I have been digging into The Second Realm movement in the past few weeks compiling my notes on the various things I have found. Here are my impressions.
“The Second Realm” is a term used to describe a permanent autonomous zone that certain groups of Crypto-Anarchists, Anarcho-Capitalists, Agorists, hackers, etc. are trying to create. A place where full economic freedom can be achieved with no interaction with “The First Realm” (our current economy, government, corporations, etc.). They claim the reason is to circumvent the governments control over their everyday lives, to live and trade anonymously and build a better world free from the control of “The Man.”
One of the primary ways of doing this is with a totally open source and anonymous currency known as Bitcoin (view market cap and real time value here). Bitcoin (BTC) is what they call a “non-political” currency that is free from borders and direct government control, and is 100% anonymous. There isn’t even a central server, the servers are spread across the world using extra GPU time on machines that volunteer to help the cause. This currency has been gaining much momentum and has recently been brought to attention of the authorities due to a Second Realm site called SilkRoad where you can use Bitcoins to anonymous but things (including drugs, etc.) More Info Here.
SilkRoad is a site that exists in a Dark Net zone known as Tor inaccessible from the normal web and designed to be accessed mainly by computer savvy individuals but not altogether hidden. The purpose of a Dark Net is to create an entirely separate zone from the regular www that is anonymous, secure and hidden.
Generally these activities are experiments by hackers, but if you look at the market cap for Bitcoin you will see that the market is worth $35M USD which isn’t just some small amount of users. It also has a small but growing stock market and new players are entering the scene daily.
Currently, users are using Bitcoin for paying for goods and services the same way you would use cash. Websites can accept them, they can be passed on USB sticks as cash and one Bitcoin miner actually had $500,000 worth of BTC stolen from him. But ironically they can’t trace the transaction because it’s anonymous. I laugh whenever I hear this story.
Personally I’m fascinated, but this is just scratching the surface of the subversion movement that is growing. My next article will focus on the Agorist movement and how it relates to BTC.