At this year's Oslo Freedom Forum, gigabrain Lyn Alden argued that bitcoin is now liquid enough to be used in a human rights context, a compelling argument with which I agree.
bitcoin, which now has a market capitalization of more than $1.2 trillion, is less volatile than a decade ago and can now be more easily used to help empower those who have historically been financially disenfranchised. (The larger the market cap of an asset, the less volatile the asset's price tends to become. When bitcoin had a much lower market cap in its early days, it was not uncommon to see bitcoin-crashes-history-180038282.html”>lose more than 80% of its value in crashes. For this reason, it would have been much more difficult to use in a human rights context back then).
Below are some examples of how bitcoin is currently used for human rights purposes:
- bitcoin Dad educates African women on how to invest and use bitcoin. Many women in Africa live in patriarchal societies where they are not allowed to own property. bitcoin helps them subvert those rules, allowing them to save in the hardest asset ever known to mankind, and few realize it.
- bitcoin dua is a bitcoin circular economy and community center located in Ghana where community members not only learn what bitcoin is and how to use it, but also skills they can use to get jobs where they can earn in bitcoin. This program is particularly relevant in a country where the traditional currency was the The worst performing currency in the world in 2022 and continues to fall in value against the US dollar.
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TO twitter.com/hashtag/bitcoin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#bitcoin An Educational Center is being created in "bitcoin Dua" to teach children and mentor people on how to use and accept bitcoin payments in Agbozume.
We appreciate your help as we strive to achieve these goals. DC twitter.com/geyserfund?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@geyserfund https://t.co/Enb7767ZVN pic.twitter.com/y7ex7Mb6wP
—bitcoin Dua (@bitcoin_dua) twitter.com/bitcoin_dua/status/1670848925933109256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>June 19, 2023
- x.com/LyudaKozlovska”>Lyudmyla KozlovskyPresident of the Open Dialogue Foundationsomeone who has been bitcoin-can-be-a-tool-for-human-rights-activists/”>debanked by dictators She, herself, has been arguing to regulators in the United States and Europe that bitcoin is a monetary and financial network of last resort for pro-democracy activists living under authoritarian regimes and that the right to use it needs to be protected. She maintains that one of the first steps in the dictator's playbook these days is to isolate dissidents from the traditional financial system, leaving said dissidents with bitcoin as their primary means of transacting.
The work that these people, programs and institutions and many others like them have done during the previous bitcoin era has set the stage for the Empowerment Era: the fifth bitcoin era, the one in which it will become synonymous with the term “rights.” humans.” “
That said, this will not be without its challenges.
High fees on bitcoin's base chain will push certain users out of self-custody, forcing them to use Layer 2 solutions like Lightning and Lightning extensions like ecash, untraceable versions of sats that can be sent at almost no cost.
Companies like Fedi have developed a super app for the Global South that gives users access to Lightning, ecash and other freedom technologies, while Machankura allows residents of several African countries to transact bitcoins in a custodial manner using feature phones (non-smart phones). (Machankura is also working on turn feature phones into bitcoin hardware wallets.)
Layer 2 solutions will not be perfect and there will be trade-offs with each of them. But even considering the imperfections of the technologies that make bitcoin more usable, they still provide many people around the world with access to a parallel financial system, which serves as a cover for existing monetary and financial systems.
As new challenges emerge, I have no doubt that organizations like the Human Rights Foundation will continue bitcoin-brings-activists-and-entrepreneurs-together-in-oslo/”>bringing together activists and educators with developers and entrepreneurs to face these challenges and help bring bitcoin (the people's money) to those who need it most in this Age of Empowerment.
This article is a Carry. The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of btc Inc or bitcoin Magazine.
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