Jack Dorsey preparing to speak about open source technology and Bitcoin on stage at the Oslo Freedom … [+]
The Human Rights Foundation organized the Oslo Freedom Forum to unite technologists, Bitcoiners, and activists worldwide. The Financial Freedom Track (where I spoke on the impact of the digital Yuan as part of the release of my book on Bitcoin + China) was a rare opportunity for Bitcoiners to share a room with some of the most preeminent activists around the world – and a forum where the price of Bitcoin seemed to matter less than its actual impact around the world.
1- Tyranny is going borderless
The broader sense from the conference was that tyranny was going borderless. The Human Rights Foundation’s Central Bank Digital Currency tracker lit up with more than 62% of countries worldwide considering a CBDC. The Oslo main stage was shared by activists worldwide, from Hong Kong to Uganda. Transnational repression was top of mind – from activists like Raqib Hameek Naik, who faced down Internet censors in India, to Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life hero from “Hotel Rwanda” who was kidnapped by Rwanda’s leader Paul Kagame.
Perhaps one of the most poignant symbols of this was the grant of a prize to Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, from Tanele Maseko, who had also lost her dissident husband Thulani Maseko, who was killed by an assassin. Jimmy Lai’s son, Sebastian Lai, reminded the crowd that his father, the Apple Daily founder, was still in prison – and might still be there unless awareness was raised for his cause. There was a real sense of loss and pointed resilience for a year of struggle for democratic values.
2- Bitcoin has spread around the world and can act as a hedge
The Financial Freedom Track at the Oslo Freedom Forum offered a sense of how Bitcoin had grown in terms of financial maturity and (more importantly) its global impact. Arsh Molu, part of the Financial Freedom Track team, summarized the intent well: “The Oslo Freedom Forum’s Financial Freedom Track is designed to shed light on how authoritarian regimes around the world use financial repression to target dissidents and to show how developers and activists worldwide are pushing back with open-source software.” Alex Gladstein and Lyn Alden opened the talks with how Bitcoin changes closed ledgers between countries into a globally portable system, while Jack Dorsey talked about the importance of open source technologies like Nostr and Bitcoin on the main stage.
Several speakers in the Financial Freedom Track spoke about the progress of Bitcoin in the Global South, from South America to Africa. Anna Chekhovich, who once raised funds in Bitcoin to investigate Putin and support Navalny’s cause, talked about how Bitcoin can help reinforce democratic rights in the face of bank seizures and freezes. Lorraine Marcel of Bitcoin Dada highlighted Africa’s adoption of Bitcoin with tangible stories about African women learning about Bitcoin. At the same time, Femi Longe spoke about the unique opportunity to solve the adoption problems of the African continent as a way to strengthen adoption and development across the Bitcoin ecosystem and the presentation of Bitcoin Ekasi as an African circular Bitcoin economy similar to Bitcoin Beach put a tangible hub forward for those ideas. Dulce Villareal presented Liberia de Satoshi, a platform that taught Bitcoin in Spanish and assembled developers to work on Bitcoin projects, working on bringing Bitcoin adoption and development to South America.
On the technical front, Craig Raw of Sparrow Wallet talked about Bitcoin privacy and what it meant – giving a crash tutorial to activists and Bitcoiners on the most important things to do to maintain Bitcoin privacy, including avoiding address reuse and understanding exactly how on-chain analytics could correlate transactions in a way that might imply common ownership. His more significant point – that privacy can be thought of in terms of probabilities – was a helpful framer for Bitcoin privacy. This topic was critical for allowing activists and dissidents to use Bitcoin in an environment where state authorities might arrest them. On that front, discussions about privacy on ECash by Calle and how to transact value between phones even when offline and a project spotlight on CISA (which could theoretically reduce the cost of CoinJoin transactions, so they’re the default of payments) were very relevant. The discussion wasn’t just focused on privacy but also on how to make Bitcoin usable, with BTCSessions giving a primer on how Bitcoin fees work.
Watching all of these talks come from an invention less than two decades old was unique and speaks to the true acceleration of innovation and the spread of global technology in a world that needs safeguards for financial freedom.
3- Bitcoin’s price is an important mechanism – but it’s entirely possible to host a Bitcoin-focused conference without discussing the price
Perhaps the one thing attendees left most with was the sense that financial freedom needs work and that you could have a rich discussion about Bitcoin without relying on charts and technical indicators—but rather real stories of the impact Bitcoin drives worldwide.
The spot Bitcoin ETFs in both the United States and other jurisdictions like Hong Kong have, in many ways, been the story of the year. Yet both, while having an exciting effect on Bitcoin price, haven’t been as focused on the unique properties of Bitcoin that make it so special – and force many people to trust their custody to a licensed exchange – defeating the purpose of making Bitcoin “their own bank” – an idea never more critical for those looking to dissent.
As Christian Keroles, the head of the Financial Freedom Track team, put it in a rallying call: “At the Oslo Freedom Forum, the Human Rights Foundation focuses on bringing activists together with changemakers and technologists who can make a meaningful impact in their struggle for liberty and freedom. Our work with Bitcoin has yielded some of the most powerful results for the activists who have embraced it more than any other technological initiative or tool we have leveraged. This year, many of these activists and Bitcoin builders gathered to share their experiences and knowledge on how Bitcoin is a tool for freedom.”
