Mr. Corva Goes to Washington

The Time to Hesitate is Through

In the company of change makers in DC.

This weekend, I went down to Washington, D.C. to share what I’ve experienced and learned about people around the world who use Bitcoin as a counter to the oppressive system(s) under which they live.

It was a tremendous honor to be a part of the panel, especially to speak alongside the gentleman to the right of me on the flyer above — Rafael Cordón.

I’ve written about Rafael’s work in this newsletter as few times, but as a quick refresher, he is best known for safeguarding Guatemala’s most recent presidential election by inscribing the vote tallies from the election onto the Bitcoin blockchain.

I highly recommend watching this short documentary on what he and his company Simple Proof did.

I would love to share footage or a summary of what we discussed on the panel, but it wasn’t recorded and was invite only so to preserve the safety of some of the people in the audience who have had their lives threatened by authoritarian regimes.

For some context, just before the conversation began, a spy from one of those regimes who’d snuck into the event was escorted out. That was sobering.

Here are some takeaways from the panel and the event at large, though:

• CBDCS are very dangerous. People are starting to wake up to the fact that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will give central banks and governments complete control over your money and financial life. Bureaucrats and politicians will be able to trace every transaction you make, ban you from making certain transactions (e.g., Imagine receiving a message on a digital payments app that reads: “You’re last doctor’s visit indicates that you’re overweight, so you’re not permitted to buy this type of food”) and freeze/delete your accounts with the click of a button. Bitcoin is the counter to this.

• Getting “debanked” is real (despite what SNL says). Being debanked means having your bank and brokerage accounts automatically closed and losing access to your money and savings without notice. The woman who organized the panel — Lyudmyla Kozlovska — was recently debanked because of her activist efforts. She quickly came to understand the importance of a permissionless network like Bitcoin in the wake of this. The same thing happened to the woman who organized the African Bitcoin Conference (Farida Bemba Nabourema), which I attended in December. So, when you see skits on SNL skits like the one below that mock the concept of debanking (starts at 2:12), understand that is already happening. (And no, I don’t think Trump really cares about people being debanked. Vivek Ramaswamy, the person Trump will likely choose as his running mate, is likely feeding him that rhetoric because he knows it will resonate with voters who like “freedom”. I think Trump would happily debank certain people he didn’t like if he could.)

• You can change the minds of politicians. The same woman who organized the panel also spent the week prior to the conference speaking with 19 US Senators alongside other notable names in the Bitcoin space, including Cordón from the panel. She said that most Senators had no idea that Bitcoin is a tool for the debanked, the unbanked, the underbanked, activists, those living under authoritarian regimes, etc. and she was able to convince some of them to vote “No” on Senator Warren’s latest (anti-)crypto bill. She explained to me the power of telling the human stories to politicians face-to-face as a means to shift their perspective on certain issues, as she’s been doing this type of work for a decade and a half. I’m a believer and am committed to working with her in her efforts. I’ll also be pushing to broaden my reach as a writer. I’ve realized that I have to start writing for bigger, non-Bitcoin centric publications to reach a broader audience and to alter public opinion about Bitcoin.

• Bitcoin mining is a feature of Bitcoin, not a bug. The energy required to run and secure the Bitcoin network is what makes the network valuable. Because no single entity can produce the amount of energy needed to overthrow the Bitcoin network at this point, the network remains secure and permissionless to use. Plus, Bitcoin will continue to be one of the biggest catalysts in the world for renewable energy, as the Bitcoin network essentially turn energy into money. Anyone who can find cheap renewable energy will benefit from this. I highly recommend you read about how this is benefitting certain regions in Africa that are mining Bitcoin with renewable hydro power or about how companies in the US are mining it using waste gas as fuel.

I could go on and on about other takeaways from the panel and conference, but, instead of doing so, I’ll just say that I’m more committed than ever to sharing stories of the positive impact Bitcoin is having on the world, and I hope to be sharing links in this newsletter to pieces I write about this for bigger publications in the near future.

I can see very clearly now that so much of the rhetoric and regulation on Bitcoin that comes from US regulators has a massive effect on how the rest of the world talks about Bitcoin and regulates Bitcoin/crypto companies. I’m committed to changing the dialogue and to doing my part in helping to make sure the US crafts the most sensible regulation possible around Bitcoin.

Bitcoin in Nigeria

Last week, I spoke with Heritage Falodun, a businessman and educator from Nigeria who’s helping to onboard many people and businesses in his country to Bitcoin (and stablecoins).

We discussed how Nigeria was one of the first countries in the world to roll out a CBDC and how the vast majority of the population rejected it amongst a number of other topics.

Enjoy!

Markets

And now, let’s take a look at what’s happening in markets…