Exchanges issued with strict warnings against allowing trades and withdrawals from certain wallets The Canadian government was recently obliged to intervene and subsequently halt financing due to a large convoy of truckers impeding passage in the country.
Before that, the protesters resorted to websites like GoFundMe. However, they were soon forced to close donations, a move that saw them resorting to cryptocurrencies in a bid aimed at maintaining their support.
With that, the Canadian government went ahead and banned 34 different Bitcoin wallets from taking part in the country’s local exchanges. The banned cryptos include 29 Bitcoin addresses, 2 Ethereum addresses, and single addresses for Litecoin, Monero, and Cardano. None of these can use centralized exchanges in Canada.
It, therefore, means that any donations sent from the banned addresses can’t be converted into fiat currency. Also, they can’t be transferred to bank accounts. The Canadian government didn’t ban the 34 addresses without reason. Blacklisting came into force after Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister, enabled the country’s Emergencies Act, which permits the government to pursue any “illegal acts,” including fundraising.
A BTC address with the name “Bitcoin for Truckers” was one of the largest accounts blocked by the Canadian government. It’s an account that boasted of almost $900,000 in BTC in it, though most of it has now been distributed to several wallets.
A majority of websites in Canada that accept Bitcoin donations have now been shut down, according to the country’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, who went ahead and requested platforms to submit large and any suspicious transactions to FINTRAC.
Since Bitcoin is decentralized, the Canadian government couldn’t find a way of stepping in and confiscating the funds. Therefore, the only option was to employ a total ban on these exchanges, though this doesn’t completely prevent users from going ahead and cashing out their funds.
There are plenty of peer-to-peer solutions in place, as well as BTC ATMs where it’s possible to convert coins into real cash. Cryptocurrency loves in Canada are concerned that such moves and quick restrictions will bring about a long-term problem for users of digital currency.
Last year, before the bull market commenced, the Bank of Canada estimated that 5% of the population were cryptocurrency owners. Following last year’s significant rise, that value may likely be even much higher.
Plenty of digital currency lovers will be closely monitoring the ongoing protests and see how BTC manages to escape censorship. Should the protestors succeed in their move to use peer-to-peer platforms to go ahead with funding, then that would mean that there’s no stopping BTC.
A majority of crypto aficionados believe that the surging police presence arrests will halt the protests before witnessing how BTC fights censorship.
