# Vinay Gupta: the whole career in one file > Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. Every work in his career record (175), year by year: what it is, what it led to, and where to read about it, under 48,000 characters so it can be read in one fetch. The map: https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt. Each work in full, with evidence: https://guptaoption.com/texts/works.md. A source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/.md. ## 1984 - **Cyberpunk**: The 1980s cyberpunk culture that came first; first computer a ZX81... Led to Cypherpunks (1992). Read: [239](https://guptaoption.com/texts/239.md), [760](https://guptaoption.com/texts/760.md), [562](https://guptaoption.com/texts/562.md). ## 1987 - **Solo meditation**: Daily solo meditation, about an hour a day, from about age 15. Led to Internal dialogue stops (1993). Read: [38](https://guptaoption.com/texts/38.md), [191](https://guptaoption.com/texts/191.md), [248](https://guptaoption.com/texts/248.md). ## 1992 - **Cypherpunks**: Cypherpunk practice in the 1990s: cryptography as a political... Led to CheapID (2006). Read: [113](https://guptaoption.com/texts/113.md), [684](https://guptaoption.com/texts/684.md), [758](https://guptaoption.com/texts/758.md). ## 1993 - **Internal dialogue stops**: After six years of daily sitting, the internal dialogue stopped. Led to Systems reformulated (2010). Read: [191](https://guptaoption.com/texts/191.md), [248](https://guptaoption.com/texts/248.md). ## 1995 - **Sheet-waste question**: The question behind the Hexayurt: how to build a dome from 4x8... Led to Hexayurt (2002). Read: [752](https://guptaoption.com/texts/752.md), [321](https://guptaoption.com/texts/321.md), [251](https://guptaoption.com/texts/251.md). ## 2002 - **Hexayurt** (core): A public-domain disaster shelter made from whole 4x8 building... Led to Six ways people die (2008). Read: [753](https://guptaoption.com/texts/753.md), [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [100](https://guptaoption.com/texts/100.md). - **Small is Profitable** (he edited) (core): Co-edited Rocky Mountain Institute book on the hidden benefits of... Led to Winning the Oil Endgame (2004). Read: [31](https://guptaoption.com/texts/31.md), [266](https://guptaoption.com/texts/266.md), [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md). - **RMI Sustainable Settlements charrette**: Rocky Mountain Institute workshop on sustainable settlements where... Led to Hexayurt (2002). Read: [128](https://guptaoption.com/texts/128.md), [740](https://guptaoption.com/texts/740.md), [114](https://guptaoption.com/texts/114.md). ## 2003 - **Hexayurt infrastructure kit** (core): A household kit around the Hexayurt: water-purifying bottles, dry... Led to Hexacloak (2023). Read: [31](https://guptaoption.com/texts/31.md), [100](https://guptaoption.com/texts/100.md), [335](https://guptaoption.com/texts/335.md). - **Biomimicry database**: Technical lead on the Rocky Mountain Institute era biomimicry... Read: [793](https://guptaoption.com/texts/793.md), [168](https://guptaoption.com/texts/168.md), [173](https://guptaoption.com/texts/173.md). - **First hexayurt built**: The first Hexayurt prototype, built at Burning Man from cardboard... Led to H18 (2006). Read: [725](https://guptaoption.com/texts/725.md), [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [294](https://guptaoption.com/texts/294.md). - **Lost swamp cooler**: A solar evaporative cooler for the first Hexayurt: a plastic tub,... Read: [17](https://guptaoption.com/texts/17.md), [288](https://guptaoption.com/texts/288.md). - **Whole-Systems Framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production** (he contributed): Rocky Mountain Institute report for the Danish Environmental... Led to Lean Green Mattereum: "We aren't... (2020). Read: [165](https://guptaoption.com/texts/165.md), [723](https://guptaoption.com/texts/723.md), [201](https://guptaoption.com/texts/201.md). ## 2004 - **Nath Sampradaya initiation**: Initiated into the Nath Sampradaya. Led to Systems reformulated (2010). Read: [692](https://guptaoption.com/texts/692.md), [52](https://guptaoption.com/texts/52.md), [327](https://guptaoption.com/texts/327.md). - **Winning the Oil Endgame** (he edited): Rocky Mountain Institute study, Pentagon co-sponsored, on getting... Led to Product information markets (2019). Read: [128](https://guptaoption.com/texts/128.md), [52](https://guptaoption.com/texts/52.md), [764] (no text here). ## 2006 - **CheapID** (core): Design for a sub-$1 identity card, written for the US Office of... Led to Asset Passport conceived (2006). Read: [31](https://guptaoption.com/texts/31.md), [66](https://guptaoption.com/texts/66.md), [35](https://guptaoption.com/texts/35.md). - **Resilience and Opportunity: Effective Tools for Victory in Fourth Generation Wars?