Max Hillebrand

Max Hillebrand is a free-software entrepreneur focused on building tools to define and protect property rights in cyberspace. Drawing on praxeology and cypherpunk strategy, he works to create a “second realm” with a sound monetary economy in which sovereign individuals can act freely. He contributes to numerous free-software projects, most notably the privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet Wasabi Wallet.

He was chief executive of zkSNACKs, the company behind Wasabi Wallet, and has worked on the coinjoin techniques that let bitcoin users break the link between their transactions without handing custody of their coins to anyone. His view is that privacy has to be cheap and switched on by default, because a privacy tool used by only a few people identifies them rather than protecting them.

He runs his own affairs on the same principle, paying suppliers in bitcoin and working only for clients who pay in it, and because the software he writes is not scarce he gives it away.

The second realm he describes is not a place on a map. It is the set of relationships, tools and money that already work without permission, and his argument to the Free Cities movement is that a jurisdiction built on paper alone stays fragile unless the people inside it can also transact, communicate and hold property without asking.