Bitcoin Bolsters Human Rights & Democracy

Win Ko Ko Aung on Bitcoin as Freedom Technology & Guatemalans Preserve Democracy Using the Bitcoin Blockchain

I sometimes lose sight of the fact that I live in a country in which information can (mostly) flow freely and in which authority can (mostly) be questioned publicly.

The conversation I had this week with Win Ko Ko Aung, a refugee from Myanmar (formerly Burma) who now lives in the US, reminded me of how important it is to live in a jurisdiction in which free speech is tolerated and authority can be questioned, as he fled a country in which neither are permitted.

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Win is an advocate for how Bitcoin can bolster human rights. He shares his message via Bitcoin Magazine and has been awarded a Human Rights Fellowship by the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

He’s also currently a McCourt Scholar studying data science for public policy at Georgetown University.

In our interview, Win shared what it was like in Myanmar from 2010-2021 when the country was governed by a “quasi-democracy”, how people in Myanmar are currently as confused by Bitcoin as they were originally by the internet and how and why he fled Myanmar.

The enthusiasm with which he speaks is infectious. He’s the type of guy you want to cheer for. I hope you dig the interview.

Bitcoin helps preserve democracy in Guatemala

Progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo was confirmed the winner of Guatemala’s presidential election as per the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal on Monday, 9/18, according to AP.

This came in the wake of the elite conservative party that currently rules the country attempting to stop Arévalo from becoming president and the members of his political party, Movimiento Semilla (The Seed Movement), from filling the Congressional seats they won in the election.

It seemed that the current party in power was so shocked that Arévalo and members of his party won — as Arévalo wasn’t even expected to qualify for the main presidential race — that it attempted to rig the election in efforts to stop the transfer of power.

Officials from Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office raided the facilities of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and opened dozens of boxes of votes, according to AP. This activity was fraudulent, as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal only permits members of its staff in places where marked ballots are counted.

But thanks to the Bitcoin blockchain and a Guatemalan tech startup called Simple Proof, it wasn’t so easy for the ruling party to manipulate the election results.

Simple Proof employed a tool developed by bitcoin developer Peter Todd called OpenTimestamps, according to Bitcoin Magazine.

This tool allowed Simple Proof to timestamp the election results onto the Bitcoin blockchain, which is an immutable ledger, in efforts to provide an auditable public record for all of the voting tally sheets.

Truly fantastic stuff, no?

While bitcoin the asset is fraud-resistant money, the Bitcoin network is proving to be a tool to help fight fraud in elections — and we love to see it — all of it.

What’s happening with Bitcoin mining company stocks?

The prices of all Bitcoin mining company stocks are facing headwinds right now. The reasons for this are threefold:

1. The Fed is still trying to cool off markets by keep interest rates high. And Powell has signaled that more rate hikes may be on the way. Markets seem to be heeding Powell’s message a bit more as major indices (e.g., DJIA, SPY, QQQ) have pulled back after coming close to hitting all-time highs.

2. The Bitcoin hashrate is at an all-time high, which means mining bitcoin is more difficult, and, therefore, more costly than ever. The increased competition in mining makes it harder for Bitcoin mining companies to stay profitable, because they now have to use more electricity than ever to mine bitcoin, while their chances of winning block subsidy rewards (earning bitcoins for mining) are lower.

3. Usually, as Bitcoin’s hashrate increases, so to does the price of bitcoin, but this isn’t the case right now. This hurts miners, as well, because miners get less for the bitcoin that they earn/hold if they have to sell it to help cover some of their costs and/or put some extra cash on their balance sheets.

The good news is that the headwinds these companies are currently facing will eventually subside, which means that some bitcoin mining company stocks may be selling at a discount right now.

Let’s take a closer look at the stock for the bitcoin mining company with the largest market cap: