Bitcoin - Enemy of the State with BTC Sessions - WBD592
The Peter McCormack Show
Peter McCormack
4.7 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 12 December 2022
⏱️ 78 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
BTC Sessions (Ben Perrin), is a Canadian Bitcoin educator with a well-known YouTube channel. In this interview, we discuss his experiences as part of a group of Bitcoiners organising Bitcoin funds for Canadian truckers being targeted by the Canadian government.
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In January, a large group of Canadian truckers took part in convoys to protest against their government's Covid vaccination mandates for cross-border movements. The protests grew and the convoys converged on Canada's capital city of Ottawa. Thousands of trucks and protestors blocked the streets. It divided opinion: some Ottawans called for Government action, whilst the protest inspired copycat activities and prominent support in other countries.
The Canadian government reacted with some of the most draconian responses to activism seen in any democracy. On February 14th they invoked the Emergencies Act designed to provide legal cover for government actions required in major national emergencies such as war, invasion or insurrection. It was only the 2nd time such actions had been used in peacetime.
Attention was focused on the funding sources, with dozens of bank accounts linked to the protest movements being frozen. As a result, a Bitcoin fundraising initiative suddenly took centre stage as the vehicle for getting funds of any description to the truckers. This Bitcoin funding and the associated group managing it then became a target for the Canadian authorities.
Ben takes us through what was a rapidly evolving and extremely stressful situation, where a group of well-meaning Bitcoiners found themselves becoming enemies of the state. Did Bitcoin stand up to scrutiny? Bitcoin did provide truckers with a financial lifeline. And, whilst there were issues that occurred, there are some very important caveats.
The initial set-up of the Bitcoin fund wasn't with a view to it being the primary source of finance. Further, nobody expected the unprecedented actions taken by the Canadian government. Nevertheless, invaluable lessons have been learned. There is a clear view of the processes required to protect funds and those involved. More importantly, activists now know what actions the state, any state, is prepared to take.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | He messaged me and he said, hey man, I'm on a backup phone. |
| 0:05.0 | Just so you know, please just rate at my house and they literally took everything. |
| 0:09.0 | I just wanted to give you a heads up. |
| 0:11.0 | And I'm thinking, is that about to happen to me? |
| 0:15.0 | Hello there, from a very cold and snowy Bedford, how are you all doing? I've already had a |
| 0:20.9 | snowball in my face this morning from my daughter but I'll be getting that back later. |
| 0:25.0 | Anyway, listen, welcome to the What Bitcoin did podcast, which is brought to you by Gemini, the only place I'm using for buying Bitcoin. |
| 0:30.0 | I'm your host, Peter McCormack, and I've got a very interesting show for you today. I've got my buddy |
| 0:34.2 | BTC sessions on. When I was out in LA I knew he was going to be there so I said to him look you're |
| 0:38.5 | the best educator we have in the space why don't you come on the show and talk about |
| 0:41.6 | educating people about Bitcoin? He agreed, we agreed to make the show and then while we |
| 0:46.3 | were preparing I said listen I do want to ask you about what happened with the |
| 0:49.6 | trucker protest because BTC sessions was part of the attempt to help raise money through |
| 0:54.4 | Bitcoin and he was like fine yeah we can do this and so that ends up becoming the whole |
| 0:58.1 | show we didn't even cover the educational stuff so I will get him back on the future |
| 1:01.1 | to discuss this but this trucker |
| 1:02.7 | protest is a very important subject because the Trudeau government essentially |
| 1:06.6 | try to prevent the protest which I think are a foundational pillar of a democracy |
| 1:11.1 | you should have the right to protest. |
| 1:12.8 | But the reason is very interesting is not just that they were trying to close down bank accounts of people. |
| 1:17.7 | That is super interesting, that's a Bitcoin, obviously I think that's terrible and we should shine |
| 1:21.0 | a light on it. |
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