Not only were they already discussing it when I joined the list in 01992, cryptocurrency was a major, if implicit, part of Tim May's crypto-anarchist manifesto which I think he presented at Hackers in 01988: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/cryp...
He wasn't specifically calling it out as having a fixed money supply or even fungible tokens, though. And it wasn't until Satoshi figured out how to do without a central issuer like Xanadu, Digicash, or e-gold that we realized it was possible. At the time that Satoshi cut the knot, we were all convinced it was impossible because of Zooko's Triangle.
Chaum founded DigiCash in 01989, incidentally, based on a paper he wrote in 01982 presenting a cryptocurrency design for untraceable payments, but backed with dollars by a central issuer, like Tether.
However, there was always a strong association between cypherpunks and right-libertarian free-market ideology, which is where you find gold bugs and Austrian economists. You may remember that one of the minor plot points in Atlas Shrugged was that Galt's Gulch went back to specie money (tiny pennies stamped from gold) because its value wasn't dependent on government fiat.
He wasn't specifically calling it out as having a fixed money supply or even fungible tokens, though. And it wasn't until Satoshi figured out how to do without a central issuer like Xanadu, Digicash, or e-gold that we realized it was possible. At the time that Satoshi cut the knot, we were all convinced it was impossible because of Zooko's Triangle.
Chaum founded DigiCash in 01989, incidentally, based on a paper he wrote in 01982 presenting a cryptocurrency design for untraceable payments, but backed with dollars by a central issuer, like Tether.
However, there was always a strong association between cypherpunks and right-libertarian free-market ideology, which is where you find gold bugs and Austrian economists. You may remember that one of the minor plot points in Atlas Shrugged was that Galt's Gulch went back to specie money (tiny pennies stamped from gold) because its value wasn't dependent on government fiat.