Introduction

CONET is the foundational infrastructure that realizes the vision of Web3.

CONET establishes a physical virtual network infrastructure on the Internet based on the Layer Minus communication protocol.

Upon entering the CONET network, users replace their Internet IP addresses with encrypted wallet addresses as identifiers to achieve anonymous and secure data communication.

Whether it's regular Internet data communication, blockchain communication, or IoT (Internet of Things), CONET can serve as the underlying infrastructure, providing privacy, anonymity, and secure data communication.

From Bitcoin to CONET

In the electronic age, privacy is indispensable for an open society. Privacy is something someone doesn't want to make public, unlike a secret, which is something someone doesn't want anyone to know. Privacy is a form of power, allowing someone to decide what to make public and what to keep private. — "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto"

Crypto-punks are an essential source of thought and technology for BTC.

On November 1, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System," introducing the concepts of blockchain and BTC. On January 3, 2009, the first BTC was mined. BTC inherits the ideology and technology generated in the crypto-punk movement. It creatively combines asymmetric encryption and timestamp server technology, establishing an incentive mechanism through hash cash technology.

Since its inception, BTC has not only survived but has also increased in influence over the decade since 2008. Satoshi Nakamoto created BTC for two main reasons: to protect individuals from asset shrinkage due to government over-issuance of currency leading to inflation and to ensure individual privacy in online transactions.

In the BTC system, Satoshi Nakamoto made three main contributions. Firstly, he solved the trust problem between transaction parties by broadcasting transaction information. The transaction details are public, but the traders remain anonymous, protecting the privacy of both parties. Secondly, he addressed the double-spending problem of unofficially issued digital currencies using UTXO and timestamps. Lastly, he introduced the "mining" mechanism to issue a limited amount of new BTC based on a specific algorithm, solving the potential inflation problem in traditional currency issuance.

On February 11, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto stated in the discussion post "Bitcoin open-source implementation of P2P currency," "The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust." Satoshi Nakamoto believed that currency issuance monopolized by central banks would plunder people's wealth through currency devaluation.

Satoshi Nakamoto technically implemented the first complete digital currency system. From his notes and references in the BTC whitepaper, it's evident that BTC's ideology and technology align closely with the thoughts and technology of a group active in the early days of the Internet, the cypherpunks.

The Ideology and Technological Origins of BTC

Crypto-punks are dedicated to protecting individuals' privacy, believing that large centralized entities are not trustworthy, and BTC inherits this idea. Additionally, most of the key technologies required by BTC, including asymmetric encryption, timestamp servers, hash cash, and distributed ledger, can be traced back to crypto-punks.

In 1993, Eric Hughes published the "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto," marking the first entry of individual network privacy and anarchistic ideology into the public eye. This document led to more struggles by crypto-punks. In 1977, Ronald L. Rivest invented the first publicly known asymmetric encryption technology, ensuring the security of BTC accounts. In 1991, Haber proposed the timestamp server technology in his paper "How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document," guaranteeing the immutability of the BTC system. In 1997, Adam Back developed the hash cash system, a precursor to the proof-of-work mechanism in the BTC system, addressing the issuance and incentive issues. In 1998, Wei Dai introduced the electronic currency system, B-money, explicitly outlining the concept of distributed accounting. In the references of the BTC whitepaper, apart from an author of a probability theory textbook, the rest of the paper authors are members of the crypto-punks mailing list. Therefore, BTC can be considered, to some extent, a collective creation of crypto-punks.

The Core Concept of Crypto-punks - Defending Individual Network Privacy

One of the founders of the crypto-punk movement, Eric Hughes, wrote in the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, "In the electronic age, privacy is indispensable for an open society. Privacy is something someone doesn't want to make public, unlike a secret, which is something someone doesn't want anyone to know. Privacy is a form of power, allowing someone to decide what to make public and what to keep private." Crypto-punks believe that large centralized entities are not trustworthy. In the Internet age, these entities do not actively protect individual privacy and continuously attempt to obtain personal privacy data on the network. Crypto-punks foresaw that with the increase in network speed and the popularity of personal computers, the world would gradually enter the Internet age. At that time, the Internet would become an indispensable part of everyone's life, significantly increasing social production efficiency. However, for ordinary people not proficient in network technology, entering the Internet age would expose them to the risk of privacy leaks and its associated risks.

CONET Inherits the Spirit of Crypto-punks

The invention of HTTP gave birth to the prosperous Internet age. According to Statista's analysis, it is expected that by 2025, the number of connected devices worldwide will reach 3.09 billion. However, behind this prosperity is the accurate prediction of early crypto-punks: ubiquitous collection of personal data, centralized monopolies of Internet giants, surveillance by central entities, etc., exposing billions of people to mass surveillance and data breaches. Both individuals and enterprises have a strong demand for privacy protection. We believe that billions of people and hundreds of billions of connected devices globally need privacy protection. Privacy protection is not only necessary for the Internet but also essential for the entire blockchain ecosystem. A blockchain without privacy protection will have risks of insecure assets, tracked operations, audit risks, and the inability to scale business applications. The inevitable endpoint of the encryption industry is maximum decentralization and maximum privacy. Inspired by this, CONET proposes new foundational standards based on WEB3 and an open-source privacy protocol, bringing data ownership and privacy back to individuals. CONET's programmability and scalability make large-scale commercialization possible, enabling applications and markets that were previously unimaginable. Fifteen years after Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper release, the world has learned a lot from the BTC experiment. Progress has been made in the study of cryptography. At CONET, we are leveraging these experiences, standing on the shoulders of giants like Merkle, Rivest, Hellman, Finney, Wuille, Boneh, some of whom we have helped invent and improve, applying new cryptography to create the next chapter of the journey initiated by Bitcoin.