Web3Privacy Now Opening Talk + Roman Storm Message // ECC#2 - Buenos Aires 2025

[applause] Welcome everyone. I am Lutilia. I have been working with the web3 privacy team for the last eight months on this event. We have worked so hard for you to have a great day today. I am sure you will.

Um there are 60 people working on this event. A lot of local communities. Um, last year I was ready to give up on crypto and I went to the cipher pan congress and my fate was recharged. I hope it happens the same to you and you do something amazing next. Thank you for much for being here in my country.

Welcome. We're are so happy to to have you. Thank you.

Hi. Um, I am Beth. I wanted to uh also welcome everybody and say thank you for your patience with uh Complexity this morning uh last night until 6:00 am. Then our allies awesome leftist publishing collective were having their party here. So we had like two hours to get all of this um set up and amazing.

So everybody that was um part of the chaos turning into order process, thank you so much for your patience and for joining us. We're so excited to welcome you in the space and um also come find me if you are a speaker and have any questions and yeah really looking forward to seeing what the day has in store.

Good morning again. Um I could spend some hours talking about our story. I would love that. But again we are running a little bit late and we have amazing people on stage today. So let me just say that since day one three years ago, we um we did our best to put the values and principles that actually brought crypto as in cryptography to be developed in first place at the center of our activity and this helped us gathering and uniting a lot of amazing human beings that are doing a great work into advancing freedom online.

Um our work is mainly centered on making privacy accessible beyond web 3, beyond tech people. Uh making privacy digestible and usable uh and bringing all the projects, organization and people together united with this vision and this mission.

This is was Pier Georgia u soul of our collective. Uh my name is Mikola. Um what's important for us is to break a tribalism in sense of one technology is better than another another bank system is better than another one generation is better than another. So we want to manifest a unity within ser capan congress when you will be able to talk between each other and within our research we want to show and articulate that it's not about just technology but it's about coin center that uh works hard on legislative and institutional communication explaining our ecosystem or it's uh within such events when that contributes and exploring the privacy of freedom tech within the world and thinking in a broader terms of actors that are complimentary to each other is the way to proceed and find alignment between different audiences that sometimes have different backgrounds, the cultural norms, the technical or nontechnical view on the world. And there's a beauty in this diversity.

And this is also why we care a lot about try to inform the public about what's going to h what's what's happening with privacy, what's happening with freedom online and to uphold positive narratives, success, celebration, and not just this gloom and doom vision of the government, the bad actors, it's that their problem, etc., etc. uh in order to empower people to make more conscious and informed choices because as you know and probably all noticed if you step into web three now it's not easy to find the values I mean these days yes few years ago it was maybe harder uh so yeah helping supporting people empowering people to make more conscious choices uh I want to also say that recently we facilitated Gitcoin round with Macy team on privacy stewards of Ethereum side and here we want to say that how it's important right Now also to focus on sustainability of this uh industry of sustaining the projects that are just emerging or want to bring something new on the plate. So they can independently without any actor controlling their narrative, their technical choices, their social choices be free in imaginaries of different ways of the internet. And I think your particular role and contribution to these projects whenever you are testing them uh using them um mentoring them or donating them is super appreciate and important.

Uh this is something that was born this year. We wanted to put we wanted to bring privacy to the masses and having privacy in a human readable uh language. So we asked like amazing humans that are advancing freedom online to basically speak about privacy from their perspective from different backgrounds, different experiences. So we have for example Audrey Tang first digital minister of Taiwan to an amazing frontline researcher uh for MIT and Harvard Prim Philippe educator influencer Ni Brock Brockwell which is here today. David Chow, activists, European policy makers to basically explain to the people with an easy accessible way what is privacy and why it matters in this new digital age that we all live in.

Uh this will come out uh mid 2026 as a physical book in a lot of independent libraries worldwide and as a website so that it will be free for everyone to download and share. Um we also want to highlight that cyberpunk retreat cyber punk congress impact can last for years. Uh for example in Bangkok uh we had a participation from Juan Bennett from protocol labs which led to protocols becoming a member of a privacy now and our annual collaboration and in September we run a cyber punk retreat. It's a gathering of 100 individuals in Berlin from blue sky to tour and we saw how we can find our role when we match uh for example tour of the foundation so they can foster collaboration. We open a conversation for people working on uh end toend encrypted messaging protocols so they can collaborate further within the standards uh in this market or we can show the way that people outside of the crypto and inside of the crypto can have a common language cannot can avoid tribalism and fighting in between each other and can see a complimentary uh acting whenever you are a cryptographer.

