From feminist organizations in Nigeria and Afghan activists, to NGOs in Belarus and the Canadian trucker protest, protest groups around the world are discovering the power of bitcoin as a politically neutral and censorship-resistant money.

Bitcoin is a decentralized network without a central authority. No party can turn the knobs on its own. As a result, monetary policy is immutable, but it also allows no one to block users and transactions or confiscate funds. Due to its decentralized nature, Bitcoin has the rare characteristics of being politically neutral and censorship-resistant money.

Fortunately, most people do not often have to deal with financial censorship, because it is an extremely severe sanction. Financial censorship can mean stopping services, confiscating money, freezing accounts or blocking transactions. Without a payment option, you cannot buy food or goods, pay rent or bills, or campaign or protest.

It is a modern kind of exile, basically intended for criminal or terrorist organizations and national threats. However, governments are also increasingly using it against activists and political opponents. All over the world, all kinds of protest groups are discovering – whether or not out of necessity – the power of bitcoin as politically neutral and censorship-resistant money.

afghanistan

In Afghanistan, the non-profit organization Code to Inspire worked to teach programming to young Afghan girls. Since the takeover of the country by the Taliban, the organization has continued to teach, mainly virtually, but famine has increasingly proved to be a bigger problem than lack of education. Today, the organization therefore mainly focuses on providing food aid.

Fereshteh Forough of Code to Inspire looked for ways to send money to students in need. However, due to imposed sanctions, banks refused to cooperate. In addition, many students indicated that local bank branches had closed or that limits or other restrictions were in place.

She found an alternative method in cryptocurrency to get the emergency money to the girls. Forough sends the money via a stablecoin and in Afghanistan the girls convert the amount to the local currency at a local exchange. “We’ve created a secure way for our girls to exchange their crypto and cover their expenses, so they can pay for medical expenses and food and whatever is needed,” Forough told The Intercept.

“I still can’t believe I was able to receive money in such a transparent way without the fear of it being confiscated in some way,” said the anonymized TN, a 21-year-old student from Herat.

Canada

There is a lot going on in Canada right now. In response to the trucker protest, the government declared a state of emergency and, with the additional powers, applied financial censorship to stop the protest. Protestant accounts were frozen and fundraising through donation websites was blocked. Protesting truckers also risk insurance being cancelled.

Shortly after regular donation websites ceased service, the truckers found an alternative way to raise funds in bitcoin. In a short time, about 21 BTC in donations came in, worth about ???????700,000 euros.

Those bitcoins may now be on a sanctions list, because the Canadian government identified 34 wallets and required exchanges to block transactions from and to the wallets. Reportedly, the funds raised are now being distributed through direct peer-to-peer transactions.

Nigeria

In Nigeria, resistance to the excessive police brutality of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit grew. The SARS unit was accused of false checks, extortion, robberies, torture and even extrajudicial executions. In October 2020, Nigerians took to the streets en masse to protest under the banner of #EndSARS.

Financial censorship was soon applied to quell the protests. The bank accounts of the Feminist Coalition, one of the organizers of the protests, were frozen and fundraising through a donation website was blocked.

The Human Rights Foundation, however, helped the Feminist Coalition set up its own BTCPay server, after which the organization received more than ??150,000 in bitcoin donations. The Feminist Coalition used it to fund 128 protests and eventually ceased fundraising when the SARS unit was disbanded.

Russia

Activist Alexey Navalny is Russia’s most outspoken political opponent of President Putin. He has been in opposition for years and in the past he would run for president, but the Russian government put a stop to that.

Navalny was arrested several times over the years and the Russian government designated his non-profit organization The Anti-Corruption Foundation as an extremist group. In 2020, Navalny was airlifted to a hospital in Berlin due to poisoning with a nerve agent. According to Navalny, Russian intelligence services were responsible. Upon his return to Russia, Navalny was immediately arrested and is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in one of Russia’s toughest prisons.

