Amir Taaki ( fa, امیر تاکی; born 6 February 1988) is a British-Iranian anarchist revolutionary,
hacktivist
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of '' hack'' and '' activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in h ...
, and
programmer who is known for his leading role in the
bitcoin project, and for pioneering many
open source projects. Forbes listed Taaki in their
30 Under 30 listing of 2014. Driven by the political philosophy of the
Rojava
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, ...
revolution, Taaki traveled to Syria, served in the YPG military, and worked in Rojava's civil society on various economic projects for a year and a half.
Biography
Amir Taaki was born 6 February 1988 in London, the eldest of three children of a Scottish-English
mother and an Iranian father who is a property developer. Taaki grew up in nearby
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
.
From an early age Taaki took an interest in computer technology,
teaching himself computer programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...
.
["Speakers 2011,"]
11th International EPCA Summit, European Payments Consulting Association, www.epcaconference.com/ Retrieved 11 October 2011.
After briefly attending two British universities,
Taaki gravitated to the
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
movement. Taaki assisted in the creation of SDL Collide, an extension of
Simple DirectMedia Layer
Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) is a cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in sever ...
, an open source
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
used by video game developers.
In 2009 and 2010, Taaki made his living as a professional
poker player.
His experience with
online gambling
Online gambling is any kind of gambling conducted on the internet. This includes virtual poker, casinos and sports betting. The first online gambling venue opened to the general public was ticketing for the Liechtenstein International Lottery i ...
attracted him to the
Bitcoin project. At one point, he was listed among Bitcoin's main developers. He founded the first UK Bitcoin exchange, "Britcoin", which was succeeded in 2011 by a new British exchange called Intersango, in which he was a principal developer.
[ Intersango has since closed.
In 2012, Taaki organized the first Bitcoin conference in London.
In 2014, together with ]Cody Wilson
Cody Rutledge Wilson (born January 31, 1988) is an American gun rights activist and crypto-anarchist. He is a founder and director of Defense Distributed, a non-profit organization that develops and publishes open source gun designs, so-calle ...
, he launched the Dark Wallet project after a crowdfunding run on IndieGoGo which raised over $50,000.OpenBazaar
OpenBazaar is an open source project developing a protocol for e-commerce transactions in a fully decentralized marketplace. It uses cryptocurrencies as medium of exchange and was inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket.
History
Ami ...
project.Rojava
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, ...
(Syrian Kurdistan) to offer his skills to the revolution, and served the YPG military. He had no training, but spent three and a half months in the YPG military fighting on the front. He was then discharged and worked in the civil society for over a year on various projects for Rojava's economics committee.
In February 2018, Taaki created a group in Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...
dedicated to leveraging blockchain technology to help national liberation
Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) to establish separat ...
causes such as the Catalan independence movement
The Catalan independence movement ( ca, independentisme català; Spanish: ''independentismo catalán'') is a social and political movement (with roots in Catalan nationalism) which seeks the independence of Catalonia from Spain.
The beginnings ...
.
See also
* Crypto-anarchism
Crypto-anarchism or cyberanarchism is a political ideology focusing on protection of privacy, political freedom, and economic freedom, the adherents of which use cryptographic software for confidentiality and security while sending and receiving ...
* Cypherpunk
A cypherpunk is any individual advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change. Originally communicating through the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, informal g ...
References
External links
Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taaki, Amir
1988 births
Military personnel from London
Living people
English computer programmers
English people of Iranian descent
People associated with Bitcoin
Free software people
Crypto-anarchists
Poker players from London