TOPSHOT – A Buddhist monk walks past the damaged Mandalay Palace during sunset in Mandalay on March … More
AFP via Getty Images
After the devastating earthquake that ripped through Myanmar, images and videos have come pouring out of people doing the best they can under challenging circumstances – removing survivors by prying them out of buildings without machinery and with their bare hands, for example.
The disaster relief comes at a time of devastating civil war, where the military has been fighting different independent groups after an attempted coup. Repression and corruption reign heavily in Myanmar – making it difficult for a resilient people to recover.
Now, there is an effort to fundraise for disaster relief and to distribute meals to those in need using Bitcoin and Lightning Network. Bitcoin donations allow anybody in the world to contribute to the effort on their terms – not only choosing the amount they want to contribute but also choosing how they want to show up – with private donations as an option. Financial privacy is essential in the context of the military being able to repress dissidents within Myanmar.
The military has, in the past, used bank transfers to “hunt down and persecute” people who were seen to be on the wrong side of their politics. The official opposition, once led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi (now imprisoned by the junta), formed a government in exile, along with a crypto-only bank focused on keeping funds away from the prying eyes of the regime.
The earthquake, reported to be 7.7 in magnitude, struck with the force of many atomic bombs – collapsing buildings and trapping people in desperate straits. There have been thousands of deaths, and Myanmar’s economy, already under strain from the civil war, now looks to be on the verge of collapse. With the Internet and electricity intermittent, fog has settled on the long-suffering people of Myanmar – who, despite their resilience, are fighting forces beyond compare.
Bitcoin offers a rare and unique hope for those stuck in between in Myanmar, where physical repression has now merged with financial repression. The military junta has threatened to go after people with what they deem as “illegal foreign reserves” in the past, and it is currently operating an Internet shutdown to keep information tightly controlled. According to information collected by Myanmar Digital Rights groups, “more than 100 townships have been impacted by the Internet shutdown by the military junta, including the areas most severely affected by the earthquake, like Sagaing.” – as relayed by Htaike Htaike Aung of the Myanmar Internet Project. She added, “The military’s censorship of the Internet is hurting the response to the Earthquake.”
Activists have used Bitcoin to raise funds away from the regime’s control and without the need for intermediaries. The Geyser Fund, started by Win Ko Ko Aung, a Bitcoiner from Myanmar who works at the Human Rights Foundation, is just another example of this – a symbol of hope that can prevent figures associated with the regime from taking or dipping into funds while avoiding the impact of donations being diluted by inflation as well. And even if the Internet is shut down locally, the global Bitcoin network will keep storing value, ready to be accessed anew whenever a crack in Internet censorship presents itself.
Win points out how Bitcoin can uniquely pierce the walls of regime control to deliver aid directly on the ground:
“I think this is a great opportunity for the community to rebuild a crisis-resistant system from the ground up, like a circular economy. All it takes for people is a smartphone, which almost everyone owns at least one of or shares within the family. They can receive aid or payments to their open-source Bitcoin wallet, and then, when needed, they can convert it into local fiat through peer-to-peer transactions.”
Bitcoin encourages direct aid – in a world where government-sponsored foreign aid has fallen out of favor – harkening back to when writers like Hemingway would raise funds for the Spanish Republic, first beset by Hitler’s and then Stalin’s designs.
As the specter of nationalism turns people insular and towards their flags, some raise no flags yet raise transactions that can break this trend and tap into a global network of peer-to-peer support. Bitcoin donations aren’t just about politics or geopolitics, but rather the ability to create community and donate to meaningful, direct impact worldwide. Bitcoin allows anybody to do this at an instant speed and with low to almost no fees – and with the privacy they might need to avoid prying eyes.
Bitcoin stands alone in its capabilities here – with the ability to hedge against currency controls and government repression. It offers a unique symbol of hope – and a way to get hot meals and help directly to those suffering from one of the most devastating earthquakes in human history in a way no other money can.