** (core): Briefing arguing that insurgencies end when fighters can go home... Led to State in a Box (2006). Read: [335](https://guptaoption.com/texts/335.md), [20](https://guptaoption.com/texts/20.md), [827](https://guptaoption.com/texts/827.md). - **Asset Passport conceived**: First idea for the Asset Passport: digital identity for objects,... Led to Mattereum (2017). Read: [165](https://guptaoption.com/texts/165.md), [716](https://guptaoption.com/texts/716.md), [167](https://guptaoption.com/texts/167.md). - **Course of Action**: Plan showing five actions with appropriate technology could... Led to The Future of Stuff (2020). Read: [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md), [10](https://guptaoption.com/texts/10.md), [368](https://guptaoption.com/texts/368.md). - **First Pentagon Proposal: the Hexayurt Research Agenda**: An outline asking for funding to make the Hexayurt an... Read: [850] (no text here), [833](https://guptaoption.com/texts/833.md), [70](https://guptaoption.com/texts/70.md). - **H18**: A tall Hexayurt: 18 panels and 12-foot walls. Led to Quaddome (2011). Read: [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [102](https://guptaoption.com/texts/102.md), [103](https://guptaoption.com/texts/103.md). - **State in a Box**: State in a Box: a plan to rebuild a state on distributed... Led to CheapID (2006). Read: [34](https://guptaoption.com/texts/34.md), [66](https://guptaoption.com/texts/66.md), [35](https://guptaoption.com/texts/35.md). - **Stretch hexayurts and the Pentayurt**: The hexayurt family: 6, 8 and 12 foot hexayurts, stretched... Read: [38](https://guptaoption.com/texts/38.md), [364](https://guptaoption.com/texts/364.md), [825](https://guptaoption.com/texts/825.md). - **The Unplugged**: Speculative fiction about a way of living that could work for nine... Led to Mother of Hydrogen (2012). Read: [108](https://guptaoption.com/texts/108.md), [114](https://guptaoption.com/texts/114.md), [224](https://guptaoption.com/texts/224.md). - **Tribike**: A three-wheeled vehicle, the transport piece of the household kit. Read: [152](https://guptaoption.com/texts/152.md), [289](https://guptaoption.com/texts/289.md). ## 2007 - **Nuclear / mass evacuation** (core): Plan for millions of US refugees after a disaster, epidemic or... Led to Networked Domestic Disaster Response (2007). Read: [335](https://guptaoption.com/texts/335.md), [15](https://guptaoption.com/texts/15.md), [701](https://guptaoption.com/texts/701.md). - **STAR-TIDES** (he contributed) (core): Helped start STAR-TIDES, a National Defense University project on... Led to Defense Horizons 70 (2009). Read: [724](https://guptaoption.com/texts/724.md), [335](https://guptaoption.com/texts/335.md), [850] (no text here). - **Expedient Infrastructure for Transient Populations (EITP)** (he contributed): The 2007 program on shelter and infrastructure for 100,000 to... Read: [740](https://guptaoption.com/texts/740.md), [68](https://guptaoption.com/texts/68.md), [829](https://guptaoption.com/texts/829.md). - **Folding hexayurt** (he contributed): An 8-foot hexayurt that folds into a single flat package and... Read: [270](https://guptaoption.com/texts/270.md), [375](https://guptaoption.com/texts/375.md), [833](https://guptaoption.com/texts/833.md). - **Networked Domestic Disaster Response**: Plan for evacuating millions to tens of millions of US citizens. Led to The Open Toolbox for Domestic... (2008). Read: [335](https://guptaoption.com/texts/335.md), [101](https://guptaoption.com/texts/101.md), [33](https://guptaoption.com/texts/33.md). - **Our Future With Islam: A new perspective on the 'clash of civilizations'**: Strategy deck on how the West and Islam can live together once the... - **Saving the World on the Cheap**: Essay on a new way for charities and governments to fund... Led to Global Village Development Bank (2009). Read: [752](https://guptaoption.com/texts/752.md), [270](https://guptaoption.com/texts/270.md), [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md). - **Winning the Long Peace**: Essay on extending the nation state, aimed at American policy. Read: [30](https://guptaoption.com/texts/30.md). - **disastr.org**: One-page plan to house disaster refugees with host families:... Read: [335](https://guptaoption.com/texts/335.md), [101](https://guptaoption.com/texts/101.md), [27](https://guptaoption.com/texts/27.md). ## 2008 - **Severe Panflu Response Strategies (H5N1)** (core): Strategy for a severe flu pandemic, with H5N1 bird flu as the... Led to FluSCIM (2010). Read: [32](https://guptaoption.com/texts/32.md), [372](https://guptaoption.com/texts/372.md), [320](https://guptaoption.com/texts/320.md). - **Akvo** (he contributed): Water work at Akvo, the Dutch open-source water and sanitation... Led to Global Village Development Bank (2009). Read: [267](https://guptaoption.com/texts/267.md), [78](https://guptaoption.com/texts/78.md), [332] (no text here). - **Briefing to the STAR-TIDES team at National Defense University**: Recorded briefing to the STAR-TIDES team at NDU, with a... Read: [335](https://guptaoption.com/texts/335.md), [833](https://guptaoption.com/texts/833.md), [12](https://guptaoption.com/texts/12.md). - **Ending Poverty With Open Hardware**: Talk: half of all deaths are deaths from poverty, and open... Led to The Future We Deserve: "Facebook for... (2011). Read: [270](https://guptaoption.com/texts/270.md), [341](https://guptaoption.com/texts/341.md), [238](https://guptaoption.com/texts/238.md). - **FREE Guptastan**: Essay on a state-like entity that operates as a guest inside other... Read: [55](https://guptaoption.com/texts/55.md). - **Health insurance for $10 per year using the network**: Google 10^100 entry: medical expert systems on cell phones, pooled... Led to Dog Atheism: on smart contracts,... (2016). Read: [63](https://guptaoption.com/texts/63.md), [249] (no text here), [498](https://guptaoption.com/texts/498.md). - **How to buy food for disasters**: One-page guide to a two-month emergency food supply for about... - **Six ways people die**: Framework: people die of heat, cold, hunger, thirst, illness or... Led to SCIM / INAM (2009). Read: [753](https://guptaoption.com/texts/753.md), [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md), [335](https://guptaoption.com/texts/335.md). - **Soft Development Paths**: Essay applying soft energy paths to the poorest half