China’s centralized blockchains couldn’t be any farther from Bitcoin’s. Designed for maximum control, they will become tools for improved surveillance and social engineering.
Category Archives: Essays
The Moral Case for Lightning: A Global Private Payment Network
A future of personal and financial privacy might be closer and more realistic than you think.
Bitcoin could change the game for foreign aid
Today’s humanitarian aid model is fundamentally broken. Whether you’re a foundation making a donation to a nonprofit abroad, a government distributing aid to another government, or an individual sending emergency funds to family members across borders, your money only gets to where it needs to go after passing through intermediaries. Even in the simplest payment scenario, there’s your bank; a coordination network; and the aid recipient’s bank. But often, there are even more middlemen, with money moving along complex chains of third parties.
Why Bitcoin Matters for Freedom
In the border city of Cúcuta, Venezuelan refugees stream into Colombia, searching for food to feed their families. Years of high inflation, projected to top 1 million percent, has turned bolivares into scrap paper. More than 3 million Venezuelans have fled since 2014, and 5,500 exit for good each day. According to the United Nations, the exodus is “on the scale of Syria”Continue reading “Why Bitcoin Matters for Freedom”
The Kim-Trump Summit Is a Tragedy for the North Korean People
As U.S. president Donald Trump prepares to sit down with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un Tuesday in Singapore, it has emerged that the U.S. government has decided not to mention human rights at all during the talks.
How the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals undermine democracy
SDGs are pushing an agenda carefully calibrated to avoid upsetting the world’s dictators, kleptocrats, and human rights offenders.
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