In a COVID-19 era marked by aggressive political consolidation and economic troubles, there have been sparks of protests around the world. From Hong Kong, to the United States to Nigeria, to Thailand, to Belarus and beyond no corner of the world has been untouched by a wave of fresh political protests.
Their causes are diverse: fighting against established political classes, opposing police brutality or calling for reexaminations of elections with possibly fraudulent vote counts.
Yet their concerns are common: they are aligned against powerful and entrenched politicians who largely control trust within their borders. From use of force against dissidents to regulations that control domestic banking systems to the control of state-affiliated media, political incumbents have a lot of power to wield to advance their interests. In order to create meaningful dissent, you have to work around that power.
Cryptocurrency offers one way to doing so. From the payment processor side, you can set up your own payment service using open-source software such as BTCPay. With decentralization, you don’t rely on any third-party organization to vet or potentially censor your payments, and there are no processing fees: a stark contrast from the conventional banking system in nation-states that are largely dependent on the corpus between political and legal power to maintain their good financial standing.