive feedback loop between anonymity and surveillance intensifies, finding a balance between protecting individual privacy and addressing regulatory challenges has become a critical issue that needs urgent resolution.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: lunar-mining, DarkFi Squad
Translation: Elsa, LXDAO
Preface
In the world of cryptography, especially against the backdrop of increasing large-scale surveillance and stringent regulation in recent times, issues of privacy and security have become increasingly prominent. Recently, the arrest of Telegram (TG) founder Pavel Durov has drawn widespread attention, revealing the complex relationship between privacy and surveillance. This incident not only highlights users' vulnerability under regulatory pressure but also underscores the importance of anonymity as an adaptive mechanism against surveillance. As the positive feedback loop between anonymity and surveillance intensifies, finding a balance between protecting personal privacy and addressing regulatory challenges has become a critical issue demanding urgent resolution.
This brings us to Lunarpunk. It was first introduced by Rachel-Rose O’Leary in a 2022 article—this week’s translated piece titled “Lunarpunk and the Dark Side of the Cycle.” The dark side of the moon is where Lunarpunk grows, an aspect rarely touched upon by Solarpunk. Lunarpunk and Solarpunk form an elegant duality: openness versus privacy, bull markets versus bear markets, daylight versus night. In its struggle with darkness, what Lunarpunk needs most is privacy.
For further discussion on these two cultures (link)
Main Text
Science fiction is an exercise in speculation. By imagining possible futures, science fiction expands the space of possibilities. Cryptocurrency is an extreme form of science fiction because it does not merely offer visions of the future—it provides tools to realize them.
Currently, cryptocurrency is driven by a science fiction ideology known as "Solarpunk." Evolved from cyberpunk, Solarpunk is characterized by its optimism—a utopian vision of the future. For Solarpunk, the future is bright. It sheds the dystopian shadows of cyberpunk and illuminates a world beyond chaotic horizons.
In Ethereum, Solarpunk hackers are building "transparent infrastructure" (link) to fund public goods. The idea is simple: decentralization and transparency will guide the world toward a fairer, more just future. Web3 is creating a new path for humanity, and old institutions will inevitably follow this trend.
Solarpunk is the conscious mind of the crypto world. It is bright, confident, and future-oriented. Yet, the opposite of Solarpunk's faith is Lunarpunk skepticism. Lunarpunk is Solarpunk’s shadow-self. It represents the unconscious part of this cycle. While “Solarpunk joins DAOs” (in Dylan Ennis’ words), Lunarpunk prepares for war, building privacy-enhancing tools to protect their communities.
Translator’s note: Shadow-self is a psychological concept originating from Carl Jung’s theory, referring to repressed or unrecognized aspects within an individual. These often include emotions, desires, or traits one refuses to confront—possibly negative or socially unacceptable.
Lunarpunk initially began as a subset of Solarpunk. It has always favored cryptographic techniques over Ethereum’s plaintext paradigm. Over time, tensions arising from Solarpunk tendencies have increased. Forced by necessity, Lunarpunk has detached itself from the remnants of Solarpunk and established its own position.
In Lunarpunk imagination, conflict between the crypto world and existing power structures is inevitable. Regulation pushes crypto underground, driving stronger anonymity. In interstellar darkness, radical new crypto factions create an entirely new democratic society.
This conflict is repressed in the Solarpunk psyche. The lunar cycle is rejected as a bear market nightmare. Its core tension: state bans on crypto—known as FUD, because they instill fear, prompting people to grab their money and flee.
Translator’s note:
FUD: stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
As the supercycle diverges, Solarpunk repression intensifies. Solarpunk optimism has become synonymous with bull markets, while pessimism aligns with bear markets. Lunarpunk offers a perspective beyond these simple oscillations. It is a moment of insight between market cycles—a glitch in the hologram where source code shines through.
The Vulnerability of Solarpunk
Fragile things break when shaken. Antifragile things grow stronger after absorbing shocks.
Antifragility follows a convex curve, whereas fragility is concave.
Cryptocurrency’s antifragility is repeatedly emphasized. However, today’s cryptocurrency exists along a spectrum of fragility. Its resilience only becomes evident under sufficient external pressure. If crypto defenses hold, its trajectory will be convex. Otherwise, we’ll see a race downward, exhibiting concave characteristics.
Consider this: crypto’s core innovation has a dual nature—it empowers users while proportionally expanding its attack surface. User empowerment is negatively correlated with vulnerability; the stronger the user base, the higher the network’s antifragility.
There is a positive feedback loop between user empowerment and system antifragility. But this cycle can also run in reverse. In a transparent system, users are exposed. If the external environment turns hostile, that information may be weaponized against them. Facing persecution, users may choose to exit, triggering a collapse into fragility.
