Defending Bitcoin PoW in the EU

Why we care about Bitcoin, we call it Bitcoin is human rights. Now, when we see that financial institutions uses a weapon against civil society, against opposition, Bitcoin is a human right And when we see that, all crypto asset services providers going to be operating just in the way how traditional financial institutions, we understand that crypto asset services providers unfortunately are going to be the same weapon for regimes, just as, traditional banks

Ludmila and Bota, welcome to the show.

Hello, hello. Thank you so invite us. Hi.

So we're gonna-- Yeah, well, good to see you and, we're gonna talk today about defending proof of work as well as, you know, Bitcoin and human rights advocacy. So just for people who don't know you, too, can you please just give us a quick intro?

Yeah, sure. I'm Human Rights Defender, originally from Ukraine, but I live and work in Brussels. we work in many countries, defending those who are politically persecuted inside the countries and also those who are persecuted like political refugees, dissidents outside of the countries. And our organization was deprived right to have financial services because of actually this human rights work. So, at some point being in Europe, in the heart of EU, we were deprived right to have, me personally, deprived right to have financial- Services banking account and during this time we were explaining regulators what happened with us, we were using Bitcoin, this is how we met with Bitcoin and this is how we also started to advocate explaining regulators why this is the only actually tool for us once you are under attack of transnational repression

and I'm Bota. I'm, just like Luda, I'm a human rights defender, and I'm, I'm originally from Kazakhstan. But, right now I live in Belgium, where I have political asylum because I've been, politically, persecuted by my home country, Kazakhstan. And we, we've been working together with Ludov for, I don't know, more than ten years is for sure. And, just as what Ludov mentioned, I was, I was subject to many, many politically motivated attacks, and at some point, I was de-risked. De-risked, it means basically all bank accounts in Belgium were closed for me. And after that, you look at your options, you see what's happening, and this is how we discovered Bitcoin is basically a bank of last resort. And then, what kind of our de-risking happened in parallel with Lude, with Open Dialogue Foundation. So we started looking around and started looking who else is facing- The same problem. We started looking at the root of the problem, and we realized that it's actually a quite general problem, and it's a growing trend that more and more banks, they don't want to deal with difficult clients, especially if they're subject to politically motivated smear campaign online. They prefer just get rid of such clients. And, we found that it's happening with people around the world, not only in Europe. So that's, that's how we discovered Bitcoin and created, BTC Coalition. Lude, you can talk a little bit about it.

Building to change coalition, yes. So BTC Coalition is actually coalition of activists, Bitcoiners, and all-- Everyone basically who wants to explain to regulators and, and legislators why we use Bitcoin Point P2P transactions, you know, even mixers for our privacy to defend, our activists in authoritarian states against abuse of, anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism regulation. It's one thing. Also, we trying to do all possible efforts and explain regulators of G7 countries why Financial Action Task Forces has to be more open, more transparent institution because it shapes all of our reality, and this is something what we have to keep in mind. And we shouldn't abandon our right, to participate in legislative process which affects our lives, directly. So this is also our work, and also we defend proof of work because of the current, ongoing attack in European Union. Unfortunately, there is very wrong perception and narratives against proof of work, and this is what we want specifically, underline and, and bring attention of, bitcoiners, from different countries. We just need your support to defend proof of work.

Okay, so let's, let's talk about that. So if you could spell out for us, just for people, what is the current threat, just at a very high level, in simple terms, what is the current threat from the EU, the bureaucrats and the regulators and the FATF?