of humanity:... Led to Lean Green Mattereum: "We aren't... (2020). Read: [33](https://guptaoption.com/texts/33.md), [161](https://guptaoption.com/texts/161.md), [162](https://guptaoption.com/texts/162.md). - **Superstruct and URGENT EVOKE**: The Hexayurt in two of Jane McGonigal's games: in Superstruct... Read: [224](https://guptaoption.com/texts/224.md), [370](https://guptaoption.com/texts/370.md), [368](https://guptaoption.com/texts/368.md). - **The Open Toolbox for Domestic Disaster Response**: A consulting company and paper for getting open source appropriate... Read: [69](https://guptaoption.com/texts/69.md). - **The Physical Aspects of Distributed Infrastructure**: Design study for ultra-low-cost solar thermal homes off the grid:... Led to Ending Poverty With Open Hardware (2008). Read: [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [17](https://guptaoption.com/texts/17.md), [1](https://guptaoption.com/texts/1.md). - **The Second Amendment in Iraq, Combat Robotics, and the Future of Human Liberty**: Blog essay arguing that combat robots would end the balance in... Led to Multipolar Realpolitik (2024). Read: [694](https://guptaoption.com/texts/694.md), [48](https://guptaoption.com/texts/48.md), [30](https://guptaoption.com/texts/30.md). - **What is the Global Swadeshi Network?**: Founding statement of the Global Swadeshi Network, which he... Led to Leashless (2009). Read: [56](https://guptaoption.com/texts/56.md), [333](https://guptaoption.com/texts/333.md), [62](https://guptaoption.com/texts/62.md). - **What's going to happen in the future**: Blog essay naming four trends for the next twenty years: power as... Led to The Big Deal (2011). Read: [57](https://guptaoption.com/texts/57.md), [365](https://guptaoption.com/texts/365.md), [511](https://guptaoption.com/texts/511.md). ## 2009 - **Black Elephant** (he contributed) (core): The black elephant: a foreseeable disaster that institutions... Led to Taming Black Elephants (2017). Read: [128](https://guptaoption.com/texts/128.md), [303](https://guptaoption.com/texts/303.md), [773](https://guptaoption.com/texts/773.md). - **Global Village Development Bank** (core): Design for a decentralized development bank: infrastructure funded... Led to Ethereum launch (2015). Read: [3](https://guptaoption.com/texts/3.md), [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md), [341](https://guptaoption.com/texts/341.md). - **Leashless** (core): Manifesto on property and freedom: nobody with unmet needs is... Led to Copyright and the digital economy: a... (2010). Read: [831](https://guptaoption.com/texts/831.md), [763](https://guptaoption.com/texts/763.md), [65](https://guptaoption.com/texts/65.md). - **SCIM / INAM** (core): Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps: 18 human needs across 7... Led to Global Village Development Bank (2009). Read: [250](https://guptaoption.com/texts/250.md), [322](https://guptaoption.com/texts/322.md), [689](https://guptaoption.com/texts/689.md). - **Three Rules for Designing the Social Enterprise** (core): Two-page paper defining a social enterprise by how it converts... Led to The Private Humanitarian Company (2010). Read: [714](https://guptaoption.com/texts/714.md), [24](https://guptaoption.com/texts/24.md), [236](https://guptaoption.com/texts/236.md). - **Avoiding Capitalism for the Next Four Billion**: Lecture at the Temporary School of Thought: poverty means dying of... Read: [94](https://guptaoption.com/texts/94.md), [238](https://guptaoption.com/texts/238.md), [854](https://guptaoption.com/texts/854.md). - **Buttered Side Down**: A historic risk management consultancy set up with Mike Bennett in... Read: [847](https://guptaoption.com/texts/847.md), [256](https://guptaoption.com/texts/256.md), [213](https://guptaoption.com/texts/213.md). - **Defense Horizons 70** (he contributed): Co-authored National Defense University paper on supporting... Read: [12](https://guptaoption.com/texts/12.md), [121](https://guptaoption.com/texts/121.md), [20](https://guptaoption.com/texts/20.md). - **Free science and engineering in the global public interest**: Talk deck: poverty causes a quarter to a half of 60 million deaths... Read: [67](https://guptaoption.com/texts/67.md), [247](https://guptaoption.com/texts/247.md), [64](https://guptaoption.com/texts/64.md). - **Guardian (open source)** (about him, by others): Guardian piece on the Hexayurt as open-source shelter. Read: [226](https://guptaoption.com/texts/226.md), [161](https://guptaoption.com/texts/161.md), [69](https://guptaoption.com/texts/69.md). - **Hope for the World**: Talk at an emergency housing workshop in Sweden: disaster relief... Led to Six Ways To Die workshops (2009). Read: [270](https://guptaoption.com/texts/270.md), [64](https://guptaoption.com/texts/64.md), [27](https://guptaoption.com/texts/27.md). - **Infrastructure for Anarchists**: Two-hour talk at the Temporary School of Thought in London:... Led to SCIM / INAM (2009). Read: [95](https://guptaoption.com/texts/95.md), [187](https://guptaoption.com/texts/187.md), [89](https://guptaoption.com/texts/89.md). - **Institute for Collapsonomics**: Co-founded a London group studying economies and states at the... Led to Black Elephant (2009). Read: [54](https://guptaoption.com/texts/54.md), [770](https://guptaoption.com/texts/770.md), [96](https://guptaoption.com/texts/96.md). - **Mapping Authority**: Slide deck on why multi-agency operations stall: who can do what,... Read: [1](https://guptaoption.com/texts/1.md), [180](https://guptaoption.com/texts/180.md), [176](https://guptaoption.com/texts/176.md). - **Six Ways To Die