Whenever you are a designer, you can find a common language and help each other to grow together.

This is why we always try to uphold and launch new narratives and help people that are not technical to feel that they can advance privacy because we have amazing marketers, uh designers, artists, lawyers, policy makers that are good human beings and they care about human rights. And we continue to face that a lot of us technical people not me but you um basically have this way of not welcoming diversity in the room and we heard many amazing cryptographers this year saying we cypher punk failed because we were not able to welcome diversity in the room and to understand each other with other backgrounds and perspectives and ski skill set that are super complementaryary with each other to bring the code to the masses to bring the code into culture. Um you want to spend some words? Yeah. Next slides.

Um that's why we think uh genuinely that we should reboot or move forward on the next generation of cypher punks that will be less stiff in the requirements to young people specifically because it's quite hard to uh install graffinos from the get-go if you have a limited internet. uh if you don't have a compatible device and maybe sometimes we need to ask people what's your condition in life where do you live what's your level of uh technical proficiency uh where you are in terms of the understanding the privacy and freedom tech and the big tech role of the controlling on the internet and I think a we should strive for joy and positive connectivity within each other we should be really supportive and helpful instead of competing thinking that my protocol is better or ZK versus TE FH etc. and really understand that this should be a celebration is this servant congress in anti-doom and gloom uh event when we want to celebrate oh your install signal great congratulations you're using brave wonderful you're using ad block super your your attention is not noisy you can focus on what matters um if you're trying to experiment and do private transactions great one tool sometimes is enough to really celebrate this moment of joy together and really switch a bit narrative from depression, from disconnect to more uh collaborative spirit and in some sense exactly the nightclub where people dance is a way of metaphor we want to transmit to this culture. We will start in a few minutes with an intervention from tornado cache developer Roman storm. Before this we would like to set the tone by starting with an experiment.

Um it will take just a few moments. Again, please trust because you will enjoy this. I will ask everyone to please close your eyes. Take your time and close your eyes. Everyone in the room, take a deep breath.

Imagine 2026 as the year where we succeed in shaping a more human digital environment. Imagine 2026 as a year of unity where we discover how strong we are when we collaborate. Imagine web two and web three advancing privacy together. Imaging projects and integrating with each other, building networks of trust and uniting communities. Imagine social media where we help each other, providing constructive feedback and support, sharing successful stories and joy instead of criticizing each other and tearing each other down.

Imagine hackers working shoulderto-shoulder with researchers and cryptographers. Human rights organizations and on the ground activists guiding developers with real stories and real needs. Imagine scholars championing media literacy inviting founders and philosophers into their classrooms. Imagine courses on Ethereum, free software, and cryptography becoming as common as economics or computer science. Imagine a world where privacy becomes something everyone can understand and participate in.

Imagine our national constitutions integrating digital integrity next to physical and moral integrity as fundamental human rights. Imagine lawyers and journalists standing up for developers and freedom technologies, defending them in courts, in newspapers, on TV. And imagine artists and storytellers taking these ideas into the streets, turning freedom into culture, into practices, into music, into murals, into messages that reach millions. Now open your eyes. This is why we are here today.

This future is not a dream is a direction and it starts with us here together. Thank you. Thank you. Hello everyone. I'm Roman Storm.

I'm one of the developers behind the open-source privacy project called Tornado Cache. Back in 2019, I was very inspired Ethereum developer driven by the idea of solving privacy on the Ethereum blockchain. That's why we created Tornado Cash. Our team's goal was simple but critical to help ordinary people gain true onchain privacy. And the only reason I can continue fighting for privacy and for opensource developers is because of you.

So many people have supported me emotionally, financially and politically. Your support keeps me going and helps keep privacy alive. It's crucial that we stay united, support each other, and collaborate whenever possible. I wish I could be there in person with all of you to help work on other important issues in crypto, but I need to be here fighting to ensure none of you face the same challenge as I am. Thank you all for being part of this community and for your support.

If you're interested to learn more about my case, you can visit free romanstorm.com. Thank you. [applause]