The idea of a private, state-independent currency originated from the early innings of the “Cypherpunk” movement. Cypherpunk refers to a group of people in the late 1980s and 1990s, who recognized the necessity to protect people's privacy online by using cryptography:
Privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.
