Hacker Jude Milhon, better known by her pseudonym St. Jude, combined the words “cypher” (a way to encrypt information) and “cyberpunk” (a science fiction subgenre that depicts high-tech worlds where society has broken down) to christen the emerging group as the “cypherpunks.” For cypherpunks, cryptography would be a tool to effect wider social and political change. Some of them even advocated for crypto-anarchy, a belief that cryptography would enable a world free from corporate or state control.
