Bitcoin as a human rights platform

As we approach Human Rights Day on December 10, 2022, it is important to consider human rights and how BitcoinBTC
is used as a platform to protect the human rights of various communities around the world.

According to Freedom House, approximately 2.977 billion people live under authoritarian regimes. If you live in a free economy where your rights are protected, you have access to financial services, and your national currency is relatively stable, you probably consider Bitcoin another speculative asset or store of value.

The privacy of financial transactions is eroding as transactions rapidly shift from cash to the digital world, requiring strict know-your-customer (KYC) procedures to be on board. You have the right to privacy and a private life according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 12), the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 8) and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights (Article 7). How does traditional finance violate your right to privacy and how does Bitcoin address this?

“Without economic privacy, you don’t have political rights.” In his podcast, Andreas M. Antonopoulos described how a group of Chinese protesters were tracked down for using their metro cards while protesting. They had learned a hard lesson about financial privacy during the previous protest, so they wore masks and paid for subway tickets with cash at the subsequent one.

Although quite controversial, JPMorgan ChaseJPM
deplatformed Kanye West last week without giving a reason. While it’s big news that this is happening in the US, the one-third of the world that lives in authoritarian regimes faces this more often than you’d think.

Bitcoin’s role as freedom money was best demonstrated during the Freedom Convoy, when the Canadian government froze donations to protesters channeled through traditional financial institutions controlled or regulated by the government. Because the government could not control, ban, block, or confiscate bitcoin sent directly to protesters, they had to rely on bitcoin donations to continue exercising their political rights.

By acting as a store of value that governments cannot inflate through central bank monetary expansion, Bitcoin gives people the right to own property. Due to corruption and irresponsible borrowing, a large number of frontier and emerging economies are heavily indebted. To keep up with dollar debt repayments, they print more of their currencies, inflating them and effectively stealing value from citizens who have savings.

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For example, in Nigeria, after the sharp devaluation of the Naira, the government implemented policies to limit capital flight, such as $20 monthly limits for citizens. To protect their value from central bank printing, many Nigerians have resorted to bitcoin as a store of value and as a means of transacting internationally, thereby bypassing the limits of the US dollar.

Bitcoin protects your freedom to trade. You can send and receive value to anyone, anywhere, as long as they have an Internet-connected device or a feature phone, as pioneered by Machankura in Africa. Machankura’s platform, which is currently available in nine African countries, enables Africans to send and receive bitcoin using the lightning network without the need for an internet connection. On both feature phones and smartphones, it uses a USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) service.

Authoritarian regimes can use a wide range of individual or societal characteristics to justify freezing your bank account or discriminating against you. Religion, skin colour, sexual orientation, political views, country of birth, environmental, social and governance (ESG) opinions and many other factors can be considered.

Bitcoin does not discriminate and provides a level playing field for everyone. Because the traditional financial system easily allows such regimes to overreach and freeze their funds, dissidents fighting the evils of authoritarian regimes find bitcoin a platform to exercise their rights and freedoms.

Bitcoin gives you the right to free movement since it is borderless. If you need to cruise through the borders of different countries with your money, there are often a large number of bottlenecks to overcome, including currency risks, while Bitcoin allows you to move seamlessly.

According to Anita Porsch, founder of Bitcoin For Fairness, 75 economies in the world restrict women’s rights to manage assets. This varies from women’s inability to own or inherit property due to their country’s laws and cultures. Bitcoin allows these women to secretly own Bitcoin and use it as collateral for loans.

Disclosure: I own bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.