Canadian Government Targets Crypto Donations

Neither this post nor any other on cryptofal.com should be taken as financial advice. It is not.

The invocation of emergency powers by the Canadian government comes as protestors in the country turn to Bitcoin fundraising.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked never-before-used emergency powers through the “Emergencies Act,” which will permit greater government authority in response to the growing number of anti-COVID vaccine mandate protests disrupting Canadian life.

The act will give the government the power to temporarily suspend civil liberties such as prohibiting travel, public assembly, and the use of specific property by citizens. One of the latest additions to this set of emergency powers is broadening of Canada’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules to target crowdfunding platforms, cryptocurrency transactions, and any traditional bank accounts associated with the Freedom Convoy protestors.

The announcement by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland comes as a response to the protestors’ shift from crowdfunding platforms such as GoFundMe towards Bitcoin donations due to GoFundMe suspending all donations sent to protest-related accounts. So far the protestors have raised 22 BTC or about $1 million through their Bitcoin donation page, which pales in comparison to the $19 million frozen on the GoFundMe and GiveSendGo platforms.

While the powers would enable the government the ability to freeze a user’s bank account associated with the protest movement, the extreme breach of civil liberties by Trudeau only further reinforces the most valuable aspects of decentralized finance: the formation of a financial system that is beyond the control of any single authority. No one can halt your access to the Bitcoin network, regardless of your political ideology, race, gender, sexual preference, or anything else that you ascribe to.