In light of recent protests against the COVID-19 measures in Canada, the elected party has decided to classify illegal blockades of streets as terrorism and allow banks to freeze accounts linked to the funding of said campaigns. Some people are now turning to Bitcoin as a censorship-resistant platform.
Canada is currently going through a series of protests caused by the enacted COVID-19 measures and citizens are making social as well as economic demands. These protests reached their peak a few days ago. Trudeau and other officials announced that banks may freeze the accounts of people who are obstructing the streets without the need for a court order. This is the first time the Canadian government has invoked the Emergencies Act to crack down on illegal protests.
Bitcoin as a decentralized alternative
In addition to freezing bank accounts, the administration also plans to add detainees to a misconduct file. Once on it, they will be banned from accessing certain types of employment, as well as being deemed as terrorists. As a reaction, some people have been fleeing to cryptocurrencies to protect them against a potential freezing of their accounts by the government. This is a spectacular use-case for Bitcoin, thanks to one of its most precious characteristics: it can’t be confiscated by a central party. Due to its design and operation, Bitcoin is a powerful financial tool of true individual economic sovereignty, where no government, company, or institution can control or centralize its operation.
I really am shocked how aggressively Canada is in its efforts to show the world why #Bitcoin was created.
You can’t freeze it. You can’t censor. You can’t collect information on your political opponents. This is freedom money.
— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) February 19, 2022
Canada has a generally solid economy, with a population that does not necessarily need to use cryptocurrencies to protect against inflationary phenomena, like in Latin America or other places. However, in the face of an eventual individual financial blockade, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be an effective mechanism to overcome this. Of course the Canadian government has already tried to react by announcing the freezing of "crypto accounts". Although this might be effective against coins held on centralized exchanges, it is near impossible to enforce a ban on self-custodied crypto usage.
