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*WHY BITCOIN IS FREEDOM MONEY Alex Gladstein*
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The combined weight of national policies and corporate decisions often freezes out millions. Citizens in countries like Iran, for instance, are denied easy payment networks and global goods—privileges enjoyed in Western democracies. This financial repression, often overlooked, is profoundly impactful, for while not everyone is a journalist, everyone uses money. Only about 13 percent of the world enjoys both liberal democracy and a reserve currency; the other 87 percent contend with authoritarian regimes or collapsing fiat.
This reality forces democracy activists to Bitcoin. Russian advocate Ruslan Shaveddinov of Team Navalny learned firsthand when Revolut, his "favorite bank," yielded to Putin’s government and blocked his accounts, proving bank accounts are political tools. For activists within dictatorships, traditional financial rails are often inaccessible; a foreign grant to a Turkish democracy organization, for example, is almost certainly monitored or seized.
The U.S. dollar often fails human-rights advocates. Roya Mahboob, an Afghan humanitarian, faced a system where mobile money, PayPal, and Venmo were unavailable, and cash was seized from women. She turned to Bitcoin, enabling her employees to earn and save; one later used her Bitcoin to fund a new life in Germany. Mahboob now funds underground education in Afghanistan with Bitcoin, a task technologically impossible via the dollar banking system. Similarly, in Togo, Farida Nabourema, a debanked activist, uses Bitcoin to circumvent the Gnassingbé dictatorship's control, facilitating fundraising and educating her compatriots for monetary freedom and democracy.
The stark reality in places like Cuba, where hyperinflation decimates wages and state control impedes financial flow, highlights the urgent need for freedom money. This need is exacerbated by Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), a civil-liberties nightmare. Authoritarian regimes experiment with programmed money; Thailand’s prototype, for instance, restricts spending to specific vendors and sets fund expiration dates. Bitcoin exists to circumnavigate such pervasive financial surveillance.
Crucially, Bitcoin must be distinguished from the broader ‘crypto’ landscape, which is largely a giant scam. Most of the twenty-thousand-plus ‘cryptocurrencies,’ excluding Bitcoin and stablecoins, are tokens designed solely to enrich creators at public expense, often crashing after insider sales. These get-rich-quick schemes, like FartCoin or DogeCoin, hold no relevance for human-rights activism. Bitcoin, conversely, offers true decentralization, censorship-resistance, and digital scarcity—a robust defense against state theft.
Dictators, the true criminals, fear Bitcoin. It returns money to the people, ensuring free speech, property rights, and open capital markets—the antithesis of their survival. While major criminal enterprises use traditional banks, Bitcoin grants asymmetric power to individuals. Activists globally leverage it to move value beyond government oversight, using apps like Tando in Nairobi, where merchants receive fiat currency seamlessly. This capability, alongside other open-source tools, empowers activists to organize and transact without reliance on centralized, data-exposing entities, making them more effective.