Yeah. There are three lines of attack. Right on, on Bitcoin and proof of work. One is something that you already mentioned. This is comes from kind of a higher level, from the recommendations of Financial Action Task Force, and then it goes down to jurisdictions and came to the European Commission, and this is attack on, Bitcoin as an instrument for money laundering and financing of terrorism. This is one line of attack. another two lines of attack, this is they're related more to the issues of energy security in the EU and, environmental and sustainability goals of the EU. And as there, there is a big problem. The European Commission perceives Bitcoin and proof of work, like specifically proof of work, as an, energy wasted mechanism, and this is specifically labeling, proof of work as such in its, action plan to digitalize, energy sector of the EU, and this is very important because this action plan is being implemented by the European Commission right now and as a European institution. And, it, it, European Commission also labels Bitcoin as, outdated, no, proof of work, as outdated consensus mechanism that is harmful to environment. And, European Commission now in the process of developing sustainability labels for digital assets. And so as you can imagine, with a language as such, with the perception that it's energy wasted mechanism, especially, European Commission always compares proof of work, with proof of stake, and they consider proof of stake, Ethereum's proof of stake, they specifically, kind of spelled out in the documents of the EU as the golden standard for the, blockchain ecosystem, and, of course, proof of work for them, it's, energy wasted mechanism. And we can see that this, this is very serious attacks. Because we see how they're being developed right now in the regulations, of the European Union.

And then you mentioned the thir- what's the third line of attack you were mentioning there?

So, first it's, AML, second it's, it's energy threat and a third is an, is environmentally harmful mechanism. That's kind of a nutshell. But we can talk about it for hours, to be honest

Yeah, of course, of course. We just-- I'm, I'm just trying to spell out at a high level what the concerns are, and then we can sort of dig further into those. Now, there will be the question, I'm just gonna ask the question, I don't necessarily agree with this view, but there'll be some people who say, "Hey, as libertarians or cypherpunks, why bother engaging with these people at all?" Quote unquote, "Cyphe--punks write code." What would you say to that?

We have to understand that as human defenders

European and US other democratic politicians for support. So every time we come to, to them and ask them, "Listen, guys, you need to help us according to the international human rights, obligations, support this and the, and, and those political prisoners, politically persecuted people." And even general narrative, there is perception, that we use as human defenders mechanism, assumed, in regulation, included in regulation, we labeled it as instrument for money laundering. There is, that is, very bad for environment. It's make weaker our position as human defenders who is always under attack, both by authoritarian regime, even if we live in, democratic countries, but also not every democratic government will be able and, and want to, to support us. This is the first thing. Second thing, we as NGO, survive and actually exist thanks to private donation. If there is narrative, if there is perception in general in society, and also, unfortunately, Fortunately, in-inclusion in, regulation that, Bitcoin again, environmentally bad, used by criminals terrorists. Who is going to support us with the nations through this mechanism? And right now, for us, it's a key instrument. You can't use traditional financial instruments in authoritarian states. So this is the reason why we defend it in front of regulators. We can't wait fifty years, we can't wait when market will, will win. We need to defend it right now because for us, it's means to support People who are-- it's important for us, who are our activists, who are family members in, in many authoritarian states or emergency territories, for example, like in Ukraine. I can't allow that instrument which helps to save so many of my friends and, and relatives, you know, especially during first hours of, Russian full invasion to, to Ukraine, we actually were able to transact and save people's life. The second day of the war, we were delivering hundreds of bulletproof vests, helmets, Medical equipments, we wouldn't be able to do so with normal, transactions of, banking system. So we can't not morally, not, objectively allow regulators, to, to label it, and we can't just look at the, you know, cy-cyberpunk. We respect their position, but our situation that we need this tool to be defended and to be legally used, not in gray zone right now.

Yeah, we look at Bitcoin not as an investment instrument. We aren't looking as, something that we put our money in and wait for a long time. We're looking at it as a payment instrument. We would like to promote use of Bitcoin in, our communities around the world, in, in, in authoritarian countries, where we use Bitcoin, for example, to deliver humanitarian aid, as Ludmilla mentioned, or to raise financing for families of political prisoners, and we want- be able to do so if it's, banned in, in the EU. And don't forget, the EU is a twenty-seven countries, twenty-seven key na— countries. And at the same time, European Commission mentioned that it should tackle the problem with, kind of wasteful energy consumption by Bitcoin miners on the globally impactful way. This is the event which I quote like globally impactful way. It means that they will be pushing the, other countries to adopt similar requirements, similar labeling. It's something that will be spread around. It will be not contained only within the boundaries of the EU.

And yeah, I mean, as, probably my listeners will know, I'm a libertarian, of course, I'm anti-the, the state and these regulators, but I also see a role for trying to push back in ways that we can do this. Now, the question, the other question people might have is, can these people be reasoned with? Can we actually do something here? What's the pathway to actually try to do something here?