The Solarpunk mindset is inherently optimistic. Transparency in Solarpunk systems projects this optimistic spirit outward. By building transparent systems, Solarpunk expresses the belief: I trust the law won’t turn against me. This steadfast optimism prevents it from preparing for worst-case scenarios. This is the core of Solarpunk’s fragility.
The Dark Option
Taleb’s argument about antifragility relies on unknowability. According to Taleb, the future is dark: unpredictable with meaningful certainty. He describes optionality as the “weapon of antifragility,” because it leverages this darkness for advantage. Optionality assumes your predictions are wrong most of the time. The cost of being wrong is low, while the reward for being right is relatively high.
Lunarpunk integrates optionality because it thrives in worst-case scenarios. If Lunarpunk’s thesis is wrong, the supercycle continues. If it is correct, crypto enters its next phase equipped with proper defenses. Strong defense means invisibility: using cryptography to protect user identities and activities. This is the cornerstone of Lunarpunk convexity.
In the Solarpunk future, users flee under persecution. But Lunarpunk offers protection. Participants in dark networks possess plausible deniability. Regulatory changes do not affect them. The only reason users leave the network under regulatory crackdowns is if they voluntarily choose to do so.
Crypto’s antifragility only manifests when anonymity combines with persecution. Nevertheless, to be truly antifragile, crypto must do more than survive regulatory onslaughts—it must thrive amid attacks. Lunarpunk believes that through anonymity, escalating conflict will only strengthen the crypto world, and this increase in strength grows exponentially as attackers weaken.
Convexity: A Prophecy
Anonymity first emerged as an adaptation to mass surveillance. Yet its existence also further justifies surveillance behavior. This is a positive feedback loop, meaning anonymity and surveillance are destined to escalate.
In a paradigm defined by surveillance, crypto anonymity makes it an outlier. After running long enough, this cycle triggers the next stage within Lunarpunk convexity—which I call the regulatory trap. At this stage, attackers use increasing anonymity as justification, unleashing full power against the crypto world.
Yet, by attacking crypto, hostile forces only further legitimize it. The utility of the crypto domain scales with the intensity of attacks: each strike disproportionately expands its reach. Antifragility.
The regulatory trap forces crypto underground. This leads to several consequences:
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Rising political consciousness
Anonymity acts as a catalyst for political awareness in the crypto world. After regulatory crackdowns, the distinction between crypto and fiat worlds becomes sharper. Only by establishing this separation can crypto build a new world reflecting its values.
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Centers eliminated
Crypto at war becomes hardened crypto. Factions more willing to compromise with hostile powers either integrate into the establishment or get eliminated. This is an extinction event for morally compromised projects. Over time, through clarification of its most ideological elements, this empowers the crypto world.
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Better returns
The crypto landscape is littered with the corpses of flawed incentive designs. No category has denser concentrations of such failures than legacy privacy coins. They are masterclasses in poor monetary distribution and inflationary policies. Ironically, this downside effect suggests the real value of privacy projects could be far greater.
A new wave of privacy developers now masters financial engineering. Thus, the final stage of Lunarpunk convexity is economic. Only those who voluntarily reject the fiat paradigm can enter the moon settlements. The anonymous alien world offers revolutionary returns to ideologically committed individuals brave enough to cross uncharted territory.
The Lunar Cycle
The sun is both a symbol of nature and tyranny. Through its insistence on transparency and identity, Solarpunk inherits this dual symbolism. Solarpunk systems resemble desert landscapes, where users are exposed and vulnerable.
Lunarpunk is more like a forest. Dense cryptographic cover protects tribes and shelters the persecuted. Woodland thickets provide a crucial frontline defense. The lunar landscape is dark, yet teeming with life.
Lunar technology is owned by the people, operated by the people, serving their freedom. Moon settlements are sanctuaries where difference is nurtured and protected. The lunar cycle defends democratic technology against authoritarian technology, freedom against surveillance, diversity against monoculture.
Lunarpunk holds that freedom can only be found outside the logic of domination. This means lunar society must fully detach from the current paradigm. Therefore, the future of Lunarpunk is born from the very conflicts that Solarpunk seeks to avoid.
Solarpunk’s repression is its greatest weakness. If Solarpunk has already integrated the oppression it wishes to escape, then it cannot establish the vision it projects. By favoring transparency in its systems, Solarpunk is tragically designing its own fate. Surveillance—the mechanism of authoritarianism—is intrinsically tied to Solarpunk’s destiny.
For Solarpunk to succeed, it must integrate Lunarpunk’s unconscious. Solarpunk’s only hope lies in embracing the dark.
Finally, thanks to Paul, Amir, and Matti for their feedback, and to Armor for the diagrams and artwork.
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