workshops**: Week-long design workshops built on Six Ways To Die: at Formens... Read: [187](https://guptaoption.com/texts/187.md), [247](https://guptaoption.com/texts/247.md), [84](https://guptaoption.com/texts/84.md). - **The Flu Code**: Four rules of responsible behavior in a pandemic, a public service... Read: [97](https://guptaoption.com/texts/97.md), [53](https://guptaoption.com/texts/53.md), [178](https://guptaoption.com/texts/178.md). - **The Living City**: A Buttered Side Down talk to the engineering firm Arup, with Mike... Led to The Gupta State Failure Management... (2011). Read: [320](https://guptaoption.com/texts/320.md), [847](https://guptaoption.com/texts/847.md), [250](https://guptaoption.com/texts/250.md). - **Visionary Adaptation**: Four models of change, and the argument that crisis response must... Read: [320](https://guptaoption.com/texts/320.md). ## 2010 - **Dealing in Security** (core): Book setting out Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps: the 18 needs... Led to The Gupta State Failure Management... (2011). Read: [685](https://guptaoption.com/texts/685.md), [60](https://guptaoption.com/texts/60.md). - **Hexayurt Country** (core): Plan to rehouse Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake in... Led to Municipal Administration of Cities... (2013). Read: [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md), [14](https://guptaoption.com/texts/14.md), [38](https://guptaoption.com/texts/38.md). - **Through the Looking Glass** (core): Talk for FEASTA in Ireland on systemic risk: government is the... Led to The Resilience Dividend (2011). Read: [250](https://guptaoption.com/texts/250.md), [849] (no text here), [366](https://guptaoption.com/texts/366.md). - **"Complex systems behave unpredictably": Gupta's law of complex systems**: Blog essay tracing his turn from physics to complexity in his... Led to The Goat Rodeo Index (2010). Read: [74](https://guptaoption.com/texts/74.md), [159](https://guptaoption.com/texts/159.md), [385](https://guptaoption.com/texts/385.md). - **Above the Basin and Tashkent Horizons**: Two short stories: an outbreak on an orbital factory, and an agent... Read: [155](https://guptaoption.com/texts/155.md). - **Camp Danger hinge** (he contributed): Community-designed folding Hexayurt held together by tape hinges. Read: [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [98](https://guptaoption.com/texts/98.md), [751](https://guptaoption.com/texts/751.md). - **Copyright and the digital economy: a case for reason**: Short paper proposing land law, with rights of way and trespass,... Read: [820](https://guptaoption.com/texts/820.md), [252](https://guptaoption.com/texts/252.md), [86](https://guptaoption.com/texts/86.md). - **Enabling humanitarian innovation (TEDxEWB)**: Talk for Engineers Without Borders: poverty is a permanent... Read: [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md), [270](https://guptaoption.com/texts/270.md), [727](https://guptaoption.com/texts/727.md). - **FluSCIM** (about him, by others): Another author's application of the SCIM framework to pandemic flu. Read: [303](https://guptaoption.com/texts/303.md), [689](https://guptaoption.com/texts/689.md), [681](https://guptaoption.com/texts/681.md). - **Free housing and 21st Century Leadership**: Blog essay on the model of personal effectiveness he adopted after... Read: [711](https://guptaoption.com/texts/711.md), [76](https://guptaoption.com/texts/76.md), [251](https://guptaoption.com/texts/251.md). - **H13** (he contributed): Community-designed Hexayurt with a full-height door. Read: [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [364](https://guptaoption.com/texts/364.md), [104](https://guptaoption.com/texts/104.md). - **In a Page**: A series of one-page papers, mostly from spring 2010, each putting... Read: [826](https://guptaoption.com/texts/826.md), [91](https://guptaoption.com/texts/91.md), [148](https://guptaoption.com/texts/148.md). - **New and Developing (Africa Gathering London 2010)**: Talk: the Big Five household interventions, the end of aid, and... Read: [359](https://guptaoption.com/texts/359.md). - **Nuclear Poker**: A card game about nuclear proliferation and deterrence, with a... Read: [776](https://guptaoption.com/texts/776.md). - **Systems reformulated**: Meditation methods reworked and bench-tested privately with a few... Led to The cutting machinery (2015). Read: [576](https://guptaoption.com/texts/576.md), [389](https://guptaoption.com/texts/389.md). - **The Democratic Empire**: One-page scenario of global bankruptcy: the US withdraws, China... - **The Goat Rodeo Index**: A ten-level scale for how hard a governance mess is: many actors,... Led to Why Nothing Works: identifying and... (2010). Read: [88](https://guptaoption.com/texts/88.md), [725](https://guptaoption.com/texts/725.md), [25](https://guptaoption.com/texts/25.md). - **The New Economy: out of money, out of time, but not out of ideas**: One-page paper: the richest fifth are eating the planet, so the... Led to Plausible Utopias (2012). Read: [828](https://guptaoption.com/texts/828.md), [91](https://guptaoption.com/texts/91.md), [148](https://guptaoption.com/texts/148.md). - **The Private Humanitarian Company**: One-page sketch of a company modeled on private military... Read: [827](https://guptaoption.com/texts/827.md), [270](https://guptaoption.com/texts/270.md), [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md). - **The Tiny Army**: Short story about a seven-person army. Led to The Future We Deserve (2012). Read: [107](https://guptaoption.com/texts/107.md). - **To bite the hand