In the 1990’s, cryptographers and crypto-anarchists proposed the idea of “assassination marketplaces.” These would be marketplaces where groups could post contracts tasking the assassination of an individual for a monetary reward, with the trick that the assassination can be guaranteed payment without revealing their identity. Assassination marketplaces are one application of the more general notion of “anonymous task marketplaces,” which have myriad applications (of which many are "good"). Unfortunately, up to now proposals on how to create such marketplaces have been so plagued by fundamental flaws that they were never successfully adopted.
We are a small group of academics who believe that anonymous task marketplaces could provide humanity with remarkable new capabilities and tremendous benefit. As a consequence, we decided to solve the problems previous anonymous task marketplace proposals contained. In a paper titled “Incentive Politics and a Solution to the Hitman Problem” (links and abstract below), we accomplish this aim, where we detail the first practical decentralized protocol for realizing general anonymous task marketplaces.
The possible applications are legion. As described in our paper, applications of the kind of anonymous task marketplace described in our paper extend well beyond facilitating assassinations. Example applications include creating monetary incentives for politicians to pass popular legislation they would not have otherwise, to changing how wars are waged (if not preventing war altogether).
Our paper is deliberately written in a way that minimizes formalism and technicality so that it can be readable by a broad audience. Those annoyed by this should not miss the forest for the trees.
Before any of us build what our paper describes, we are seeking the community’s feedback. Specifically, we would like to hear criticism and comments on how the protocol can be improved, what is unclear or confusing, ideation around additional applications, and what cryptocurrency would be best to build such marketplaces off. Also, what would the best implementations of such anonymous task marketplaces look like? Basically, our paper gives a description of a smart contract that can facilitate anonymous execution of a task for which said executer is rewarded. So what should a centralized source (website) look like that assembles all relevant smart contracts and other information to form the marketplace? We have many ideas but would like to hear from other people.
Paper details below.
Abstract: The existence of a marketplace for users to anonymously post large-scale tasks with an associated monetary reward, designed so the executors of the task almost certainly receive the reward while preserving anonymity, would provide humanity with remarkable new capabilities. Jim Bell proposed one solution specific for assassination marketplaces in his
Assassination Politics essays, but several flaws contained in Bell's solution and others have prevented their adoption. We propose a protocol allowing for the existence of task marketplaces that can be built using smart contracts, and that rectifies the flaws contained in existing proposals. Specifically, our protocol provides a means by which participants can fund a public contract detailing some task, in a way that is trustless, decentralized, and preserves anonymity, while ensuring the executor of the task is almost certainly paid, and the task is almost certainly completed. Successfully funded and completed contracts are precisely those with significant support, thereby providing a natural defense against the proliferation of especially abhorrent or criminal contracts.
Link (LaTeX typeset PDF):
https://drive.proton.me/urls/0SBN8VX9J4#EvyJhiqdlecb (note Proton can sometimes take a minute to decrypt).
Medium Post (if PDF inaccessible):
https://medium.com/@howardharmon/incentive-politics-and-a-solution-to-the-hitman-problem-857175848ef-Howard Harmon
