Amir Taaki was one of Bitcoin’s first-ever dedicated developers and perhaps the one most infamously focused on maintaining privacy and freedom from authority.
In 2014, Forbes listed[1] Taaki on its “30 Under 30” list of technology stars for creating Dark Wallet[2], the first privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet to include a CoinJoin mixer. That same year, Taaki received even more notoriety as Dark Wallet was twice named in the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) report[3] on the potential money-laundering and terrorist-financing risks posed by cryptocurrencies.
In 2015, Taaki traveled to Rojava, Syria, to serve with the YPG Military, a component of the Syrian Democratic Forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). After months of fighting on the front, he spent more than a year working with Rojava’s economics committee.
Taaki also created Libbitcoin and Bitcoin’s BIP proposal system as well as DarkMarket[4], the prototype for what eventually became OpenBazaar, an open-source protocol for e-commerce. Outside of his development work, Taaki also founded the anarchist group UnSystem[5], which included Cody Wilson, creator of a 3D-printable gun, and Mihai Alisie[6], co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine and Ethereum.
Now, Taaki has returned as a contributor to multiple projects, many of which have not yet been revealed to the public. Although he is not ready to completely reveal his hand, the dissident technologist expressed a strong appreciation for the people in the crypto community, as well as a loss of confidence in its leadership and overarching direction.
Technology, Open to All
For Taaki, what became a lifelong dedication to building technology free from authoritarian intervention started with an interest in what draws many people to Bitcoin: the promise of open-source development for
