Digitization and AI have erased the costs that once protected our privacy. A new generation of cryptography is bringing them back. Peer-to-Peer's first guest post. From @GoBankYourself p2p.coincenter.org/p/enginee…

In the wake of Clarity not passing, and thus no BRCA, lawsuits like Lewellen's will be key to ensuring prosecutors are appropriately restrained from going after developers. Read about Lewellen's appeal brief filed this week.

@LewellenMichael submitted a reply brief on Monday against the DOJ, arguing that the district court prematurely dismissed his challenge to the DOJ’s interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1960 and that the DOJ’s interpretation of § 1960 exposes him to a credible threat of prosecution if he publishes and operates a non-custodial cryptocurrency software. @coincenter’s blog discusses his arguments and the road ahead: coincenter.org/a-thin-doj-po…

In new brief, Lewellen argues that DOJ enforcement discretion cannot replace clear legal protection for non-custodial developers coincenter.org/a-thin-doj-po…

The FBI wants to use predictive AI for its watchlist. Could it pull in political beliefs? p2p.coincenter.org/p/the-fbi…

Recent reporting has revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is using Americans' financial activities and other data to analyze and then provide local law enforcement with tips on potential criminals. This practice is known as "predictive policing" and completely depends on mass surveillance to aggregate and analyze enough data to then determine whether or not a person could be a criminal in the eyes of the state. Predictive-policing itself is wrong, but it stems from the long-time surveillance of the American people. These surveillance mechanisms have empowered the state to target anyone for anything, even before they commit a crime—if they were going to commit a crime at all. This leaves us at the judgment and mercy of the state, where our activities, associations, or beliefs can easily be deemed criminal—or potentially criminal—and we have no way of defending ourselves. This is deeply un-American. The state should not be leveraging sensitive information to predict whether or not you may be a criminal. The American people should be free to live authentically and with dignity without fear of wrongful prosecution. It is within our constitutional rights, and it is time the federal government be reminded of them. My latest @CoinDesk: coindesk.com/opinion/2026/09…

The inherent nature of open-source protects only the software, not the developer. p2p.coincenter.org/p/open-so…

The state has already demonstrated its ability to punish the developers of disfavored open source code. It's not as simple as just saying "open is unstoppable." There are real people behind open source projects and they can be targeted for a chilling effect. p2p.coincenter.org/p/open-so…

Open-source AI is only ‘unstoppable’ when its developers are protected p2p.coincenter.org/p/open-so…

The Crypto Tax Bill Gets Block Rewards Wrong coincenter.org/the-crypto-ta…

You know you have been waiting for our take... Disappointing to see the BRCA protections limited. Still helpful to codify the regulatory protections for developers, but the lack of criminal law protections means @LewellenMichael's case against DOJ becomes even more important. coincenter.org/the-proposed-…

The proposed BRCA changes are a tough pill to swallow coincenter.org/the-proposed-…

The proposed BRCA changes are a tough pill to swallow. The revised language stops short of resolving the essential criminal law issue; Lewellen’s lawsuit becomes that much more important. coincenter.org/the-proposed-…

Flock leaves us with no meaningful way to avoid surveillance absent legal protections. p2p.coincenter.org/p/flock-i…

Peer-to-Peer: “It equates to a civil death." – What happens when America cancels you? p2p.coincenter.org/p/it-equa…

Last week’s reported breach of IDScan made us ask ourselves a vital question: why do we surrender our sensitive personal information if all we receive in return are false promises of security? Breaches like this one are preventable; we just have to want to prevent them. The tools to verify customers privately are beginning to emerge, but more importantly, we should not extend identification and verification to areas where they do not already exist and are not needed. Because the best way to protect sensitive personal information is to not collect it at all. My latest @CoinDesk: coindesk.com/opinion/2026/09…

Predictive policing is inherently authoritarian, there’s no other way to put it. It completely depends on mass surveillance to aggregate and analyze enough data to then determine whether or not you could be a criminal in the eyes of the state. Here’s the problem: information tells a story and says whatever its narrator wants it to say, which is then used to justify subsequent actions. The state—being the collector of your data—is the narrator of your story. It determines which dots get connected and which picture gets painted about you. That’s ripe for abuse because anyone can take massive amounts of information and cherry-pick it to convey anything they want and then act on it. In the words of Cardinal Richelieu, “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” For predictive policing, law enforcement watches your every move to determine if you might be a criminal and then goes after you for it. In the article below, we’re dealing with predictive policing based on financial surveillance of the American people. Your transaction history is essentially treated as evidence before you’ve done anything wrong. This is deeply un-American and unconstitutional. Here, you are far from innocent until proven guilty; here, you are always a suspect that the state is always prepared to prosecute. This is why @coincenter fights for the right to have financial privacy and autonomy. Financial transactions act as confessions about your beliefs, associations, and desires—intimate details that are often the reason for discrimination. The state should not be leveraging this information to decide whether or not you may be a criminal. We should be free to live authentically and with dignity. Thank you to @404mediaco and @josephfcox for reporting on this issue.

We’re not so sure the Digital Euro will have ‘maximum’ privacy. A look at the online/offline transaction scheme and it's supposed privacy advantages from @LazPieper p2p.coincenter.org/p/were-no…

We have been cranking out digital civil liberties analysis in our new publication, Peer-to-Peer. Please subscribe. I am trying to grow this thing. p2p.coincenter.org