So yeah, of course we can and we should. I mean, we have privilege as people who reside in, democratic countries or who are citizens of democratic countries to use your voters' right to use your contacts with your politicians and regulators to demand them actually to respect your recommendations. How you can do it? You can go together like we've done, for example, the last two years when we invite, for example, Obin Voss or Mark Morton and other Bitcoiners to go with us, human defenders plus Bitcoiners, and we educate what- Two hundred of, members of European Parliament, national parliaments, regulators, European commissions, high level, we met also with representative of financial action task forces with clear recommendations and, actually argumentations why we cannot use, for example, traditional financial instruments in authoritarian states, why peer-to-peer transactions plays key role for us to fundraise, to actually provide support for families of our political prisoners as the only payment instrument and fundraising instrument. And, why, for example, crypto asset services providers and for traditional financial instru-instruments like banking system, you know, PayPal, just unsafe for us, even if we live in democratic countries. In my case, both our case, some other, our members from Turkey, Palestine and other countries, they show clearly how Banking data can be weaponized. And when you speak with these kind of languages, what you achieve, first of all, we have clear recommendations, for example, for, of organization for cooperation in security in Europe, which, is umbrella for fifty-seven member states, including North America, so it's US and Canada, European countries, and also Asian countries, that they have to reflect in relevant regu-regulation how we basically deprive the right to have financial services because Also for abuse of anti-money laundering counter-terrorism regulation and how we use Bitcoin and stable coins, for humanitarian aid and for human rights. This is something what we achieved. We also achieved in European Union, for example, a, a acknowledgement that crypto assets used as a payment instrument, as fundraising instrument. For example, in US, it's commodity, so there is no this kind of acknowledgement. Again, we were able to get it because we were educating, regulators and, and legislators. And they were able to ask us on private meetings, for example, what is Bitcoin? Of course, no one from politicians don't want to ask this kind of question publicly, but we make it's comfortable this dialogue when they can ask questions and we can ask, and we can ask them questions. So we, we try to build these bridges, whenever you like it or not, but we have positive effects, and we actually want to defend, Bitcoin as, our technology.

Yeah, I would like to add something. you know, there are, two type of, people, in, in politics. This is, some, you know, politicians, bureaucrats Not elected bureaucrats and this is usually those who work for the regulator, right? for European Commission, for executive bodies. And then you have, politicians that were elected directly by people. These are members of parliaments, of parliaments, of local parliaments of the member states and the European Parliament. And, it's way easier to approach to meet those who are, members of the parliaments because they're politicians, they're used to talking to their constituencies, to their voters. and educate them about, use of Bitcoin, because what we see is, basically they don't know much about it. They just, the information they get is usually, you know, from Bloomberg, from newspapers, from somebody mentions something, and from the European Commission. With the European Commission, it's a little bit tricky because they're a bureaucrat, they have their agenda, they, there are some, you know, high level, industry interest involved. So we have to meet with them anyway and explain our position because very often when we come to those meetings, they get surprised, they say, "Oh, we didn't know that you exist. We didn't know that Bitcoin can be used in the ways that you're just describing." So we educate in one way, on another way, in the end of the day, the regulations are, are adopted by the parliaments. Positions really have to be adopted by the parliament, so it's very important to work with them, educate them, and then They will ask uncomfortable questions, they will, the Commission and the regulators, and they will question their position. And this is how you work, and this, these are democratic tools that we're trying to have in our countries. We kind of, put in jeopardy our lives and a lot of people sitting in jail to have these instruments, and here in the Western democracies, people just neglect them very often, and, and you know, we consider it's very sad we should use this mechanism.

So let's walk through some of the, some of these threats in a little more detail now. So as you mentioned, I guess we can maybe at a high level say there's the kind of, there's the threat at the mining side, at the proof of work side, and then there's also the threat at the, let's say, self-custody, AML, financial transactions regulation side. So let's start with the mining side. What is the main regulation that's, you know, being debated here? Is it MiCA or is it some other regulation? And what, what, if Expand on a little bit of the ex-exact threat that, the EU is facing.

