We are witnessing a strange atrophy.
The market capitalization of the crypto industry may still be fluctuating, but what is truly receding is imagination. The things that once made people willing to leave the mainstream world and believe in a different order have been replaced by safer vocabularies. These are compliance, growth, narrative, and user retention.
We used to talk about decentralization. We used to talk about sovereignty. We used to talk about revolution. Now, even the discussion itself has become thin.
Meanwhile, a more pleasing story has become popular. It is the Super Individual.
It is said that one person can possess company-level productivity and a global market with the help of AI and crypto networks. They can be liberated from organizations and become truly free nodes.
This sounds like a Cypherpunk victory, but it might be a substitute for it.
Because the path of reality is the opposite. Capabilities are magnifying, but dependency is also deepening. Tools are increasing, but exits are narrowing. Identities are becoming richer, but verification is becoming stricter.
You can use AI to code and write, but you must accept the license of the model. You can build a personal brand, but it hangs under the rules of the platform.
When people see platforms distributing money or changing rules, they immediately study the new mechanisms like docile apprentices. They calculate how to get a little more visibility and reward. Today the rules are favorable, so we call it progress. But the same hand can turn the other way tomorrow. Our dignity seems to depend only on the direction of the traffic flow.
Compared to the Sovereign Individual, the Super Individual is more like a sophisticated lease. The efficiency belongs to you, but the sovereignty belongs to others.
Cypherpunk was originally not about efficiency. It was about boundaries.
The Internet of the nineties had just opened up. Commerce and surveillance started simultaneously. Email was unencrypted. Cryptography was regulated as munitions. That generation did not ask for protection. Instead, they directly dismantled defense capabilities from institutions and returned them to ordinary people. These included PGP, Tor, end-to-end encryption, and Bitcoin. Their core was not romantic. It was simply calm.
If individuals cannot defend themselves at the technical level, freedom is merely an option in the Terms of Service. Today the situation is repeating itself. Only the scale is deeper.
The focus of technology is shifting from screens to bodies and consciousness. Embodied AI records behavior. Spatial computing maps environments. Brain-computer interfaces probe nerves. AI agents make decisions for us. Capital and power are no longer satisfied with knowing what you click. They want to understand how you think, how you hesitate, and how you dream. In such a world, the question is no longer whether to embrace technology. It is about who has the right to refuse.
The position of crypto in this wave is unusually awkward. It has not truly won the battlefield of emerging technologies. In the face of AI and platform capital expansion, crypto infrastructure has not become the default layer of society. It has also gradually lost the ground of thought and public opinion. The mainstream world has simplified it into a synonym for speculation, money laundering, and casinos.
Many practitioners treat a political pivot as a lifeline. They believe that by aligning with the new power cycle, crypto can achieve legitimacy and prosperity. But in reality, this relationship is often more like a transaction than respect. Power needs a new wealth narrative. The industry needs a pass. When a field begins to live by pleasing others, it inevitably gets treated as a tool.
“A person willing to give up freedom in exchange for safety will ultimately obtain neither freedom nor safety.”
This is exactly why we are talking about Cypherpunk again.
We do not treat it as a myth. We treat it as an interdisciplinary repair project.
It requires the hardness of cryptography and protocols. It also requires an understanding of power, media, and society.
On January 30 in Chiang Mai, we want to attempt a conversation that is not fashionable. We want to talk about Cypherpunk again. We will invite engineers who have long been building crypto infrastructure to join scholars researching power and media. Together with the audience, they will discuss those longer questions that lie beyond market trends. If we cannot reoccupy the territory of thought and narrative, even the most exquisite protocols will be treated as suspicious tools.
Our Guests
- Kurt Pan: ZKPunk, Crypto Primitive, Digital Yeoman
- Fang Kecheng: Associate Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Founder of News Lab and Filter Bubble
- Yingtong: Independent Cryptographer
- Jeffery Hu: Yzi Labs Investment Director, Bitcoin researcher
- Rong Hang: Assistant Professor of Interactive Media and Business at NYU Shanghai
- Huang Sunquan: Director of the Institute of Network Society at the China Academy of Art
- Sun Zhe: Sociologist, Host of the “Sociologist” Podcast
- Sun Peng: PR Lead of Bitget Wallet (Chinese Region)
- Gao Chongjian: Author of “Blockchain Sociology”
- Shi Ke: Associate Professor at the Institute for Global Humanities, Nanjing University
- Hu Yilin: Independent Scholar focusing on the History, Philosophy, and Art of Technology
- 0xSachinK: ZKP2P Founder
▻ Act I: Unease
09:50-10:20 | Mini Speech
- Fang Kecheng | The Trap of “Comfort” and Living with Awareness
- Sun Zhe | Value Misalignment in the Age of AI — What & Why?
10:20–11:10 | Interactive Discussion Moderator: Shi Ke
11:10-11:20 | Tea Break
▻ Act II: Seeking
11:20 - 12:10 | Mini Speech
- Kurt Pan | How the Fourth Crypto War Might Arrive
- Sun Peng | In Search of a Cypherpunk — Elizabeth Friedman
- Hu Yilin | How to Be a Punk Philosopher
12:10 - 12:30 | Audience & Speaker Q&A
▻ Act III: Weapons
14:00 - 14:50 | Mini Speech
- Ying Tong | Private Money is Normal
- Jeffery Hu | The Geopolitics of Crypto and the Power of Choice
- Douni | A Practical Guide to Becoming a Digital Defender
14:50 - 15:00 | Audience & Speaker Q&A
15:00 - 15:50 | Mini Speech
- Gao Chongjian | Stories from the Drifting Classroom
- 0xSachinK | zkP2P — The Last Mile of Privacy
- Shi Ke | Confusions from an External Perspective
15:50 - 16:00 | Audience & Speaker Q&A
16:00 - 16:05 | Tea Break
▻ Act IV: Alliance
16:05–16:20 | GCC | How We Fund Cypherpunks
16:20–17:00 | Rong Hang & Sun Zhe DAO and the Near-Future Imagination of Society as a Whole
17:00–17:40 | Huang Sunquan, Gao Chongjian, Douni How Cypherpunk Practices Take Root in the Global Chinese World
17:40–18:30 | Thematic Debate
Technology does not naturally stand on the side of the individual. Unless the individual is willing to stand within technology again.
If you also feel that crypto is becoming more mainstream but looks more like the old world. If tools are getting stronger but choices are getting fewer. Welcome to this gathering.
There are no standard answers here. Only sincere and sharp speculation and communication. And a certain possibility of freedom that we build together.
Event Registration: https://cypherpunk.town/
Organizer: GCC
Global Chinese Community of Universal Digital Commons
We support people and projects reshaping public goods in future ways. We are based in the Chinese-speaking world. We connect globally. We sail together toward a free, open, and sustainable future.
In the past two years, GCC has directly donated to over 50 public goods projects. We have supported over 100 builders. Total donations exceed 1.1 million USD.
GCC is interested in various digital public goods projects. Our primary focus connects to the global Chinese community. This covers anti-censorship and crypto privacy. It includes building global public talent networks. It involves free open source software. It also spans governance research and experiments. We hope our support creates a positive and transformative impact. We aim to improve the quality and quantity of public goods worldwide.
Official Website https://gccofficial.org/