He told an interviewer, "The Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government. The one thing that is missing, but will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash: a method by which on the Internet you can transfer funds from an A to B without A knowing B or B knowing A. The way in which I can take a $20 and hand it over to you and there is no record of where it came from."

The civil liberty benefits of privacy and anonymity are clear. The less personal information a government has on an individual, the less effectively it can violate his or her rights. Imagine trying to arrest a woman for publishing a cartoon of Muhammad when her name and contact information are unknown. Imagine trying to draft her children to die in a foreign war when there are no school records to data mine. The power of privacy is the most discussed civil liberty advantage of cryptocurrencies.