The Crypto-Trader (archetype)
The digital black market
Agorism, gone online.
Reformist AgoristOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Agorist hall →- Role
- Counter-economic actor
- From
- Archetype
- Region
- the digital agora
- Social band
- Reformist
- Placement
- +6 · −94 · +40
§ Where The Crypto-Trader (archetype) stands
3 axesThe Crypto-Trader sits at the economic centre with a slight market lean. It prizes peer-to-peer exchange and money no central bank can inflate, such as Bitcoin's fixed cap of 21 million coins, yet distrusts Wall Street as much as the state: Bitcoin's first block, mined in January 2009, carried a Times headline about a second bank bailout.
It routes around the state rather than confronting it. Timothy C. May's Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988) predicted that encryption would alter governments' power to tax and control economic life, and Silk Road (2011–13) tried to make that real. States have pushed back, as when the US Treasury sanctioned the Tornado Cash mixing service in 2022.
The archetype is permissionless, individualist and cosmopolitan: anyone can transact across borders, and after Visa, Mastercard and PayPal cut off WikiLeaks in 2010 it turned to bitcoin donations. Its progressivism is libertarian rather than egalitarian, centred on personal freedom and privacy rather than social reform, which keeps it only moderately on the progressive side.
How close are you to The Crypto-Trader (archetype)?
Three statements, one per axis. Answer them and we’ll drop you on the compass next to them.
§ The story
ArchetypeThe Crypto-Trader is the archetype of agorism's digital descendants: someone who uses cryptocurrency, encryption and peer-to-peer markets to trade beyond the reach of banks, tax authorities and regulators. Its lineage runs from Timothy C. May's Crypto Anarchist Manifesto of 1988 and the cypherpunks of the 1990s to Bitcoin, launched in 2009, and to darknet markets such as Silk Road, whose founder, Ross Ulbricht, cited the agorist ideas of Samuel Edward Konkin III.
The archetype recurs because each new communications technology promises a market the state cannot see, and Bitcoin's first block even embedded a newspaper headline about bank bailouts. It also reveals the limits of evasion. Bitcoin's public ledger has helped investigators trace illicit payments, the FBI shut Silk Road in 2013, and most crypto trading has come to run through regulated exchanges that verify identities. The collapse of the FTX exchange in 2022 and the approval of bitcoin funds on Wall Street in 2024 showed how far crypto had drifted from counter-economics.
Notable for
- 01Crypto counter-economics
- 02Permissionless exchange
- 03Agorism, digitised
Key works & moments
- 1988Timothy C. May writes The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, foreseeing markets beyond state control.
- 2008–09Satoshi Nakamoto publishes the Bitcoin white paper; the network launches in January 2009.
- 2011Silk Road opens as a bitcoin-based darknet market; its founder cites agorism.
- 2013The FBI shuts Silk Road; Ross Ulbricht is later sentenced to life and pardoned in 2025.
- 2022The US Treasury sanctions the Tornado Cash mixer, and the FTX exchange collapses.
- 2024US regulators approve spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, bringing crypto onto Wall Street.
§ Minds closest to The Crypto-Trader (archetype)
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§ Also in the Agorist hall
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§ Common questions
4 answersWhat is the Crypto-Trader archetype's political ideology?
The Crypto-Trader stands for agorism in digital form: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Reformist Agorist. Economically it sits at the centre with a slight market lean (+6), favouring peer-to-peer exchange and hard money while distrusting banks and Wall Street. On governance it is near the libertarian extreme (−94), using encryption to route around taxation and regulation, and socially it is moderately progressive (+40), permissionless and cosmopolitan rather than egalitarian.
Is the Crypto-Trader archetype left-wing or right-wing?
Neither, in conventional terms; it is libertarian. Its enthusiasm for markets, hard money and low taxes draws support from the right, while its hostility to banks, surveillance and state power over money echoes parts of the left. What defines it is the governance axis: the Crypto-Trader wants exchange that no government can block, monitor or tax. Real cryptocurrency users span the political spectrum, but the archetype descends from anarchist and cypherpunk thought.
What does agorism have to do with cryptocurrency?
Agorism supplied part of crypto's political vocabulary. Samuel Edward Konkin III's New Libertarian Manifesto (1980) argued that untaxed, unlicensed trade, the counter-economy, could hollow out the state, and cypherpunks such as Timothy C. May saw encryption as the tool to make such trade unstoppable. Silk Road's founder explicitly cited Konkin. Yet most cryptocurrency activity has moved onto regulated, taxed exchanges, so crypto is a technology agorists use rather than agorism itself.
Which minds are closest to The Crypto-Trader (archetype)?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to The Crypto-Trader (archetype) are J. Neil Schulman (98% alike), Samuel Edward Konkin III (98% alike) and Victor Koman (97% alike). The furthest is Adam Sutler (2% alike).