Yeah. Mi- my market in crypto assets regulations has been already adopted by the Eu-European, Union, right? So it's just in the process of, of kind of getting into force. It will get into force, this year in two thousand and twenty-four. But, there was a discussion during the its adoption about banning of proof of work, and we are going back to, two thousand and twenty-two when it was actively debated at the European Parliament. And sometime in the March of two thousand and twenty-two, there was a consensus that there will be no banning. of proof of work, and everyone exhale. Everyone thought that that's it, the issue is done, victory, alu ever, we can move on and forget about those, stupid regulations. But at the same time, then as time passed by, in October two thousand twenty-two, European Commission already when it, it was adopting its action plan on energy security, they put this language, you know, that action plan was a- Adopted as a kind of response to this energy crisis in the EU after the full invasion, by Russia of Ukraine, so they, they needed to justify their failed policies, and one of the scapegoats became proof of work, right? And, and, as v-energy, like something that jeopardizes energy security in the EU. And so this is the action plan is adopted and now, you know, it's, it's kind of being implemented through different mechanisms, including that you probably should talk a little bit.

Yes, exactly. A part of, what European Commission is doing, there was, of course, European Commission tender, which was al-already defined very negative, indicators, against proof of work, so it was- Specifically focused on negative, externalities of proof of work. So entire study cost of, eight hundred, thousands of euros focused to prove why proof of work is bad, to put it simply. Then we have of course post-MICA reports and discussions in European Parliament, which also identified the same, problems, let's say. So from one side, they attack proof of work, the same line which like European Central Bank and in- European Commission and, also we see the same language repeated was in European Security and Markets, Authority. So this is so-called ESMA, which is a door in-implementing, decisions by European Parliament and European Commission. Demands. So, and this is also a institution where we submitted, voices of, both proof-of-work, miners, and also human rights activists and those who use Bitcoin, for example, to defend the results of votes, in Guatemala, like Rafa Cordon, developer of Simple Proof. So we collected all of these testimonies and tried to explain all institutions, basically the entire EU bubble, why they are wrong. But they're not unfortunately alone taking this decision. I can understand you, Stephan, that you don't like your bureaucrats because they're quite numerous, and imagine you have to go down, like for example, you have to go to national level or national parliaments, key country expert on, this regard, because European Parliament, European Commission, they all go into elections. So we have really short window of opportunity where we can im- implement, kind of our strategy and impact Our own opinion and narratives, changes narratives, once again, like we've done during, Mika drafting debate, so we have to repeat the same and do it both on EU level, like, Brussels level, but also go to specific countries to educate these, key parliaments like Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Belgium, because Belgium now, president of, around presidency of the European Union, and we need to explain the key members of this- Parliaments, why actually proof of work is beneficial for society, how it's empowering society, how it's actually protect rule of law, and what's happened right now today in Guatemala is clear example how proof of work, and, actually Bitcoin blockchain can help to defend democracies, not just like be payment instrument, but actually also, protect democracies. So I think it's huge victory for everyone who contributed for, making this, possible. And we need- We need changes narrative. We live in a world of narratives and perceptions. Perceptions are unfortunately reality, so we have to shape it and took it our responsibility for, for all of this, what's happening around us, and specifically how bitcoins find, defined in, in the eyes of, both societies, but also regulators and legislators.

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this is exactly what you said. You know, it's, that they try to create a mechanism, that will discourage investors to invest into Bitcoin. And, you, you know, i-i-it's, it's kind of- Sounds strange if you live in, you know, Bitcoin bubble, let's say, because you do mention the EU bubble, that in Bitcoin bubble, you know about KPMG, report, you know, about updated, version of, Cambridge consumption in the energy index, you s- you hear how, institutional, large institutional investments change their opinion about Bitcoin, but this is happening in parallel reality. What's happening in Brussels? In, in the, in, in so-called EU bubble, this is, they live, in the world where Ethereum's proof of stake is a golden mech- golden standard. And, where, proof of work is something that, should be discouraged. And this is the labeling, this is, the standards methodology to calculate, s-t-sustainability impact that, European Com- Commission is now developing. And considering that, that- Of this negative perception that European Commission has is basically what they're going to do, they're going to give very low sustainability, index to proof of work. This is they basically gonna end up saying that, yes, we prove that, proof of work is bad for the environment, and that's it with this ESG imperative, and right now there is a pressure on the banks from European Central Bank, to put this, you know,

green deal, kind of objectives of the European Union, the banks go into and, taken into consideration, ESG criteria, so they will definitely, look at, you know, mining and if it's labeled bad in terms of ESG, then it's not gonna be very appealing to, us to invest. This is how it works.