It is illegal to donate to ‘extremist groups’. Donating through traditional ways is therefore practically impossible. Leonid Volkov, one of Navalny’s allies, pointed out that it is nevertheless extremely important to continue fundraising, but that donors must be protected in the process.

“It’s not that easy at the moment – the money flows within the Russian banking system are so clear and transparent to the Russian state, and that’s why you and I should stay away from it ,” Volkov told his followers on social media. “Since the state denies us the simple and understandable donation methods, it means we have to patiently explain to each other how to use cryptocurrencies, and we will teach ourselves.”

Belarus

There was a lot of unrest after the elections in Belarus in 2020. Lukashenko, sometimes referred to as ‘Europe’s last dictator’, claimed victory, but part of the population did not trust the election results and took to the streets in protest.

The government acted harshly. Thousands of arrests followed and hundreds of people were allegedly tortured. Journalists, political opponents and activists were imprisoned and hundreds of non-profits and NGOs were shut down by government action.

However, the Bysol Foundation managed to survive. Bysol is an NGO dedicated to helping political prisoners, activists and striking workers. The government therefore labeled Bysol an extremist organization and all traditional financial resources were blocked.

The organization found cryptocurrency – presumably bitcoin – as an alternative way of fundraising and distribution. “Cryptocurrency turned out to be safer than other ways of getting money into the country. The government has blocked all the classic ways of getting money into the country, so we had to find an alternative,” Bysol’s Andrey Strizhak explained to Euronews.

Bysol is said to have distributed ??2.9 million in funds in 2020 to support more than 300 families and political prisoners.

Wikileaks

Wikileaks discovered bitcoin years ago. The whistleblower organization published secret and controversial documents, after which banks and financial service providers ceased services. It made fundraising virtually impossible – except with bitcoin.

In June 2011, Wikileaks began accepting bitcoin donations and for three years it was the primary fundraising method. During that period, Wikileaks published documents about Guantanamo Bay, Stratfor, Syria and about abuses at surveillance companies, among other things. Wikileaks also helped the whistleblower Edward Snowden escape from Hong Kong during this period.

At the time, Satoshi Nakamoto was unenthusiastic about Wikileaks’ embrace of bitcoin. “It would be nice to get this attention in a different context,” Satoshi wrote concernedly, “WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is heading our way . “

Lifebuoy

Bitcoin is an open, decentralized and politically neutral network protocol that offers a level playing field for everyone. In the west, it is mainly seen as a speculative asset or as a hedge against inflation, while in other countries the benefits of financial inclusion and cheaper international transfers are seen. For human rights groups and activists, however, it is sometimes a means of survival – a last straw to cling to.

?ǣWhether they know it or not, people who buy bitcoin are empowering a tool that protects human rights,?ǥ says Alex Gladstein of The Human Rights Foundation, ?ǣFor millions of people worldwide, it is an escape hatch from tyranny ??? nothing short of freedom money.?ǥ

The reverse side of the coin

However, the knife cuts both ways: criminals and terrorist organizations can also be interested in bitcoin for similar reasons. The network is accessible to everyone, including them. A bit like the internet is.

Still, it provides food for thought. Because of the risks, should we strengthen the gatekeepers even more and expand surveillance even further, or do we perhaps lose something by doing so? Peter Van Valkenburgh, Director of Research at Coin Center, spoke at a U.S. Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation hearing on the matter.

?ǣFor every transaction that we would like to see blocked, there is another transaction that we should celebrate being a stopgable one ,?ǥ Van Valkenburgh said.

?ǣYes, there are criminals who make payments through the Bitcoin network because they cannot bank through the banks. There are also pro-democracy activists in Belarus and anti-police brutality protestors in Nigeria who receive donations through the Bitcoin network, because they banks cannot bank ,” said Van Valkenburgh. According to him, we as a society have arrived at a decision point.

Above: Peter van Valkenburgh at the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation

Should scientific knowledge be freely available? The website Sci-Hub thinks so and therefore offers more than 80 million research publications for free despite copyright violations. The site is therefore banned by financial institutions, but does receive donations in bitcoin.