that feeds: survival**: Four-page essay: Nash equilibria lock each of us into breaking the... Read: [725](https://guptaoption.com/texts/725.md), [706](https://guptaoption.com/texts/706.md), [305](https://guptaoption.com/texts/305.md). - **Why Nothing Works: identifying and quantifying the Goat Rodeo governance antipattern**: One-page paper: warlord entrepreneurs fill the gap when... Led to Warlords, Inc.: Black Markets,... (2015). Read: [25](https://guptaoption.com/texts/25.md), [88](https://guptaoption.com/texts/88.md), [194](https://guptaoption.com/texts/194.md). ## 2011 - **Quaddome** (he contributed) (core): Community-designed dome in which every triangle is half a 4x8 sheet. Read: [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [322](https://guptaoption.com/texts/322.md), [303](https://guptaoption.com/texts/303.md). - **Truth and Beauty** (core): Hosted a London talk series; speakers included Richard Stallman... Led to The Future We Deserve (2012). Read: [92](https://guptaoption.com/texts/92.md), [26](https://guptaoption.com/texts/26.md), [256](https://guptaoption.com/texts/256.md). - **Avoid Winter War: Hexayurts and #Occupy**: Reply to requests to supply the Occupy camps for winter: after... Read: [75](https://guptaoption.com/texts/75.md), [323](https://guptaoption.com/texts/323.md), [202](https://guptaoption.com/texts/202.md). - **Boing Boing** (about him, by others): Boing Boing interview on the Hexayurt: Tools To Not Die With. Read: [114](https://guptaoption.com/texts/114.md). - **Buy a Castle: Finding Next Generation Resilience in Ireland**: Proposal deck to buy 86 acres with Glengarriff Castle as a dense,... Read: [754](https://guptaoption.com/texts/754.md), [401](https://guptaoption.com/texts/401.md), [497](https://guptaoption.com/texts/497.md). - **C-WASP: Applying Lessons Learned from the War on Drugs to Win the War on Terror**: Satire, co-authored with Lucy Wills: the gangs won the war on... Read: [327](https://guptaoption.com/texts/327.md). - **Creation and Crisis**: Talk at the Thursday Club, Goldsmiths, on how science fiction... Read: [704](https://guptaoption.com/texts/704.md), [213](https://guptaoption.com/texts/213.md). - **Laziness, Impatience and Hubris**: Talk at c-base, Berlin: Larry Wall's three virtues of a programmer... Read: [321](https://guptaoption.com/texts/321.md), [364](https://guptaoption.com/texts/364.md), [172](https://guptaoption.com/texts/172.md). - **RCDS cyber (Tibbs)** (he contributed): Interview for the UK Royal College of Defence Studies' cyber... Led to Ethereum launch (2015). Read: [21](https://guptaoption.com/texts/21.md), [11](https://guptaoption.com/texts/11.md). - **The Big Deal**: Four-essay blog series arguing that government has hit hard... Led to The Future We Deserve (2012). Read: [250](https://guptaoption.com/texts/250.md), [50](https://guptaoption.com/texts/50.md), [52](https://guptaoption.com/texts/52.md). - **The Fiends Give Sudden Chase**: Five very short horror stories, written after reading Charles... Led to The Perimeter: Mythos as Science... (2024). Read: [235](https://guptaoption.com/texts/235.md), [87](https://guptaoption.com/texts/87.md), [389](https://guptaoption.com/texts/389.md). - **The Free City State**: Two talks at The Free School, London: city states, rational... - **The Future We Deserve: "Facebook for the Five Billion?"**: Talk deck at Aston Business School: identity, money and culture... Led to Tell Me Who You Are: Identity,... (2015). Read: [144](https://guptaoption.com/texts/144.md), [31](https://guptaoption.com/texts/31.md), [266](https://guptaoption.com/texts/266.md). - **The Gupta State Failure Management Archive**: 4.3 GB of lectures and documents on state failure and contingency... Read: [52](https://guptaoption.com/texts/52.md), [99](https://guptaoption.com/texts/99.md), [89](https://guptaoption.com/texts/89.md). - **The Resilience Dividend**: Four-page paper: after the 2011 debt-ceiling crisis and riots,... Read: [848] (no text here), [365](https://guptaoption.com/texts/365.md), [363](https://guptaoption.com/texts/363.md). ## 2012 - **Mother of Hydrogen** (core): Novel drawing on the shelter, meditation and pandemic work. Read: [148](https://guptaoption.com/texts/148.md), [155](https://guptaoption.com/texts/155.md), [822](https://guptaoption.com/texts/822.md). - **On Un-Designing the Cryptographic Utopia** (core): Blog essay taking apart the cypherpunk dream of a code-made... Led to Taking a crack at a practical system... (2012). Read: [322](https://guptaoption.com/texts/322.md), [82](https://guptaoption.com/texts/82.md), [81](https://guptaoption.com/texts/81.md). - **Plausible Utopias** (core): Talk deck for the Meaning conference: abundance breaks the... Led to Coase's Blockchain: Can Equity... (2015). Read: [725](https://guptaoption.com/texts/725.md), [823](https://guptaoption.com/texts/823.md), [79](https://guptaoption.com/texts/79.md). - **A Feather for Lifting Anvils: EdgeRyders 2.0**: The EdgeRyders plan for Venture Social Capital: financing local... Led to Hexayurt Capital Partners (2016). Read: [72](https://guptaoption.com/texts/72.md), [24](https://guptaoption.com/texts/24.md), [277](https://guptaoption.com/texts/277.md). - **Blind in the Panopticon: The decreasing marginal utility of access to information as an aspect of cyber policy**: Cyber policy essay: past a point, more surveillance data has... Led to One Network, One World: Designing... (2013). Read: [6](https://guptaoption.com/texts/6.md), [81](https://guptaoption.com/texts/81.md), [21](https://guptaoption.com/texts/21.md). - **Complexity Kills**: Talk on surviving