Yeah, yeah. what, what, what actually we are quite worried that it's discriminatory approach, we also mentioned in our submission, to ESMA, that we don't think it's a great idea To grant basically European Central Bank, which issued specifically very negative attacking, against proof-of-work reports that actually European Central Bank is going to have, specific power to include risk linked to climate change and, you know, actually define what crypto assets is, worth to investment and what not. We, we think that it's clear competition, in, I mean, it's two industries which compete. So how this, Our European Central Bank as a one of the most competitive, actor in this field can decide what should happen with, other industry. This is something what is, has to be, absolutely discussed on a, you know, level that, for, for example, European Central Bank representative, crypto asset services representative, Bitcoiners, civil society, members of the parliament, members of European Commission, we have to sit on one table and actually discuss all of our arguments why we think it should be or shouldn't be. And I think we need to work on our strong argument why it's actually discriminatory policy and it shouldn't be happen. Because if it's just all-allowed to be happen like, like now, it's already discussed, it's already developed, it's developed not the first year, it's actually at the, stage of, announcement and adoption. It's, it's going to be like this. So why we should allow European Central Bank define, do you have right to, buy Bitcoin, do invest in Bitcoin or not? I think we, it just shouldn't happen.

Right. And I guess one other argument to lay in, or at least one thing that could happen here is if we think about, you know, microstrategy or some large company buying Bitcoin and holding Bitcoin, that might be harder for, let's say, an EU company, because if ESMA, this European Securities and Markets Authority, says, "Oh, no Work is bad, you're not allowed to do this kind of thing, then maybe it becomes harder for Bitcoin adoption even at that level also. So I think there's also, an argument to be made around that.

But they want to give European Central Bank even to define it, not even to ASMA, to European Central Bank, so the institution which is directly initiate attacks against proof of work in Bitcoin is going to define should you be able to invest or not, you know, in Bitcoin on crypto asset services providers. This is a

clear conflict of interest, yeah, clear conflict of interest, and un-unless we say something- Unless we say something, you know, nothing will change. This is the issue, but, you know, we should stay optimistic and we, we should always remember, even if we have a little bit of time, you know, because they, their plans, they are set for two thousand and twenty-five, kind of as a kind of key date, is one of the, key dates, but, we still have time, and we really need to unite and start working together, try to, convince both regulators and the politicians that there are issues, there are problems, because if we are quiet, then it's easy to say, "Oh, this is the government, it's always against us, they're always accepting these stupid policies." But, you know, you never defended your position, you never even articulated your position. How they supposed to know? Other industries working very hard day and night To make sure that their positions are in front of, the regulator.

And on this issue, what can-- if there are listeners now who wanna help out on this particular proof of work issue, what are you looking for? Are you looking for testimonials? Are you looking for help in some kind of way? What, what is, what is the ask?

Yes, yes. On the website, of Open Dialogue Foundation, you can find, BTC campaign, where we published also our SMA, submission. So this is an example, How we want to shape, your basically experience into understandable for regulators and legislators, format so they understand your first-hand information, how your business operate, how you as a miner operate, what's, you giving local, communities, you know, benefits, how civil society benefits from it, and how actually environment benefits from it. These three aspects, we call them po-positive externalities. Indicators. we also mentioned in our submission that, European institutions should not only focus on negative aspects of proof of work, but actually they have to include positive indicators and especially social impact indicators, because if you remember that most of the countries in this world are authoritarian and people deprived right to have financial services, then you understand the social impact of Bitcoin specifically, where it's the only instrument, to, to operate quite openly. If we spe- if we speak about those who are under political repression, so this is something we have to take into account, and this is our strongest argument, and we need to come together, give these testimonies, run this campaign, educate over two hundred next, members of parliaments, key people from the, regulators, e-regulators, and defend proof of work. This is what we need to do. In the current, situation, the next six months, when this perception and narratives is shaping Also in the reports of, EU bubble institutions.

Yeah, just so listeners make sure you check in the description, I'll put the link, but it's odfoundation dot eu. There's a section around defend PAL submission to ESMA. So I'll put the link there in the show notes. Bertak, go on.

So, we really looking for miners who use renewable energy for mining, right? Especially if we can find those in the EU, that would be absolutely brilliant for us. And if we can, bring them to the politicians and demonstrate how Bitcoin mining can actually facilitate adoption of renewables, how it stabilizes the grid, things that have been discussed in the US for years, right? And, people in the EU know about About it, but nobody here in Brussels knows about it, and we really need to bring those people, to the Parliament to the European Parliament. And we also need people from the, from the academia. Yeah. Sorry. We would like to have, of course, it would be wonderful to have proper reports, would be wonderful to have proper studies, on Bitcoin mining, not biased, preferably peer reviewed if it's possible, and, to- Kind of back up the position that Bitcoin community has, that would make our life so much easier. Yeah. And we're so-- And I just want to

point out as well that there's a, a lot of, a lot of misinformation has gone on in the mainstream press, you know, in years gone by about proof of work, right? You see these, these ridiculous-- Because people will take some ridiculous- Statistic that's, you know, e-exaggerated or just not correct from DigiEconomist or someone like that, and then extrapolate it in a way that doesn't actually work to extrapolate, and then say, "Oh, look how much energy Bitcoin mining is using," or "Look how much, whatever, water is being used or something or other," in a way that just doesn't work. And if you look through some of the arguments, really, it actually doesn't, and there are people out there doing the work, to try and debunk some of these arguments, That's what we're trying to get out here as well, and people can see that as well if they look in that particular link, some of that is quite clear. And, and I think those of us who are deeper into the Bitcoin world, we sort of know this stuff already, but there are people who are outside this world who have very little concept of these things, and they just see Bitcoin bad, right, in their mind.

Yeah, you shouldn't ever assume that somebody knows the same, has the same information as, as you. So you, like, like we need to go to the politicians. We need to understand if you complain about their stupid policies, you, you should think, why they're stupid. Maybe they have a agenda, it's one thing, and we can deal with that as well, or, maybe they just don't know. Maybe they just don't know and they've been manipulated by the media, by other interest groups, and they adopt the decisions that they adopt.

Yeah. And I want to thank there specifically to Troy Cross, Daniel Butt, and Eric Hersman, Mark Morton, Bert Groot, Kristaps Skicius, and Brian Smiley because they actually are part of our submission, they are part of our campaign to support. We need more this kind of first-hand information. So whenever politicians or regulators ask us, "Okay, you get it just from some..." We are, you know, websites or-- No, we have actually first-hand information, and this is the value, value of first-hand testimony. This is so important that Bitcoin miners actually first-hand information provide and participate in these kind of meetings, submissions, and advocacy campaigns. So guys, we need you, no matter where you are, because EU is going to produce their crazy recommendation global with a global approach, so we also have to produce our submissions. And testimonies from with a global approach. So whenever you are, you do good for communities, you know, mining Bitcoin, please share with us your experience.

Great. Okay. So that's, let's, let's call that the, the power section or the proof of work section. Let's now talk about the other aspect of this, where we've got, let's say, the AML, self-custody, FATF aspect of this. So, can, can you spell out for us what are some of the main threats here? What's the main- Regulation at, you know, that's at play here.

