I finished the second version of my book!

## The Praxeology of Privacy

### Economic Logic in Cypherpunk Implementation

Austrian economists theorize but cannot build. Cypherpunks build but lack theory. This book synthesizes both traditions into a unified strategy for making the state irrelevant.

Three axioms. Twenty-one chapters. One conclusion: cheap defense defeats expensive attack. When theft becomes unprofitable, the state withers.

Public Domain. v0.2.0. Published on Nostr.

Thanks a lot to Stephan Kinsella and Eric Voskuil for their tough feedback on the first version, please join them in demolishing the logic of this second edition and help me make the arguments better!

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Table of Contents

Preface

Austrian economists theorize but cannot build. Cypherpunks build but lack theory. This book synthesizes both to make the state irrelevant.

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Part I: Introduction

Chapter 1: The Nature of Privacy

Privacy is selective disclosure, not hiding. Breaking adversary observation through the OODA loop is strategic defense. Cheap privacy defeats expensive surveillance.

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Chapter 2: Two Traditions, One Conclusion

Austrian economics and cypherpunk practice converge independently on privacy's importance. Theory explains why; code demonstrates how. This book synthesizes both traditions.

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Part II: Philosophical Foundations

Chapter 3: The Action Axiom

The Action Axiom proves privacy is structural to human action. Deliberation is internal; preferences are subjective; information asymmetry is inherent.

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Chapter 4: The Argumentation Axiom

Argumentation ethics demonstrates self-ownership through performative contradiction. Denying it while arguing presupposes it. Privacy rights follow directly from self-ownership.

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Chapter 5: The Axiom of Resistance

The Axiom of Resistance assumes systems can resist control. Mathematics, empirical evidence, and similar systems support this well-grounded but non-self-evident assumption.

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Part III: Economic Foundations

Chapter 6: Information, Scarcity, and Property

Information is non-scarce and cannot be property. Privacy is protected through self-ownership, physical property rights, and voluntary contracts, not intellectual property.

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Chapter 7: Exchange Theory and Privacy

Privacy enhances exchange by protecting deliberation and enabling negotiation. Surveillance distorts prices and chills transactions. Better privacy means better functioning markets.

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Chapter 8: Capital Theory and Entrepreneurship

Privacy infrastructure is capital requiring present sacrifice for future capability. Entrepreneurial discovery drives innovation. Markets coordinate heterogeneous privacy tools most effectively.

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Chapter 9: Monetary Theory and Sound Money

Sound money emerges spontaneously from markets, not decrees. Bitcoin implements digital soundness with fixed supply and censorship resistance; privacy requires additional tools.

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Part IV: The Adversary

Chapter 10: Financial Surveillance and State Control

Financial surveillance enables state control through observation. CBDCs complete the architecture. Privacy breaks the OODA loop at observation, making theft unprofitable.

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Chapter 11: Corporate Surveillance and Data Extraction

Corporate surveillance extracts behavioral data for prediction products. State and corporate surveillance are deeply entangled. Markets are responding to growing privacy demand.

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Chapter 12: The Crypto Wars

The Crypto Wars pit states against privacy technology. Mathematics ignores legislation. Developers face prosecution. The fundamental conflict is permanent and intensifying.

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Part V: Technical Implementation

Chapter 13: Cryptographic Foundations

Cryptography provides mathematical privacy foundations: encryption, hashing, and digital signatures enable trustless verification. Implementation bugs and human error remain the weakest links.

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Chapter 14: Anonymous Communication Networks

The internet leaks metadata. VPNs help locally. Tor distributes trust through relays. Mixnets defeat global adversaries. Choose tools matching your threat model.

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Chapter 15: Bitcoin: Resistance Money

Bitcoin solves double-spending without trusted third parties. Sound money enforced by code. Base layer privacy requires additional tools like Lightning and coinjoin.

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Chapter 16: Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Zero-knowledge proofs enable verification without disclosure. SNARKs, STARKs, and Bulletproofs make different tradeoffs. Deployed in Zcash and rollups; broader adoption developing.

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Chapter 17: Decentralized Social Infrastructure

Nostr solves identity capture through cryptographic keys users control. Relays compete, moderation is market-driven, and the protocol extends beyond social posts.

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Part VI: Praxis

Chapter 18: Lessons from History

DigiCash, e-gold, and Silk Road failed through centralization and poor OPSEC. Bitcoin succeeded through decentralization, open source, and properly aligned economic incentives.

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Chapter 19: Operational Security

Operational security prevents adversaries from gathering compromising information. Threat modeling guides defense. Human factors are the weakest link. Perfect OPSEC is impossible.

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Chapter 20: Implementation Strategy

Start with honest assessment. Build progressively from basics to advanced. Find community. Privacy is not a destination but ongoing practice. Progress matters.

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Chapter 21: Building the Parallel Economy

The parallel economy grows through counter-economics. Cheap defense defeats expensive attack. When theft becomes unprofitable, the state withers. Build. Trade. Resist.

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#redhead

watch out 26-12-2025,

bitcoin price could finally move higher.

when the 100k sell wall disappears

we can finally rip!

someone can post a good source?

i just heard it in a nostr:npub1rxysxnjkhrmqd3ey73dp9n5y5yvyzcs64acc9g0k2epcpwwyya4spvhnp8 podcast.

It's at a point now where it's almost impossible for me to use the "regular" internet. I can't access half the sites. The reason? I care about my digital hygiene and thus use a VPN. Sometimes switching to a different VPN or switching the country of the VPN works; other times it does not. Oh well, I guess I'm not going to watch that video, or read that article, or look at that picture. Whatever.

In addition to that, if I'm not blocked completely, I have to prove that I'm human every step of the way. Captchas, re-captchas, Cloudflare checkboxes, the whole shebang. I am human. I promise. And I am very annoyed. Outright angry, even. I doubt that any robot will ever be as annoyed as I am right now about the current state of the internet.

What annoys me most, actually, is that all these measures don't really work. There's bots everywhere. Robots get access to the stuff anyway, using farms of humans, just like in the good old days of WoW gold farming. The centralized "safety" nets of Cloudflare et al brought down large swaths of the internet multiple times in the last couple of weeks alone, and as things centralize more and more these outages will happen more and more.

I'm very close to breaking up with the legacy internet. I'm human, I can cryptographically prove that I'm human, and I have sats to spend. But the legacy internet doesn't care about that. It cares about farming me and my data, while annoying me to no end. I've been nostr only for a while now, but that was only on the "social media" side. 2026 might be the year where I go nostr-only for everything, or to phrase it slightly differently: permissionless for everything.

No more "are you human?"

No more "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

No more cookie banners, paywalls, and AI slop.

No more being treated like a child.

Even if it means that I'll have to self-host everything.

Even if it means that I'll have to build & maintain stuff myself.

Even if it means that it's a lot of work and pain.

Nothing worth having ever comes easy.

But the easy stuff is not worth having in the first place.

Here's to the year to come, and the new corner of the internet, build on cryptography and webs-of-trust. Real value. Real connections. Real humans.

Here's to nostr.

watch out 26-12-2025,

bitcoin price could finally move higher.

when the 100k sell wall disappears

we can finally rip!

someone can post a good source?

i just heard it in a nostr:npub1rxysxnjkhrmqd3ey73dp9n5y5yvyzcs64acc9g0k2epcpwwyya4spvhnp8 podcast.

Help me decide

#bitcoin

In 1900 white population of world was 36%, today it is 8%. This is what a real genocide looks like.