DarkFi

= "the first step toward a new economic model for technology that is not based off the exploitation of users. DarkFi is a base layer for anonymous applications and smart contracts that is multi-chain interoperable".

URL = https://github.com/darkrenaissance/darkfi

Contextual Quote

"The DarkFi project leans heavily on zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic technique invented by mathematicians in the 1980s that allows for targeted verification of encrypted information in a way that allows most aspects of the information to remain secret."

- Ben Schrekinger [1]

Description

1. Amir Taaki:

"DarkFi is an environment with a language for writing zero-knowledge smart contracts. The research is still nascent but we already have our testnet operational.

ZK unlocks an entirely unexplored design space of anonymous applications. Previously if you wanted to create an anonymous application you had to think how to combine several existing cryptographic schemes. Maybe it would be slow or impossible. But with ZK, we have a generic cryptographic schema that any programmer can use to create anonymous applications.

We can create anonymous services. Users can interact with DAOs and markets where they use credentials. You attach a proof which says that a statement is correct. Nothing else about your identity is leaked. Services are operated in this manner."

(https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/20211021.123016.3dccaf0c.en.html)

2. Ben Schrekinger:

"If the spread of social media to the Middle East sparked the Arab Spring, imagine what will happen when people get their hands on crypto tools that allow them to send money, form groups and enter into financial contracts — all with more secrecy than Bitcoin provides.

That’s the startling pitch from Amir Taaki, an early Bitcoin developer now working with an international group of anarchist coders on next-generation software designed to find out. The coders believe their system will present a graver threat to governments than other internet advances of the past 20 years.

The group is preparing to launch a testnet, a critical early milestone on the path to releasing a finished product, as soon as Thursday afternoon, according to several members and the text of a draft announcement shared first with POLITICO.

Fourteen years after Bitcoin’s release, law enforcement and cybersecurity officials continue to grapple with the fallout from the first generation of cryptocurrency-related technology — from money laundering, to unregistered securities offerings, to ransomware attacks. But even as regulators and law enforcement figure out how to handle the first wave of blockchain networks, developers around the world are racing to deploy more advanced variations on the original concept.

While many of these next-generation tools are being designed to ensure greater legal compliance than their predecessors — or even for use by governments themselves, as crypto’s underlying technology grows in legitimacy and institutional heft — the planned launch shows that radical anti-government ideas remain a driving force in the evolution of many crypto networks.

The anarchist project calls itself DarkFi, a reference both to “DeFi” — the nickname for crypto-based decentralized finance — and a 2014 speech by former FBI Director James Comey about the “Going Dark” problem that widespread encryption presented for law enforcement agencies hoping to surveil digital activity.

Representatives of the group say its members are spread across parts of Europe and the Middle East. Though they frame the software as a tool for shielding users from government-imposed violence, law enforcement officials say the proliferation of enhanced encryption is making it harder to catch drug dealers, terrorists and human traffickers."

(https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/02/crypto-anarchist-coders-evade-law-enforcement-00080950)

Status

1. Amir Taaki:

"We already have a testnet bridged with Bitcoin and Solana networks. We plan to add support for Ethereum and Monero soon. You can run the application and send payments.

Our initial focus will be simple anonymous swaps and a DAO for governance. We plan to focus on building out organizational tooling and rapidly expand our ecosystem. Join us on this world-building adventure.

We are seeking political developers and offer competitive salaries. This is an opportunity to help build an ecosystem and there will be many more projects being launched and funded on DarkFi.

Every Monday 16:00 CET in #dev on our server, we have an open developer meeting over text."

(https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/20211021.123016.3dccaf0c.en.html)

2. Ben Shrekinger:

"Among the features promised by DarkFi are ones that will allow people to form organizations that collectively raise and distribute money in total secrecy. Taaki said this was inspired in part by the group’s experience using existing technology to form a crypto-based organization to support jailed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

But technical and political obstacles remain in the way of this anarchist vision.

“Building private blockchains that can do things like Ethereum is really hard,” said Green, who was instrumental in the development of ZCash, an early privacy-focused cryptocurrency released in 2016.

Green said that he, too, believes that advances in encryption and network design could bring further crypto-driven disruption. But, at least, for now, he said governments have shown they can and will find ways to crack down on networks used for criminal activities."

(https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/02/crypto-anarchist-coders-evade-law-enforcement-00080950)

Discussion

Amir Taaki:

"Everybody feels that there will big a huge macro political or economic event in the next 5 years. Everybody is deeply discontented with the power and capital monopolies ruling over us.

What is the next system to come along? Here is the answer:

We should not be thinking about systems. Human beings are not objects in a mathematical apparatus. That is the thinking that got us in this position.

What thinking do we need?

What is happening around you? What are people doing? What are the problems they face? What is truth, beauty and goodness? How can we empower that face of humanity and nature that we wish to grow?

Luckily we have been gifted agorist counter-economics, not just as a philosophy but as a powerful agent of change. Wield that power, make things happen.

The regulators are coming for us. They see us as children with boots too big for our feet. We need to be put back in our place. They do this from outside and within. Those crazy anarchists amongst us get shushed, given freakish looks, shunned and told off for stirring the pot. Who are these people and where did they come from? Certainly in their clean corporate cages they would never have risked betting on Bitcoin in 2010. Yet here they are attaching themselves to success, making sure things are done right.

The narrative right now is about trivial first world concerns: GameFi, ArtFi, SocialMediaFi - the entertainment and celebrity biz.

But one need only look at what power and capital monopolies seek to prevent to understand what is key to liberating the democratic nation.

They are going to regulate crypto which allows any person to send crypto to any person anywhere on the planet. Or to establish private organizations that are self-governed. This destroys all proprietary models of the power and capital monopolies.

Crypto will split into two. RegFi will be unusable and bolted down. It will be toothless. The other side will be the underground DarkFi. It will have bite.

DarkFi is not a project or a company. We are a community and a movement.

Counter-economics gives us tools to architect systems that empower free communities.

Crypto-anarchy is the tactic of using cryptography for counter-economics.

Privacy technologies are emerging stronger than ever and are completely unstoppable.

Combine all this together and we get: DarkFi.

The darkness is here and will sweep over our digital world. It cannot be stopped, since the benefits it brings are too great. All the latent potentialities of humanity that are being pushed down will be allowed to rise up to the top. This is a great power that must be used respectfully.

Remember every technological revolution in history had naysayers who wanted to put the genie back in Pandora's box. But they were dragged kicking and screaming into the future against their will.

There are no judgments or edicts being made here. Just statements of reality.

Take it or leave it, this is what will happen. Welcome to the agorist future."

(https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/20211021.123016.3dccaf0c.en.html)

More information

• Here is an example of a smart contract minting a credential: https://github.com/darkrenaissance/darkfi/blob/halo2-burn/proof/mint.zk

• We have a chat server on Matrix at: element.dark.fi