Canadian truckers and their supporters have been protesting vaccine mandates. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the country’s Emergencies Act in response to ongoing demonstrations at the capitol and at major border crossings. The power granted by this act includes a strong financial component. From the Washington Post:
Financial institutions such as banks will have the authority to freeze or suspend the accounts of people believed to be involved with the blockades without a court order and to temporarily cease providing financial services to them. The country’s money-laundering and terrorism financing rules will also be widened to cover crowdfunding sites such as GoFundMe and GiveSendGo and payment service providers that have been used to funnel funds, including cryptocurrencies, to the protesters. The owners of trucks being used in the blockades could also have their insurance suspended and their corporate accounts frozen.
In 2010, as a result of US government pressure, card providers and financial institutions halted service to Wikileaks. To get around the financial blockade, the media organization began accepting bitcoin donations. This saved Wikileaks. In so doing, it proved that even a major government can't stop crypto.
For this reason, it's interesting that the WaPo article above says that "The country’s money-laundering and terrorism financing rules will also be widened to cover ... cryptocurrencies." What exactly this means isn't clear from the article. But I don't like the sound of it.
Several articles I've read about the demonstrations mention American money supporting the truckers. This is cast in negative light, but I don't see what the problem is. Are Americans suddenly not allowed to donate money to international causes?
Personally, I oppose mandates and support the truckers. I also understand that the vast majority of funds donated to them are piped directly into the fossil fuel industry, which is disgusting. And if the Canadian government is using the situation as a pretense for an expansion of crypto regulation, that's pretty gross, too.
With the new rules in effect, the Canadian government appears determined to bring an end to the demonstrations. Demonstrators may respond by becoming increasingly decentralized. If they know the story Wikileaks, they might even pivot to mostly crypto donations to avoid government interference. This seems unlikely, but possible.
Is there good existing infrastructure for crypto crowdfunding and grassroots distribution of funds? I'm not sure there is. Nothing I've come across anyway. The tech is uncomplicated, but platform implementations need to be user friendly, and this is where the crypto world falls short. Maybe the Canadian truckers will inspire a BTC kickstarter that can't be stopped in a technical sense.
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
Read my novels:
Check out the comic I wrote:
Read my autobiographical monograph:
