These two men are on a mission to make Bitcoin truly untraceable

For some, Bitcoin doesn’t go far enough towards truly unregulated, untraceable currency. Cody Wilson, the man behind the world’s first lethal 3D-printed gun, and Amir Taaki, a Bitcoin entrepreneur, are the two crytpo-anarchists leading the effort to build software that hopes to make Bitcoin transactions nearly impossible to track. The software, called Dark Wallet, matches different, unrelated transactions to scramble the transaction record at the center of Bitcoin, known at the blockchain. It’s currently being tested, but for Wilson and Taaki, Dark Wallet is far more than a simple business: it’s an important step towards enabling their ideal of a government-free society. Wired has an in-depth profile on the two young Bitcoin anarchists.

Amir Taaki and Cody Wilson are cruising north through Texas on Interstate 35 in the 4:30 am predawn darkness. One of the headlights on the aging BMW Wilson’s driving is burned out, and he’s wearing sunglasses. “They’re prescription,” he says drily. It’s May Day, every anarchist’s favorite holiday, and the two 26-year-olds have marked the occasion by releasing a piece of software that represents their best attempt so far to undermine every government in the world. A call from a lawyer friend has reminded them that creative US prosecutors might hit them with conspiracy or other charges. So they’ve decided to skip town. Half an hour earlier, they pulled out of Wilson’s apartment in Austin and began the long nighttime drive to Dallas, where Wilson has booked Taaki a last-minute flight to Barcelona. Taaki has friends there living in a squat in an abandoned police station. Wilson himself plans to lay low in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. A 29-year-old Canadian friend, cryptographer Peter Todd, is riding along in the back seat. Not far into the drive, I see Wilson fiddling with something near the gearshift, and he explains that he’s just removed the battery from his cell phone to prevent its being used by police to track him.