A War-Torn Country in Syria Will Use Crypto to Power an Anarchist State

Because its primary currency is the Syrian lira, also the main currency of the Syrian state, there's a belief cryptocurrency could be an "Alternative," Erselan Serdem, a leader of the project's technological development program, told CoinDesk.

Alongside a system of self-governing communes, Rojava plans to implement new technological academies, with a particular emphasis on cryptography and cryptocurrency, Serdem said.

"You need technology to spend less water, you need technology to have an equal relation with the earth, you need technology to use networks, like the blockchain. We see blockchain as a practical network in society that people use," Serdem said.

While achieving adoption for a cryptocurrency throughout the region is an ambitious project, Serdem believes Rojava's experience in war has given it the ability to both organize effectively and to set a positive example for the world.

While work remains before cryptocurrency is actionable in the region, Taaki and Serdem emphasized that the steps are necessary to ensure Rojava's autonomy from neighboring forces.

"We do not like to depend on the Syrian government money, which is state money, we want to trade our own cryptocurrency," Serdem said.

Still, Serdem emphasized that an underlying analysis must be completed before cryptocurrency can be implemented, an analysis he believes will require intensive documentation of human population, geographical surveys and natural resources, such as oil, water and sunlight.

"With technologies like blockchain we can have a system, like a network, between all the communes we're going to create in the future," Serdem said,.

"Rojava is a good opportunity to see how it works in practice," Serdem said.

According to Serdem, Rojava represents the last opportunity for which such a revolution in possible - to overthrow the old system of globalization, capitalist exploitation, and a new form of consumer slavery.