a systemic collapse: pick your team with a... Read: [492](https://guptaoption.com/texts/492.md). - **Sharing our fear can make peace: envisaging military cooperation to avoid Mutually Assured Starvation**: One-page paper: the rational elites who kept nuclear deterrence... Read: [319](https://guptaoption.com/texts/319.md), [706](https://guptaoption.com/texts/706.md), [52](https://guptaoption.com/texts/52.md). - **Taking a crack at a practical system (introducing the ESCROWNYM)**: Blog essay proposing the escrownym: an identity lodged with escrow... Led to UKJT Digital Dispute Resolution Rules (2021). Read: [86](https://guptaoption.com/texts/86.md), [31](https://guptaoption.com/texts/31.md), [716](https://guptaoption.com/texts/716.md). - **The Future We Deserve** (he edited): Essay collection co-edited with Cat Lupton and Noah Raford,... Led to Mother of Hydrogen (2012). Read: [241](https://guptaoption.com/texts/241.md), [106](https://guptaoption.com/texts/106.md), [210](https://guptaoption.com/texts/210.md). - **Tools and language: why government can't manage the 21st century, but we can**: Keynote opening Camp Pixelache 2012 in Helsinki: the Hexayurt... Read: [158](https://guptaoption.com/texts/158.md). ## 2013 - **Municipal Administration of Cities in Crisis** (core): UCL Institute for Security and Resilience Studies paper drawing... Read: [689](https://guptaoption.com/texts/689.md), [8](https://guptaoption.com/texts/8.md), [320](https://guptaoption.com/texts/320.md). - **Exploring Data Generated by Pocket Devices**: UCL Institute for Security and Resilience Studies paper: smart... Led to The Cities That Will Walk Away (2019). Read: [752](https://guptaoption.com/texts/752.md), [18](https://guptaoption.com/texts/18.md), [243](https://guptaoption.com/texts/243.md). - **Governing Bitcoin: what the future holds for our favourite currency**: Bitcoin Expo London talk, November 2013: how bitcoin is governed,... Led to Ethereum launch (2015). Read: [317](https://guptaoption.com/texts/317.md), [80](https://guptaoption.com/texts/80.md), [742](https://guptaoption.com/texts/742.md). - **Hexayurt Project: from sheds to sustainability**: Talk at Electromagnetic Wave 2013, London: what a small shed can... Read: [169](https://guptaoption.com/texts/169.md), [101](https://guptaoption.com/texts/101.md), [76](https://guptaoption.com/texts/76.md). - **One Network, One World: Designing for a 7+ Billion Person World**: Talk at the OHM2013 hacker camp: housing everyone at one planet's... Led to Coase's Blockchain: Can Equity... (2015). Read: [753](https://guptaoption.com/texts/753.md), [169](https://guptaoption.com/texts/169.md), [725](https://guptaoption.com/texts/725.md). - **People's Cloud architecture and futures in 1000 words**: Blog essay: the data center is doomed, its efficiency is bought... Read: [83](https://guptaoption.com/texts/83.md), [280](https://guptaoption.com/texts/280.md), [164](https://guptaoption.com/texts/164.md). - **Swarm Cooperatives (Big Picture Days)**: First of six Big Picture Days at the Limewharf Annex Culture Lab... Read: [85](https://guptaoption.com/texts/85.md), [388] (no text here). - **The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society** (he contributed): Hardin Tibbs's 2013 report of the UK Defence Academy Cyber Inquiry... Read: [143](https://guptaoption.com/texts/143.md), [21](https://guptaoption.com/texts/21.md). - **Why there's no money: the imaginary part of financial systems**: Blog essay: money has a fluid phase, pocket change, and a solid... Led to Half a Trillion Dollars a Year of... (2026). Read: [93](https://guptaoption.com/texts/93.md), [768](https://guptaoption.com/texts/768.md), [441](https://guptaoption.com/texts/441.md). ## 2014 - **A little insight into the Gupta Doctrine**: His "very conservative vision" for global change: six or maybe... Read: [73](https://guptaoption.com/texts/73.md), [148](https://guptaoption.com/texts/148.md), [243](https://guptaoption.com/texts/243.md). - **Hexayurts, Distributed Infrastructure, and Maximizing Global Minimalism**: Talk at Electromagnetic Field 2014: the Hexayurt as engineering... Read: [711](https://guptaoption.com/texts/711.md), [314](https://guptaoption.com/texts/314.md), [161](https://guptaoption.com/texts/161.md). - **How to sell ideas**: Talk at DEVCON0, Ethereum's first developer conference, on... Read: [303](https://guptaoption.com/texts/303.md). - **Stampeding Black Elephants** (about him, by others): Thomas L. Friedman's New York Times column on black elephants. Read: [303](https://guptaoption.com/texts/303.md), [117](https://guptaoption.com/texts/117.md), [223](https://guptaoption.com/texts/223.md). ## 2015 - **Ethereum launch** (he contributed) (core): Release coordinator for the July 2015 launch of Ethereum, the... Led to Mattereum (2017). Read: [164](https://guptaoption.com/texts/164.md), [113](https://guptaoption.com/texts/113.md), [752](https://guptaoption.com/texts/752.md). - **Programmable Blockchains in Context** (core): The launch explainer for Ethereum: where programmable blockchains... Led to ConsenSys (2015). Read: [164](https://guptaoption.com/texts/164.md), [379](https://guptaoption.com/texts/379.md), [757](https://guptaoption.com/texts/757.md). - **Tell Me Who You Are: Identity, institutional memory, and the persistent illusion of the self** (core): ConsenSys essay on what identity is, and how to build identity... Led to Dog Atheism: on smart contracts,... (2016). Read: [163](https://guptaoption.com/texts/163.md), [706](https://guptaoption.com/texts/706.md), [690](https://guptaoption.com/texts/690.md). - **The cutting machinery** (core): A meditation system of three techniques, taught to individuals... Read: [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [764] (no text here). - **Warlords, Inc.: Black Markets, Broken States, and the Rise of the Warlord Entrepreneur** (he contributed) (core): Contributor: wrote chapter 1, Of Warlords and Rodeos: Why Nothing... Read: [25](https://guptaoption.com/texts/25.md), [194](https://guptaoption.com/texts/194.md), [115](https://guptaoption.com/texts/115.md). - **Coase's Blockchain: Can Equity Crowdfunding Accelerate Past Venture Capital?