THERE WAS A time when it was fair to question whether bitcoin was an effective tool for liberty. In its first few years, when the digital currency didn't have many users, wasn't worth very much, and lacked global markets, it was more a dream than a lifeline. But those days are long gone. Today, millions of people-especially in dictatorships and collapsing economies-rely on bitcoin to give them liberty that governments and corporations try to steal away.
Most bitcoin users aren't "freedom fighters" or "dissidents" in the classic sense. Some are: human rights activists in Belarus, investigative journalists in Russia, humanitarians in Ukraine, feminists in Nigeria, pro-democracy organizers in Togo, educators in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, and even whistleblowers in the West. But the vast majority are simply people finding value in a financial network that can't be devalued, censored, or stopped. One doesn't need to see oneself as a revolutionary to want a digital form of cash that doesn't require ID and doesn't need permission from the state to operate. One might just be trying to escape from a broken fiat system.
If liberty is freedom and self-sovereignty, then bitcoin is the purest expression of financial liberty. It gives anyone-regardless of birthplace, nationality, age, gender, creed, skin color, education, or wealth-access to the best-performing financial asset of the last decade. It lets anyone with a cellphone send and receive value from anyone else, regardless of what governments think and regardless of borders and political restrictions.
Bitcoin is a superb tool for fundraising for human rights groups and journalists at risk. But it's also-much more importantly in terms of global economic volume-a superb tool for merchants accepting payments from customers in a different country, for employers making payments to employees or contractors half a world away, or for laborers sending remittances to families overseas.
This story is from the May 2023 edition of Reason magazine.
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This story is from the May 2023 edition of Reason magazine.
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