A Political History of DAOs

The Cypherpunks Mailing List was a little-known ’90s email server started by three Silicon Valley misfits with interest in digital privacy.

Engineer Paul Baran made a number of breakthroughs that are relevant to the public, decentralized technologies to this day, including “message blocks” (a component in blockchain technology) and advocacy for private digital networks via cryptography.

“Instead of a hierarchical structure managed by a set of humans interacting in person and controlling property via the legal system, a decentralized organization involves a set of humans interacting with each other according to a protocol specified in code, and enforced on the blockchain,” Buterin wrote in 2014.

FROM CRYPTOGRAPHERS TO CYPHERPUNKS (1990S - 2008):

The Cypherpunks used their mailing list to document various attempts at building an electronic coin network. This included “e-gold,” in 1996; an anti-spam proof-of-work algorithm called Hashcash by Adam Back; an anonymous proof-of-stake electronic cash network in 1998; and Bit Gold, a proof-of-work string of cryptographic hashes by Nick Szabo in 20... See more

So, pursued the development of decentralized, cryptographically secure digital infrastructure.

A PRE-HISTORY OF THE CYPHERPUNKS:

They hoped these technologies would make it possible for people to inhabit “temporary autonomous zones” — the socio-political tactic of creating temporary spaces in the physical world or cyberspace that elude formal systems of control.

In 2008, a group of developers released a whitepaper on the Cryptographers Mailing List.