**: Talk arguing that blockchains bring the change to the firm Coase... Led to Ethereum launch (2015). Read: [299](https://guptaoption.com/texts/299.md), [153](https://guptaoption.com/texts/153.md), [244](https://guptaoption.com/texts/244.md). - **ConsenSys** (he contributed): Strategic architect at ConsenSys after the Ethereum launch. Led to Internet of Agreements (2017). Read: [680](https://guptaoption.com/texts/680.md), [679](https://guptaoption.com/texts/679.md), [119](https://guptaoption.com/texts/119.md). - **Dangerous Old Men: Cypherpunk's Failure, Ethereum's Success**: Talk at Devcon 1, the Ethereum developer conference in London, on... Read: [695](https://guptaoption.com/texts/695.md), [684](https://guptaoption.com/texts/684.md), [111](https://guptaoption.com/texts/111.md). - **Guardian (Heap)** (about him, by others): Guardian piece on blockchain for music, quoting Gupta for Ethereum. Read: [225](https://guptaoption.com/texts/225.md), [185](https://guptaoption.com/texts/185.md), [27](https://guptaoption.com/texts/27.md). - **The Ethereum Launch Process**: Ethereum Foundation blog post, written as the new release... Led to Ethereum launch (2015). Read: [113](https://guptaoption.com/texts/113.md), [565](https://guptaoption.com/texts/565.md), [295](https://guptaoption.com/texts/295.md). - **VICE (resilience guru)** (about him, by others): VICE profile: the man whose job is to imagine the total collapse... Read: [229](https://guptaoption.com/texts/229.md), [228](https://guptaoption.com/texts/228.md). ## 2016 - **Hexayurt Capital Partners** (core): Talk on a new venture model: startups as factories for financial... Read: [277](https://guptaoption.com/texts/277.md), [7](https://guptaoption.com/texts/7.md), [113](https://guptaoption.com/texts/113.md). - **Dog Atheism: on smart contracts, risk, and value networks**: Essay drafted live in public: smart contracts as capitalism's... Led to Internet of Agreements (2017). Read: [242](https://guptaoption.com/texts/242.md), [163](https://guptaoption.com/texts/163.md), [694](https://guptaoption.com/texts/694.md). - **Dubai Blockchain Strategy** (he contributed): Helped create Dubai's government blockchain strategy, which aimed... Read: [706](https://guptaoption.com/texts/706.md), [265](https://guptaoption.com/texts/265.md), [276](https://guptaoption.com/texts/276.md). ## 2017 - **A Blockchain Solution For Identity?** (core): Keynote to the Dutch Blockchain Coalition (BC3) at Techruption:... Read: [712](https://guptaoption.com/texts/712.md), [834](https://guptaoption.com/texts/834.md), [39](https://guptaoption.com/texts/39.md). - **Internet of Agreements** (core): Paper at the World Government Summit in Dubai on producing legal... Led to Internet of Agreements conferences (2017). Read: [237](https://guptaoption.com/texts/237.md), [266](https://guptaoption.com/texts/266.md), [271](https://guptaoption.com/texts/271.md). - **Mattereum** (core): Founder and CEO of Mattereum, which turns every claim about a... Led to Internet of Agreements (2017). Read: [42](https://guptaoption.com/texts/42.md), [165](https://guptaoption.com/texts/165.md), [716](https://guptaoption.com/texts/716.md). - **Digital Catapult Blockchain Fellow** (he contributed): Blockchain Fellow at Digital Catapult, the UK government-funded... Read: [211](https://guptaoption.com/texts/211.md), [611] (no text here). - **Forbes** (about him, by others): Forbes interview on why Ethereum is the future. Read: [215](https://guptaoption.com/texts/215.md), [111](https://guptaoption.com/texts/111.md), [481](https://guptaoption.com/texts/481.md). - **Internet of Agreements conferences**: Hosted four London conferences on blockchain agreements: law,... Led to Mattereum (2017). Read: [39](https://guptaoption.com/texts/39.md), [647](https://guptaoption.com/texts/647.md), [618](https://guptaoption.com/texts/618.md). - **Taming Black Elephants** (about him, by others): Singapore's former civil service head took up the black elephant... Read: [683](https://guptaoption.com/texts/683.md), [171](https://guptaoption.com/texts/171.md), [159](https://guptaoption.com/texts/159.md). ## 2018 - **Breaker** (about him, by others): Breaker interview: tokenizing the world as the best way to save it. Read: [116](https://guptaoption.com/texts/116.md), [60](https://guptaoption.com/texts/60.md), [158](https://guptaoption.com/texts/158.md). - **TechCrunch** (about him, by others): TechCrunch coverage of Mattereum at Disrupt Berlin. Read: [183](https://guptaoption.com/texts/183.md). ## 2019 - **Product information markets**: The Mattereum Manifesto: markets for warranted facts about... Led to Spiral economy (2023). Read: [165](https://guptaoption.com/texts/165.md), [252](https://guptaoption.com/texts/252.md), [672](https://guptaoption.com/texts/672.md). - **The Cities That Will Walk Away**: Talk on rehousing 300 million climate migrants in new cities, and... Led to Multipolar Realpolitik (2024). Read: [752](https://guptaoption.com/texts/752.md), [727](https://guptaoption.com/texts/727.md), [171](https://guptaoption.com/texts/171.md). - **William