Cypherpunk Values and Zcash Tokenomics | Zooko Wilcox - Shielded Labs

Transcript

[Music] hello hello so I mean this afternoon we have an All-Star lineup um thank you to Caitlyn um that was great and um our next guest uh doesn't really need that much of an introduction original uh Cipher Punk father of zcash uh here to talk about Cipher Punk values and zcash tokenomics uh Zuko Wilcox the one and only thank you hello thank you all for coming to listen to me with your precious time so uh when I was coming in here I smelled the

distinct smell of livestock because when it's not eth Denver it's the stock show um when I got roped into this so to speak I really wanted to talk about zcash tokenomics zcash if you don't know is Unstoppable private money and zcash tokenomics are very interesting interesting and unique uh but the E Denver organizers told me the audience would really be interested in cyppher Punk values so just let it be known that in my head this entire 15minute talk is actually about zcash toomics but I won't really mention it again I'm just going to talk about values um I'm an original Cipher punk I joined the cipher Punk mailing list in

1993 uh that's we had mailing list back before we had like forums or whatever and I was friends and collaborators with all of the original Cipher punks um all three of the founders Tim mayate Eric Hughes and John Gilmore and uh T but Tim May subsequently died I was friends and collaborators with most or all of the original Bitcoin makers like hfny hfny was my friend and Mentor uh but hfny is now encased in carbonite and I was thinking about what to say about cypherpunk values I thought what what were the cipher Punk

values and the answer was Freedom Cipher punks were all about freedom and when I was like 19 years old when I joined the cyppher punks list that was one of my greatest values I wanted to say whatever I wanted on the internet and have sex with whichever consenting adults and own a gun and cross state lines and National lines and um now I'm 51 I've been through cyer punks I was involved in Bitcoin I was involved in the creation of ethereum and then zcash and along the way I got a lot

older and my values changed so I was reflecting on this and trying to prepare for this talk and I thought okay what what are my values I really value family I really value my health that's really important to me nowadays and as uh more and more of my friends and family have died I really value time with friends and family while you've got them and I really value peace meaning freedom from the fear of War or crime so I was uh chatting with about

this with my son whom I love on the way down here from Boulder Colorado earlier today and I said uh different people have different values like we want our communities and our societies to share our values um and that's good when they do but it's also good that different people have different values they value some things more than they value others and their values change over time and that's good because that's why we can lift each other up with specialization and exchange and the last 200 years or so almost everyone went from having very

little of what they value to an abundance of what they value and the reason for that is that about 200 years ago we worked out how to specialize and exchange so that everyone could benefit um without being sort of robbed or parasitized along the way um so when I was explaining this to my son he said that when I was explaining that a difference among values is what gives us

this potential energy or this opportunity to improve each other he said but don't you need some shared values in order to exchange so I I thought about that quite a bit I thought you really do the main thing you need in order the main shared value that you need in order to exchange is that the person that you're trading with isn't just going to kill you and take all your stuff right you need safety and that some third person who observes The Exchange isn't going to come and take both of your stuff and so

this led me back around to thinking that in a way the cipher punks were right in the first place that freedom is a value that all of our other specific values depend on well that was literally all I had planned out to say to you I thought about it a lot I thought about it a lot longer than the like 8 minutes it's taken me to say it um and I'm always thinking about it when

I'm working on zcash tokenomics which I do all day long every day so hit me up after and uh uh I'll give you some zcash on your phone that's my summary of uh the evolution from Cipher Punk values to the current world the end thanks for listening [Applause] yo