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Dear Bankless Nation,
Canada invoked the Emergency Act this week in response to protests.
A first in Canadian history.
The law grants Trudeau’s administration the power to prohibit public assembly, travel, and the use of specific property for 30 days. The specific property includes access to one’s money in a Canadian bank.
This means that the Canadian government now has the ability to freeze its citizens’ bank accounts without due process or court order. And they’re doing it.
This goes beyond stopping banks from transferring funds to protest organizations.
The order says that banks and financials services providers including credit unions, loan companies, crowdfunding platforms, and crypto exchanges must stop “providing any financial or related services” to people associated with the protest.
If you’re involved in the protest they can:
Freeze your life savings.
Strand your money.
Cancel your credit card.
Stop your mortgage application.
Eliminate you from the banking system.
It’s not just the banks either. They’re targeting crypto wallets too. 😱
Wait…isn’t crypto unstoppable?
While they can’t stop peer-to-peer transactions on Bitcoin and DeFi on Ethereum, they can prohibit centralized crypto exchanges from interacting with a blacklisted set of Bitcoin and Ethereum accounts. Centralized custodians are the chokepoint.
Who gets this treatment?
Canadian Finance Minster Chrystia Freeland said she wouldn't get into the "specifics of whose accounts are being frozen" but “the consequences are real and they will bite.” No oversight or accountability. Who gets targeted is at the sole discretion of government authorities and Canada’s financial surveillance department FINTRAC.
“This ain’t my protest”
Let me be clear: this isn’t about us taking sides on the protest. This is us calling out the precedent this sets.
Whether or not you care about this protest, you have to ask yourself:
What happens if it’s a protest for something I care about?
What if it’s inflation? Or rising energy costs? Or social injustice?
This time it’s their protest.
Next time it’s yours.
How free do you feel when they can eliminate you from the economy with a mouse click?
This is why we need crypto. This is why we need DeFi. This is why we go bankless.
The banking system should not be a weapon used by governments on their people.
We need to be able to lend, borrow, trade without centralized institutions. We need DeFi built on a decentralized, censorship-resistant protocols. We need strong digital property rights in 21st century and we can’t rely on our governments to provide them.
This week caused a lot of Canadians to consider taking their money out of the banks. Where do you think that money goes?
When you erode trust in the neutrality of the banking system people move their money. As for the fate of these legacy institutions I think Minster Chrystia Freeland summed it up well—"the consequences are real and they will bite."
Here’s what’s lined up for next week:
Tetranode teaching us how to become a crypto whale (early access)
David is dropping a timely article on why crypto is here to set you free
We’re dropping the “how to get started in DeFi (2022 edition)” guide.
Have a ✊ weekend.
- RSA
P.S. Check out Green Pill, a new Bankless podcast from Kevin Owocki! Crypto is here to fix the world, Kevin is here to tell the story on how and why.
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Recap for the week of February 14th, 2022
🎙️ WEEKLY PODCAST EPISODE
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ACTION RECAP 📚
📘 Best Crypto Superbowl Commercials
TL;DR
David ranks the best crypto commercials from last week’s Superbowl. Over 100M+ watched the event and crypto was front and center with four crypto companies shelling out millions to get featured.
The top crypto commercial was FTX’s which starred Larry David in “Don’t Miss Out”. The two and a half minute commercial struck a chord as it drew a parallel on how people brushed off impactful technologies like the wheel, the lightbulb, and others. Crypto is no different.
📘 How to sweep NFT floors
TL;DR
William dives into how to use NFT aggregators like Gem and Genie to make batched purchases and sales on NFTs. The tool helps everyone save gas fees when they want to sweep the floor on their favorite NFTs!
📘 Crypto can fix the world 🔥
TL;DR
Kevin Owocki wrote an amazing article on how regenerative crypto-economics can fix the world. These economic systems satisfy human needs, create positive externalities, and create balance and equilibrium.
If we collectively all take the green pill (choosing to coordinate), we create a more regenerative world.
The article also features the launch of Green Pill, a new Bankless podcast.
📘 WTF are veTokens 🔥
TL;DR
Ben dives into the rise of veTokens and how to avoid the pitfall of valueless governance tokens.
The veToken model encourages long-term decision making, aligns incentives for protocols participants, improves the supply and demand dynamics for DeFi tokens.
The downside of the model is that it drives a lack of liquidity and encourages bribes and other negative governance externalities.
💬 What’s your crypto conference experience?
TL;DR
Crypto conferences are an important part of crypto culture. Bankless Nation shares their experiences with the conference circuit and the positives and negatives of their experiences.
P.S. Thoughts on the new format? Leave a comment or say something on Twitter!
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🎙️ STATE OF THE NATION
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🎙️ WEEKLY ROLLUP
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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
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Ryan Adam, as you mentioned here, “truly the Canadian protest is not our protest” and of course us commenting in a nice manner does not make us part of the revolt rather to identify with them and show compassion with those who are must affected.
On the other hand and in regard they targeting crypto and their creators;
I believe then-that will be our protest and we will stand in the same nice manner to support Crypto and their creators, would I say in my humble opinion.
The Crypto’s Creators, Writers and podcasters like you and I, Bankless and Substack and LinkedIn Social Media, Twitter, Instagram, metaverse and other platforms will use their talents to communicate, artistically.
That’s the immerse beauty of communication to use it wisely and well.
Thank you, Ryan S. Adam.
HRH.
Well said. Everyone should think long and hard about how they would proceed should something like this be a reality for them.
The Bitcoin genesis block contained the following message: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on the brink of second bailout for banks.” It was a reminder that governments will always use money for political purposes if they are permitted to do so. If you are on the wrong side of their politics, you'll get the opposite of a bailout.