Source: Cointelegraph Original: "{title}"

The birth of cryptocurrency was intended to be a neutral, fair, and just financial technology that allows ordinary people to trade freely with anyone, anywhere, at any time. However, according to Loring Harkness, a core writer for Shutter Network, by 2025, most cryptocurrencies will be hard to call fair for the average user.

Harkness stated that maximum extractable value (MEV) bots, whale decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) voters, and a few others significantly undermine the sense of security and empowerment for ordinary users in cryptocurrency—but there is a simple way to address several of these issues.

In episode 14 of "The Agenda" podcast, hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond discussed cryptocurrency fairness with Harkness, how Shutter Network uses cryptographic technology to protect users, and why achieving free and fair trading has global geopolitical implications for activists and those living under authoritarian regimes.

Harkness described Shutter as "a platform that helps your favorite platform become more fair, trustworthy, neutral, and private." It achieves this through data such as encrypted transactions or DAO voting until a certain threshold is reached, such as transaction confirmation or the end of the DAO voting period, ensuring that MEV bots cannot steal user information and whales cannot manipulate voter sentiment.

MEV attacks have plagued the cryptocurrency space, especially in decentralized finance. From September 2022 to June 2024 alone, at least 526,207 Ether (ETH) worth approximately $1.3 billion was extracted from Ethereum, while a notorious Solana-based bot seized $30 million in just two months in 2024.

Source: Loring Harkness

Harkness said, "By encrypting transactions before they enter the mempool, […] these MEV bots become blind." Because they can see that a transaction exists—but do not know the content of the transaction—they cannot manipulate it and cannot strategically place their transactions before or after it.

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Before participating in the Shutter project, Harkness lived in Myanmar, where he established alternative financial mechanisms. In 2021, the Myanmar military staged a coup, seized power, and began confiscating the assets of dissenters—this is a powerful real-world example of the importance of financial fairness and freedom.

Harkness told The Agenda that the new military government suppressed protests and began "weaponizing the TradFi banking system." "The Myanmar military used the banking system to identify pro-democracy activists and, in some cases, confiscated their assets, while in others, they imprisoned them."

He stated that cryptocurrency provided a lifeline, allowing residents to maintain the value of their savings through stablecoins when currency became unstable, while others converted their funds into cryptocurrency to move them out of the traditional banking system, as they faced the risk of government seizure within that system.

To hear more of Harkness's conversation with The Agenda—including more about how Shutter Network's threshold encryption works and whether cryptocurrency has lost its cypherpunk roots—tune in to the full episode on Cointelegraph's Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Don't forget to check out Cointelegraph's other shows!

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This article is for general informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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