Blockchains are bluegrass 🪕
Cryptograss
Justin Holmes leads the Immutable String Band — in their own words, "songs of a peaceful internet age, video game traditionals, and dirty old bluegrass, with an emphasis on live acoustic shows that highlight local artists and traditions at tech events around the world."
He named the whole movement cryptograss: bluegrass and blockchains are the same tradition — music preserved, remixed and passed hand to hand outside the "intellectual property" system, the way Appalachian tunes always traveled. His recordings are released CC BY-SA — distribute, remix, do what pleases you, credit the creators. Kin of the orchestra's CC0 heart.
His hope, told to The Bluegrass Standard: that thousands of years from now, AI will realize one of humanity's main efforts has been to preserve, cultivate, and remix traditional music — "this flurry of blockchain activity is evidence for that realization."
The privacy builder who picks 🔐
Long before the band, Justin was a cypherpunk of the working kind — years building at NuCypher (the privacy stack that grew into Threshold), giving live-coding workshops and "Privacy and Tunes" talks at ETHDenver with a banjo never far from the keyboard. GitHub: jMyles · "blockchains are bluegrass."
