On Friday, February 18, Tim Pastoor was sitting in the truck of a protester discussing the campaign against Canada’s Covid-19 restrictions when the trucker was handed an envelope with $8,000 Canadian Dollars of Bitcoin inside. The trucker was told: 

Not your keys, not your coins

After Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, truckers have been urged not to utilize a centralized cryptocurrency exchange in order to cash out the Bitcoin they received, as the funds are subject to a Mareva injunction, and violating that order is a criminal act. The account of the Samourai Wallet wrote on Twitter: Likewise, the Co-founder and CEO of the crypto exchange Kraken, Jesse Powell, urges people to take their coins out of custodial wallets amid the ongoing developments in Canada if Kraken is put in a position where it is told to freeze assets by police without judicial consent.

Vitalik Buterin says Canada’s use of banks ‘dangerous’

Meanwhile, Russian-Canadian founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin said that Canada’s use of banks to quash protesters is “dangerous.” Speaking with CoinDesk, Butering stated that the attempts by the Canadian government to stop the flow of cash to protesting truckers in Canada underlines why cryptocurrencies exist. He added: Notably, Canadian police blocked over 30 crypto wallets associated with the ‘Freedom Convoy’ truckers earlier this week after crypto became one of the critical ways of contributing to the truckers following GoFundMe’s decision not to distribute $9 million raised on its platform.

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