By Ross Macdonald With Jasper Hamill
In Canada, truckers are facing off against the government. But that’s not the only battle taking place, because the showdown that has gripped the world also represents a conflict between crypto and the traditional financial system.
Before the pandemic, many of us simply took logistics and the supply chain for granted. Products turned up on the shelves or at our doors. We didn’t need to think about how they got there.
Today, the system is breaking down. It is taking much longer to ship products. Grocery stores have empty shelves. Products are no longer available or in short supply. The supply networks we rely on are simply not working like they used to.
Truckers are the vital link in many - if not all - supply chains. In recent weeks, we have seen these vitally important workers go to Ottawa to protest a vaccine mandate requiring them to receive the Covid-19 jab to work cross-border.
This situation has escalated in multiple ways. On February 14th, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, evoked emergency powers to deal with the protests in Canada, which has inspired other protests globally from other truckers. This action will empower the Canadian government to use additional powers such as mobilizing the police to remove protesters. The army is not expected to be called in to tackle the protests and the powers will be withdrawn within 30 days.
The Canadian Government wants to shut down the protests to restore trade routes in and out of the country. The protestors want the right to work without being forced to take vaccines for COVID19. Support for both sides has left Canada, and the world, divided.
Crypto vs Canada
The kicker here is that the Canadian government is explicitly working with banks and cryptocurrency businesses to lock the funding. It has threatened to shut down accounts and GoFundMe has even withheld millions of dollars worth of donations made to the protesters.
“Consider yourselves warned,” deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland said.
"If your truck is used in these blockades, your corporate accounts will be frozen. The insurance on your vehicle will be suspended. Send your rigs home.”
With traditional funding sources removed, supporters quickly turned to crypto, reportedly raising $900,000 in Bitcoin. Now those sources have been closed down too, with ??The Ontario Provincial Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police telling financial firms to stop facilitating payments to 34 crypto wallets and report “large and suspicious transactions”.
This move has drawn comparison with China’s social credit system, which controls people’s financial transactions based on their behavior and “trustworthiness”.
Author Bill Tufts tweeted: “China/Canada Social Credit System is alive and well in Canada. All the major corporations and media are participating.”
Freedom Destroyed?
In theory, if truckers' funding is locked, they may have to leave the protest. Will this be effective or not?
This raises some interesting questions. Are the protestors or truckers using digital wallets and services that are custodial or managed by businesses or self-managed?
Bitcoin, for example, was designed as a peer-to-peer financial tool. Yet, many places in the global economy continue to be managed by centralized services. To use a crypto debit card in Canada, you must sign up and go through KYC with a business such as crypto.com to obtain their debit card. The Canadian and any other government can target this system and shut it down. This is not a scenario that Satoshi Nakamoto had in mind when he invented Bitcoin as a decentralized cryptocurrency.
The solution? "No Keys, No Cheese." This means people should own the private keys to their non-custodial digital wallets with Bitcoin and other digital assets. Otherwise, we must always ask permission to use our cryptocurrencies just like we do with FIAT money and our banking systems.
So if a centralized service works with the Canadian Federal Government to lock a Bitcoin wallet or debit card, what stops that person from using a new wallet created on the blockchain in seconds? How can Bitcoin be prevented if a wallet is on the Bitcoin blockchain, short of shutting down a person's internet access? We will have to see.
One thing we have to remember is that the blockchain tells all. The CIA works with businesses and professionals who run software to track funds on the blockchain. For years, this has been evident and tracked Bitcoin being used for illegal activities. We saw this recently when cops clawed back $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin stolen in the Bitfinex hack and vowed to shut down the “zone of lawlessness” around crypto.
Making transactions on a blockchain is foolish for criminals and, in theory, also not a good choice for protestors unless they understand the difference between a custodial and non-custodial wallet.
What will happen here with the protests in Ottawa, Canada, and other areas around the world following in the footsteps (or wheels) of these Canadian Truckers? An attack has been launched on the logistics of Canada and the USA. But the financial freedom of people in Canada and worldwide is also under assault in a power struggle that is sure to have many negative consequences. We will watch to see how the story unfolds.
