While early Bitcoin developers imagined a financial revolution, one of their most radical voices believes that dream has morphed into something unrecognizable. Amir Taaki, creator of libbitcoin and developer of tools like Electrum and Darkwallet, isn’t mincing words about the current state of cryptocurrency.
This isn’t just any crypto bro complaining—Taaki literally fought alongside Kurdish militia against ISIS in Syria before founding an academy focused on autonomy.
The criticism cuts deep. Crypto was supposed to challenge power structures, not cozy up to them. Taaki argues the movement traded its revolutionary potential for profit margins. The cypherpunk ethos? Pretty much dead. Replaced by suits and regulatory compliance. So much for sticking it to the man.
Revolutionaries became shareholders. Crypto sold its soul for a market cap.
Bitcoin’s development process itself has become a bureaucratic mess, according to Taaki. The BIP system once designed to improve Bitcoin now strangles progress. Core developers block contributions while the codebase grows increasingly inefficient. Meanwhile, Taproot and other upgrades crawl along at a snail’s pace.
Remember Cyprus? Venezuela? Iran? Perfect opportunities for cryptocurrency to prove its worth during economic collapse. Instead, the community mostly watched from the sidelines, too focused on price speculation to build actual infrastructure where it mattered. No coherent political consciousness. No organized response. Just HODLing and lambos.
Taaki’s solution isn’t gentle. He’s calling for a complete ideological reset—a new “regime of truth” in cryptocurrency. That means training centers for revolutionary technologists who understand both code and philosophy. The current Bitcoin community reflects a sense of being lost, with many members struggling against external corporate co-option of the technology. The ongoing erosion of financial inclusion goals represents a fundamental betrayal of crypto’s original mission. It means building financial networks that actually function during crisis. It means remembering why this whole experiment started in the first place.
The irony isn’t lost on anyone. A technology designed to decentralize power has itself become increasingly centralized. A movement started by anarchists now bends over backward for regulators. Despite processing approximately 635,000 daily transactions, Bitcoin’s network has failed to evolve into the democratic financial system its pioneers envisioned.
Crypto hasn’t failed technically—it’s betrayed its own revolution ideologically. And Taaki isn’t ready to let that slide.
