The anti-vaxx Canadian truckers want to talk to you about Bitcoin

Canada Unity 2022, the group of anti-vaccine protestors who’ve snarled traffic in Ottawa and earned accolades within the right-wing media, desires to talk to you about Bitcoin.

A handful of the group’s organizers held a press conference on Facebook Live Wednesday that shortly devolved right into a presentation on the favored type of cryptocurrency, complicated lots of their supporters who had been watching on-line.

“Are we at a press convention for Freedom Convoy 2022 or having some man shove Bitcoin down our throats?” one commenter griped. “Very dissatisfied! I got here to see updates about progress made by our Truckers.”

The convoy protests started in late January, after a unfastened affiliation of truckers banded collectively to drive from western Canada to the nation’s capital of Ottawa to voice opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truckers crossing the border into the US. The motion has been embraced by Republican politicians in the US, together with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Canadian authorities has hit again, denouncing “foreign interference” from the US.

But little or no of that was mentioned at at the moment’s press convention. The occasion kicked off with three of the protest motion’s organizers, together with Tamara Lich, a former health teacher and singer in an Alberta band known as Blind Monday, who performed a distinguished position in organizing a GoFundMe marketing campaign that raised about 10 million Canadian {dollars} ($7.8 million) for the anti-vaxx protest.

After spending a number of minutes disparaging “faux information” and praising supporters like Jordan Peterson, a thinker whose work is admired by the best, the group turned to Bitcoin.

BJ Dichter, who launched himself as “vp and spokesperson for the Freedom Convoy,” mentioned the group has been in contact with “a few of the most distinguished Bitcoiners on YouTube” to learn the way to use cryptocurrency to elevate cash for his or her trigger. (GoFundMe shut down the group’s fundraising campaign final week, citing “violence and different illegal exercise” throughout the demonstrations.)

Dichter turned the press convention over to a person named “Nick” who he described because the group’s “Bitcoin crew lead for the Freedom Convoy.” Nick, sporting a thick beard and a black sweatshirt with the Bitcoin brand within the upper-right nook, began by setting expectations. “I wouldn’t name myself an knowledgeable,” he mentioned. “But I’m a liaison to the consultants within the Bitcoin world.” Nick mentioned the purpose was to combat for the group’s freedom to elevate cash “with out being shackled by the censorship put in place by our legacy monetary system.”

After a number of minutes of a lecture on the benefits of a decentralized fundraising platform, supporters watching the livestream appeared flummoxed.

“This just isn’t what I assumed it might be, thanks guys however I’m pondering you can be dropping some cash assist with this… anyway, have an excellent day,” wrote one commenter. Others implored the group to ditch the Bitcoin talk and get again to the difficulty at hand: truckers preventing in opposition to vaccine mandates.

“I get the security of donating to Bitcoin… however why are we selling digital forex?!” one other wrote.

In some respects, the convergence of the anti-vaxx protests and Bitcoin was in all probability inevitable. Last month, the protests drew assist from one of many largest proponents of Bitcoin on the planet, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who tweeted “Canadian truckers rule.” Former President Donald Trump has voiced assist, and right-wing figures from Tucker Carlson to Ben Shapiro to Michael Flynn have seized on the trucker protests.

The group sees Bitcoin as a doable answer to its fundraising woes. And they might have some assist, too. A gaggle of Canadian Bitcoin supporters who go by the moniker “HonkHonkHodl” have created a crypto crowdfunding campaign on the platform Tallycoin instead funding portal for the Freedom Convoy.

According to Tallycoin, the group has raised 1.5 billion in satoshis, with the objective of reaching 2.1 billion.



https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/9/22925823/canadian-trucker-convoy-anti-vaxx-bitcoin-press-conference

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