BTC for Palestine is the perfect example of a Bitcoin-powered business that gets right to the heart of what Bitcoin should be about. Money functions without trusted intermediaries. The whole purpose of Bitcoin was to give people a way to make transactions with their money that no one could disrupt, interfere with, or profit from.
That is exactly the situation Gazans have found themselves in over the past year. Completely cut off from the rest of the world, unable to make any form of payment without cash, without having to rely on the very rent-seekers who have placed themselves in the middle of every digital payment processed worldwide. The difference between them and the average Westerner is that they rely on aid to simply survive and meet their basic needs. They’re not just annoyed or whining about difficult service or annoying costs.
These people are slaughtered as if they were wild, locked in a cage; it is literally systematic genocide. They are completely cut off from traditional payment channels to accept donations for food, water and other necessities. Even UN-delivered aid is being seized and disrupted. Bitcoin is literally the only option for people who want to donate money to help people in Gaza with nothing.
This is one of the most important demonstrations of why Bitcoin has been a necessity in the world since Wikileaks first started accepting it 13 years ago in 2011 in response to the banking and payment processing brigade against them.
At the time, it was a direct battle over the ability to use information to hold the government accountable for their actions and deceit. Now it’s about helping the people who are directly suffering from the actions of the governments that continue to avoid being held accountable.
Yusef Mahmoud, a taxi driver before the genocide began, has been able to help buy food and water for thousands of people in Gaza who were penniless and penniless over the past year, thanks to Bitcoin. One man, with the means to accept financial help from all over the world that no one can disrupt or stop, has been able to make such a big difference in the lives of thousands of people.
This is what Bitcoin is for: it functions as a tool to allow us to stand up against what governments and institutions impose on us without being able to stop that tool. It is not just a new asset class, or a toy for Wall Street, it is a foundation for revolutionary self-organization to solve the problems that governments cannot, or actively create themselves.
It’s for us, not for them.
You can donate here to help the people of Gaza.