Shatner collectibles with Mattereum**: Mattereum partnership with William Shatner giving memorabilia... Read: [252](https://guptaoption.com/texts/252.md), [565](https://guptaoption.com/texts/565.md), [758](https://guptaoption.com/texts/758.md). ## 2020 - **Lean Green Mattereum: "We aren't just here to change the world, we're here to fix it"** (core): 162-page deck tying it together: poverty and climate are one... Led to Spiral economy (2023). Read: [236](https://guptaoption.com/texts/236.md), [723](https://guptaoption.com/texts/723.md), [714](https://guptaoption.com/texts/714.md). - **The Future of Stuff** (core): Book on the philosophy under Mattereum: risk and morality in deals... Led to Spiral economy (2023). Read: [239](https://guptaoption.com/texts/239.md), [793](https://guptaoption.com/texts/793.md), [735](https://guptaoption.com/texts/735.md). - **CoinDesk** (about him, by others): CoinDesk interview on an identity layer for physical things. Read: [206](https://guptaoption.com/texts/206.md), [42](https://guptaoption.com/texts/42.md), [165](https://guptaoption.com/texts/165.md). ## 2021 - **UKJT Digital Dispute Resolution Rules** (he contributed) (core): Consulted on UK rules for resolving disputes over smart contracts;... Led to Multipolar Realpolitik (2024). Read: [730](https://guptaoption.com/texts/730.md), [160](https://guptaoption.com/texts/160.md), [42](https://guptaoption.com/texts/42.md). - **Stimson Center Loomis Council** (he contributed): Member of the Loomis Council at the Stimson Center, a think tank... ## 2022 - **IG Wines with Mattereum**: Mattereum partnership with IG Wines to create digital tokens for... Read: [594](https://guptaoption.com/texts/594.md), [199](https://guptaoption.com/texts/199.md). - **West London City Lets land sale as an NFT**: Mattereum was tech partner on a UK land sale run as an NFT: a... Read: [571](https://guptaoption.com/texts/571.md), [668](https://guptaoption.com/texts/668.md), [586](https://guptaoption.com/texts/586.md). ## 2023 - **Hexacloak** (core): A hooded cloak from standard 60-inch cloth with no manufacturing... Led to Hexayurt Refugee Shelter (MICA,... (2024). Read: [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [724](https://guptaoption.com/texts/724.md), [727](https://guptaoption.com/texts/727.md). - **Hexacoat**: A hooded coat cut from woobie blanket fabric, made to order by a... Led to Hexacloak (2023). Read: [37](https://guptaoption.com/texts/37.md), [294](https://guptaoption.com/texts/294.md), [374](https://guptaoption.com/texts/374.md). - **Pop-up hexayurt**: A Hexayurt made flat with taped seams that opens in one motion. Read: [36](https://guptaoption.com/texts/36.md), [152](https://guptaoption.com/texts/152.md), [212](https://guptaoption.com/texts/212.md). - **Spiral economy**: Economic idea: keep goods whole and route them down through... Read: [793](https://guptaoption.com/texts/793.md), [702](https://guptaoption.com/texts/702.md), [469](https://guptaoption.com/texts/469.md). - **Swarm with Mattereum**: Mattereum partnership with Swarm, a regulated German exchange, to... Read: [565](https://guptaoption.com/texts/565.md), [44](https://guptaoption.com/texts/44.md), [43](https://guptaoption.com/texts/43.md). - **The Salim Ismail Podcast (episode 4)** (about him, by others): Guest on The Salim Ismail Podcast, hosted by the OpenExO co-founder. Read: [376](https://guptaoption.com/texts/376.md). ## 2024 - **Multipolar Realpolitik** (core): Essays arguing that a global truce among a few great powers, with... Led to Climate Projections 2: A lot of very... (2025). Read: [243](https://guptaoption.com/texts/243.md), [319](https://guptaoption.com/texts/319.md), [846](https://guptaoption.com/texts/846.md). - **The Perimeter: Mythos as Science Fiction, and other works** (core): Story collection: worst-case scenario planning meets the Cthulhu... Read: [235](https://guptaoption.com/texts/235.md). - **Hexayurt Refugee Shelter (MICA, Baltimore)**: A lecture and a roundtable with Bryan Hellard at the Maryland... Led to Multipolar Realpolitik (2024). Read: [724](https://guptaoption.com/texts/724.md), [727](https://guptaoption.com/texts/727.md), [844](https://guptaoption.com/texts/844.md). - **MATR**: A discount token from Mattereum's German subsidiary. Read: [45](https://guptaoption.com/texts/45.md), [557](https://guptaoption.com/texts/557.md), [120](https://guptaoption.com/texts/120.md). - **VICE (stop the future)** (about him, by others): VICE profile: Vinay Gupta explains how to stop the future from... Read: [230](https://guptaoption.com/texts/230.md), [228](https://guptaoption.com/texts/228.md). ## 2025 - **Climate Projections 2: A lot of very boring graphs which all go upwards**: Slide deck: warming is outrunning the models and emissions cuts... Read: [819] (no text here), [704](https://guptaoption.com/texts/704.md), [359](https://guptaoption.com/texts/359.md). - **VICE (print)** (about him, by others): VICE print interview in The Rock Bottom Issue. Read: [231](https://guptaoption.com/texts/231.md), [228](https://guptaoption.com/texts/228.md). ## 2026 - **Half a Trillion Dollars a Year of Magic: Blockchain, AI, and the Future of the Built Environment** (core): Mattereum essay: combine AI with the blockchain into... Read: [167](https://guptaoption.com/texts/167.md), [559](https://guptaoption.com/texts/559.md), [557](https://guptaoption.com/texts/557.md). - **OpenExO OS Pilot** (he contributed): Program manager for the OpenExO OS Pilot, a program on rebuilding... Read: [220](https://guptaoption.com/texts/220.md).