Last month, the world had shifted its focus towards Canada as the Truckers’ protests raged on. In a bid to stop the protests dead in its tracks, the Canadian government had chosen to remove the financial support for these protesters by blocking their accounts. Supporters and donors had then responded to this by turning towards bitcoin donations.
The Canadian government had begun working on ways to block these bitcoin donations. It has finally succeeded as the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” bitcoins have been frozen and seized by the government.
Canada Seizes Raised Bitcoin
The protests that erupted in Canada had been the result of the vaccine mandates announced by the government. The citizens of the country who found these mandates too extreme had taken to the streets to express their displeasure with it. Crowdfunding initiatives had naturally followed in an effort to fund the protests. A large part of these funds raised through crowdfunding was done with bitcoin.
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The Canadian government has gone after these bitcoins donations the same way it did the first crowdfunding campaign. It had made it known that it was trying to freeze the bitcoins raised by the protesters and it looks like it has succeeded.
A report from Vice said that those who had received donations in bitcoin have been unable to transfer their holdings to any financial institutions. These are due to financial sanctions that have been put in place by the government to prevent them from spending their BTC. Leaving the truckers looking for workarounds around being able to spend their bitcoin.
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How Will They Spend It?
The Vice report outlines truckers who have reached out for help to NobodyCaribou, one of the lead organizers of HonkHonkHodl which had their bitcoins seized by the government. A coder entered the picture offering to help split up the remaining bitcoins and give instructions on how to access them.
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However, this will be a tedious process as the coder has explained that they would have to meet with each trucker to explain how they could access the bitcoins. The BTC was distributed into 100 wallets and the records showed that some truckers have already begun claiming the bitcoins.
There is currently a class-action lawsuit against the lead protesters and those who organized various fundraisers. The Canadian government has said that it wants to give all of the donated BTC from the truckers to Ottawa residents who were in the areas where these protests took place.
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Source: https://bitcoinist.com/canada-seized-bitcoin-donations-to-freedom-convoy/