Amir Taaki

Amir Taaki (Persian: امیر تاکی; born 6 February 1988) is a British-Iranian anarchist revolutionary, hacktivist, and programmer who is known for his leading role in the bitcoin project, and for pioneering many open source projects.[1][2] Forbes listed Taaki in their 30 Under 30 listing of 2014.[3][4] Driven by the political philosophy of the Rojava 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.[5]

Amir Taaki
Amir Taaki in Bratislava, 2012
Taaki in Bratislava, 2012
Born (1988-02-06) 6 February 1988
London, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
OccupationProgrammer
Military career
AllegianceRojava
Service/branchYPG
Years of service2015
Battles/warsSyrian Civil War

Biography

Amir Taaki was born 6 February 1988[6] in London, the eldest of three children of a Scottish-English[7] mother and an Iranian father who is a property developer. Taaki grew up in nearby Kent.[8] From an early age Taaki took an interest in computer technology, teaching himself computer programming.[9]

After briefly attending two British universities,[7] Taaki gravitated to the free software movement. Taaki assisted in the creation of SDL Collide, an extension of Simple DirectMedia Layer, an open source library used by video game developers.[10]

In 2009 and 2010, Taaki made his living as a professional poker player.[9] His experience with online gambling attracted him to the Bitcoin project.[11] At one point, he was listed among Bitcoin's main developers.[12] 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.[13][8] Intersango has since closed.[14]

In 2012, Taaki organized the first Bitcoin conference in London.[15]

In 2014, together with Cody Wilson, he launched the Dark Wallet project after a crowdfunding run on IndieGoGo which raised over $50,000.[16][17][18] Taaki, along with other developers from Airbitz, a bitcoin software company, created a prototype for a decentralised marketplace called "DarkMarket" in 2014, at a hackathon in Toronto, which was forked into the OpenBazaar project.[19]

As of 2013, he resided in an anarchist squat in the former anti-G8 HQ building in London, England.[20][21]

In 2015, Taaki went to Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) to offer his skills to the revolution, and served the YPG military.[22] 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 dedicated to leveraging blockchain technology to help national liberation causes such as the Catalan independence movement.[23]

In 2023, Politico reported that Taaki was working on an anarchist project called DarkFi that aimed to allow people to form organizations that collectively raise and distribute money in complete secrecy.[24]

See also

References
  1. J.J. Colao. "Amir Taaki, 25 - In Photos: 2014 30 under 30: Technology". Forbes. Archived from the original on 9 January 2014.
  2. "Hacktivists in the frontline battle for the internet". The Guardian. London. 20 April 2012. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  3. "Forbes 30 Under 30". Forbes. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  4. "Meet the world's next billionaires - from Mashable's Pete Cashmore to Bitcoin renegade Amir Taaki". The Independent. 7 January 2014. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014.
  5. Susannah Butter (6 April 2017). "Tech enigma Amir Taaki on Forbes and fighting Isis in Syria". Standard.co.uk.
  6. "Amir Taaki". Companies House. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  7. Herrmann, Joshi (29 January 2014). "Silicon Roundabout's not for him: meet super-hacker, master coder and Bitcoin boy Amir Taaki in his Hackney squat". Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  8. Bartlett, Jamie (2015). The dark net : inside the digital underworld. Brooklyn. ISBN 978-1-61219-489-9. OCLC 900594552.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. "Speakers 2011," 11th International EPCA Summit, European Payments Consulting Association, www.epcaconference.com/ Retrieved 11 October 2011.
  10. "SDL_Collide". SourceForge. 8 January 2015. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  11. James Ball, "Bitcoins: how do they work?" The Guardian, 22 June 2011.
  12. Herrmann, Joshi (10 July 2015). "The Anarchist Hacker Bitcoin Would Rather Not Talk About". Vice. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
  13. "About Us: Personal Statements," Intersango, britcoin.co.uk
  14. "Cryptoanarchists pull trigger on fight over future of Bitcoin". Financial Times. 31 October 2013.
  15. Healy, Hazel (1 December 2012). "Internet showdown: Why digital freedom matters to us all". New Internationalist. London. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  16. Del Castillo, Michael (24 September 2013). "Dark Wallet: A Radical Way to Bitcoin". The New Yorker. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  17. Greenberg, Andy (31 October 2013). "Dark Wallet Aims To Be The Anarchist's Bitcoin App of Choice". Forbes Online. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  18. Greenberg, Andy (29 April 2014). "'Dark Wallet' Is About to Make Bitcoin Money Laundering Easier Than Ever". Wired. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  19. Greenberg, Andy (24 April 2014). "Inside the 'DarkMarket' Prototype, a Silk Road the FBI Can Never Seize". Wired. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  20. Siddique, Haroon (11 June 2013). "G8: riot police enter central London building occupied by protesters". Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  21. Copestake, Jen (19 September 2014). "Hiding currency in the Dark Wallet". Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  22. Greenberg, Andy (29 March 2017). "How an anarchist Bitcoin coder found himself fighting ISIS in Syria". Wired. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  23. Volpicelli, Gian (6 March 2018). "Amir fought Isis in Syria, now he's enlisting an army of hacker monks to save bitcoin from itself". wired. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  24. Schreckinger, Ben (February 2, 2023) "A new crypto threat to government launches." Politico. (Retrieved March 6, 2023).
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