"When the Canadian dollar becomes worthless, we will be here to serve you, too."
That was our closing reply to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2022, when they ordered us to freeze and disclose information about the bitcoin involved in the Freedom Convoy protest.
The story of how that email came about has never been told. Today, we’re sharing that story, and how that event forged our DNA & mission.
***
February 2022. The Freedom Convoy protest was paralyzing Ottawa. Two years of lockdowns and mandates had created incredible social tension.
On Feb 14, Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history. It was designed for wars or terrorism; it was now being used against protesters.
Protesters’ bank accounts were frozen without due process. GoFundMe seized $10M in donations at the government’s request. The RCMP demanded that financial firms blacklist Bitcoin addresses.
The Ontario Securities Commission flagged tweets by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Kraken CEO Jesse Powell criticizing the use of the Emergencies Act to law enforcement. Balaji Srinivasan questioned whether Canada was still a “democracy”. Police began mobilizing in Canada’s capital.
The authorities seemed willing to use everything, even extraordinary measures, to quash the protest.
Many Bitcoin companies backed away, despite having millions in funding.
Jesse Powell, having previously donated one bitcoin to the protest, warned users that Kraken “cannot protect you” from the Canadian government. Elon Musk, who voiced support for the protesters, tweeted “I wish I could help. At this point, it seems that voting at the next election is the remedy.” Even powerful CEOs seemed powerless in the situation.
Then, we received the Mareva injunction.
Nunchuk, a tiny startup still in its infancy, was ordered to freeze assets and disclose information. We are self-custodial and technically unable to comply. But the threat was serious.
The pressure was immense. We had no idea how far the Canadian government was willing to go. And judging by what they had done: very far.
Concerned about the risks to their families, two members of our team decided to quit.
It was an existential crisis.
To complicate the situation, my own personal life was in upheaval.
Around the time the Emergencies Act was invoked, I learned that I would soon become a father.
I went from pure joy to total distress within a week. I thought about the world my child was going to grow up in.
I thought about why I started a Bitcoin company in the first place.
If Bitcoin couldn’t matter in a situation where people needed it most, what good is it? How is it any different from the corrupt, permissioned financial system we grew up with? The one that brought the world to its knees in the Great Financial Crisis, along with many other social woes that we’ve only begun to understand since the shift in 1971? What’s the point of it all?
What will I tell my son about what happened in February 2022?
Then I sat down and wrote the reply.
That email became our North Star. It clarified our mission: to build tools that maximize individual financial freedom and privacy, minimizing reliance on any third party.
"Trusted third parties are security holes", as the great Nick Szabo once said.
This event taught us that true sovereignty requires technologies designed to withstand pressure. Not just from governments, but from time itself.
If we are to secure wealth for generations, our solutions must eliminate ALL single points of failure. They must be designed to outlive us.
Today we announce the next major step in that mission: the realization of our commitment to trust-minimized generational security.
Today we introduce the first assisted Bitcoin inheritance solution, designed to outlive the company that created it. It’s the culmination of all the work we’ve done since that fateful day in 2022. You can read about it here:
https://nunchuk.io/blog/autonomous-inheritance
Bitcoin has always supported spending rules (multisig, time delays), but they were complex and risky to implement.
Miniscript structures these rules like Lego blocks, making advanced custody safe, simple, and verifiable.
We didn't just add a few pre-baked scripts.
Nunchuk now supports *generalized* Miniscript. You can create any policy supported under standard Bitcoin rules.
Use our friendly templates, or craft custom spending rules if you're advanced.
Complex policies involving multiple parties require coordination. Doing this over insecure channels (email, messengers) is a major security risk.
Nunchuk solves this. Our E2EE Group Wallets now support Miniscript out of the box.
The entire setup is encrypted, with built-in chat for secure coordination.
This combination lets you build wallets that adapt to real life needs, such as:
🧊 Timelocked inheritance plan
🏛️ Business treasuries with layered approvals & fallbacks
🤝 Non-custodial escrow for OTC trades
👻 Private multi-party wallets that look like single-sig on-chain
You have options.
Prefer simple and widely compatible? Use Native SegWit.
Want advanced privacy and efficiency?
• Taproot hides unused spending branches.
• MuSig2 aggregates multiple signers into one signature (key path or script path).
The choice is yours.
We support major hardware vendors today:
Native SegWit Miniscript: COLDCARD, Tapsigner, Blockstream Jade, Ledger, Specter DIY
Taproot Miniscript: COLDCARD, Ledger, Specter DIY
MuSig2: Software keys only (for now).
More coming as vendors ship support.
Zooming out: These tools (verifiable policies, secure collaboration, advanced scripting) are the primitives of a new financial system.
Fair, open, and anchored to sound money.
Download the Nunchuk app and give it a try.
🤖 Android: