Bitcoin ‘fixes democracy’ and fights corruption: Human Rights Foundation

by · February 21, 2023

Bitcoin fixes broken democracies and fights government corruption by limiting its power to control the people, argues Bitcoin attorney and chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, Alex Gladstein.

In an interview on February 20, Gladstein argued that the decentralized nature of Bitcoin (BTC) can act as a barrier against corruption and tyranny.

“Where democracies have broken down, I think it’s very clearly tied to fiat currency, and I think Bitcoin kind of fixes that,” he said.

Gladstein is head of strategy at HRF and has served non-profit organization since 2007. The foundation is focused on promoting and protecting human rights globally – especially in countries where the people live “under authoritarian rule”.

Gladstein also lectures on Bitcoin and the future of money at Singularity University events, according to his bio.

Gladstein said during the interview that Bitcoin represents freedom of speech, property rights and open capital markets, all of which are stifling to a tyrannical government, which often needs censorship, confiscation and closed capital markets. He stated:

“This is what China and Russia need to survive, they need censorship, they need close capital markets and they need confiscation; Bitcoin makes it very difficult for governments to impose these things on their people.”

Both Russia and China have been hostile to crypto in the past. The Chinese government banned virtually all crypto transactions in 2021. However, the upcoming crypto licensing regime in Hong Kong has led to speculation that China’s stance on crypto has softened.

Russia’s major crypto law, “On Digital Financial Assets,” officially banned the use of crypto for payment purposes in 2020. The law did not prohibit Russians from investing in crypto, but local crypto exchanges have remained unregulated.

“I don’t see these dictatorial powers doing well in a Bitcoin standard; I think it will be very difficult for them, Gladstein added.

Gladstein’s argument about crypto echoes similar views of others in the past. Bitcoin infrastructure provider OpenNode expressed similar sentiments in a 2021 post about the benefit BTC donations had in avoiding authoritative crackdowns.

“One of the advantages of Bitcoin is its censorship resistance,” OpenNode wrote at the time.

“With no central authority to dictate who can and cannot use Bitcoin, it has proven to be the currency of choice for many individuals and organizations who have been left out of traditional payment methods.”

According to a February 2022 survey by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, one of the biggest reasons for embracing blockchain-based fundraising was to avoid traditional accounts being closed by financial institutions.

Related: Blockchain is the only viable path to privacy and censorship resistance in the 21st century

Gladstein predicts that there will be many more “trigger moments” in the coming years of people having “technical and liquidity issues with traditional financial services”, which will lead to more people moving to BTC as an alternative.

“If there’s a conflict or a breakdown in commerce or communication, you’re just going to see a whole hell of a lot of problems, and every single one of those is like a moment that’s going to create a new Bitcoiner out of necessity,” he said.