It seems people are speculating on the current location of the missing in action Bitcoin developer and creator of Dark Wallet Amir Taaki. The British-Iranian Taaki has been somewhat of a legend within cryptocurrency circles for his work on the project as well as his views of crypto-anarchy. Recently it has been suggested that Taaki is running with an Anarcho-socialist group called “Rojava The Plan.” The organization’s mission is to create a self-sufficient socialist coop with a 1-year goal to finish “26 projects and advance Rojava’s decentralized economy.”
Amir Taaki is considered a misfit when it comes to the Bitcoin community due to his strong beliefs in left-anarchism and his critical opinions against the growing industry. He is very well known for starting the project Dark Wallet with the help of Cody Wilson founder of Defense Distributed. Taaki was the original creator of Bitcoin BIP proposals, and the first one was a description of the GitHub plan which is a request to make changes to the code. Taaki also created the bitcoin protocol named libbitcoin, and worked on the bitcoin client Electrum among many other projects within the cryptocurrency community. In 2014 Taaki was one of the top 30 Forbes entrepreneurs named that year but soon after he left the Bitcoin community and seemed to want nothing to do with it. Taaki told Bitcoin Magazine journalist Aaron van Wirdum in October of 2014:
“Well, a lot of people within the Bitcoin-community care about mass adoption way too much. They want to reach it at any and all cost. It doesn’t matter to them how much compromise we need to make, because they think Bitcoin will hit some critical point where – BAM – everything is revolutionized. This kind of quick fix mentality is very easy for people to grasp, but is not based around real social change. It’s an illusion.”
Many in the industry have distanced themselves from his name and not just because of his anarchist beliefs. Taaki was suspected of being involved with the Bitcoinica hack that resulted in the loss of a lot of Bitcoins in July of 2012. Taaki has denied being involved in the theft and even said he warned people about the problems before hand. In Nathaniel Poppers popular book Digital Gold mentions Taaki but the author revealed a lot was taken out of the story in regards to the misfit hacker as told in the Motherboard column “The Anarchist Hacker Bitcoin Would Rather Not Talk About.”
For a while now Taaki has gone missing and has ducked out of the media spotlight. Dark Wallet has been left unfinished, and many wondered what the hacker has been up to. The last sighting of Taaki was last year and said he resided in an anarchist squat in the former G8 HQ building in London. Now skeptics believe he is helping Rojava The Plan with their decentralized economy mission. The goals of the group are being crowdfunded which include organic fertilizer production, a revolution media outlet, an internet and telephone infrastructure, natural medicine, 3D printing for the wounded, and Kurdish Ubuntu among others on the roadmap.
It’s not confirmed whether Amir is backing this project or volunteering his efforts towards it. However, the project is very much aligned with his Anarcho-socialist ideology and goals towards genuine decentralization in this world. Interestingly enough a hacker group just made headlines for sending “stolen Bitcoins” to the Rojava organizations donations. The hackers did not reveal who the victims were but call themselves the “Gamma Group.” Rojava received €10,000 (about £8,000) and Gamma Group called the autonomous region “one of the most inspiring revolutionary projects in the world today.”
Taaki will always be known as a revolutionary spirit by those who agree and even disagree with his ideology. Rojava seems like a project he would back and it is unclear if he will come out of hiding and tell his location and show his latest efforts. There are not too many individuals like Taaki as he is unique and to some very inspiring. One thing is for sure He doesn’t fit with the current “banks love blockchain” mentality that’s risen in popularity throughout 2015. As the developer explained in 2012:
“I’m not a business guy, I’m a coder.”
Source: Reddit, Bitcoin Magazine, Motherboard and Wiki Commons
Images: Motherboard, Wiki Commons, and Rojava The Plan