So we need to remember that all of these, attacks for, for, basically Bitcoin and, and first of all, peer-to-peer transactions, they unfortunately come in, from, fi-financial action task forces. And where they start? They start from a communiqué issued by G7 countries, and here we, we have to look into May, twenty twenty-three, where the main messages were that peer-to-peer transactions Crypto asset transactions can be perceived as a threat to financial and, and, in-integrity and security. And our main goal, I mean, we, we took it very seriously, and afterwards we see that main recommendation of financial action task force is repeating it. Then we went to, post-Mika, reports of European Parliament and see the same unfortunately messages that the next step of what it has to be regulated and, what kind of- kind of approach has to be taken that, self-hosted wallets and peer-to-peer transactions that perceived exactly as G7 country said, as threat to financial integrity and, stability and security. So we shouldn't allow, easily, I mean, simply to, to, to happen so, because for us, self-hosted wallets It's the only instrument how we can operate fundraising or keeping our money safe, from the, dictators. Of course, there are also a lot of difficulties, especially right now with the cost of transactions and the speed of transactions with Bitcoin. But anyways, in case of financial institutions, you would never receive this money. They would be immediately, simply, you know, this information is weaponized against you, arrested. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And for example- Well, I want to show my own example, when I'm, I'm quite known activist, I have support, political support because of, attack of at least se- three several authoritarian regime, I also got protection in European countries. Like European Parliament, Interparliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Bundestag, French Parliament, Belgian Parliament, and many others, they, they su-- supported me. But at the end of the day, when Kazakhstan, Poland during, Kaczyński time or Moldova during Plahotniuc time, they cooperated in order to get me out or block me, they used my banking data and prosecuted everyone who was donating me through traditional financial institutions, those who received our donation, some of people- People were even sentenced in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan just for cooperating with us. And, for example, all of our donors and recipients of, of our volunteers, our even cleaning lady, all of them were under attack and interrogation just because these regimes were able to get my banking data. But even worse situation was in case of Bota. If you can explain what's happened with your brother and also with you.

Yeah, in, in my case, my banking data in, in Belgium was seized by Kazakhstan as well. And banking, what is banking? Banking, banking, data is a roadmap to your life, right? You, they can see everything about you, they can see your connections, they, they know where you go, they know who you basically dealing with, and then, it makes you very vulnerable. And I was already kind of, subject to a kidnapping in France on the territory of Belgium. Three people were arrested by Belgium Federal Police and sentenced for that here in Belgium. But Kazakhstan goes and gets my banking data and then weaponizes it and attacks my family in Kazakhstan. And I had my brother, my older brother, arrested in Kazakhstan and tortured, and it took two years for us to actually to have him released, because they took him as a hostage, trying to force me to go back to Kazakhstan, from Belgium. And, it's actually not happening unfortunately, to me, but it happens like in, in countries like Kazakhstan and it hap-happens in Russia and Belarus and, in many, many other countries around the world. And like for example, in, in Belarus, you know, a lot of activists outside of country and people who left Lukashenko regime, they're raising financing and trying to help victims of torture and political- Prisoners in Belarus. And, at the beginning, they were just transferring money through the banking system, and then Lukashenko regime just would simply, arrest those funds, and then people, the recipients of those funds, they would be charged with, participation in terrorist activities, and those who transfer money, they are,

charged with financing of terrorism activities, and, so that makes impossible to- Help civil society in the country, so that's why activists started using peer-to-peer transaction. But it, it, it's, a bit strange to see that European Union wants to follow the steps of Belarus, where right now they are working and they already, developing the regulations to ban peer-to-peer transactions. And, so the, the EU is going to ban it, and then the European Union, it's, it's ridiculous, but you see EU is going to do it under this pretext that this is something to protect financial stability and to fight anti-money laundering regulations and terrorist financing. But in countries like ours, we all label us terrorists and extremists. And money launderers. Threat to national security, money launderers. Yeah. And threat to national security. So, so this is all comes from, financial action task force recommendations. But then when they've been implemented, and especially implemented in the systems where you don't have independent judiciary, where you don't have independent legislation, branch, legislative branch They basically used as an instrument to destroy civil society, to destroy inj-ingles and, and opposition. And unfortunately, this This is something that can happen anywhere around the world if you have this mechanism implemented. This is a danger to democracy as well, because why peer-to-peer transactions? should be banned. This is something you're right to financial privacy. It's similar to cash transactions, but we see now this attack on cash and we see attacks on, P2P transactions. So this is something that we really need to defend. People don't defend cash For some reason, you know, it's, it's just convenient, especially young people, they don't care about cash already. They give up that right so easily. And right now, we see if we don't say anything, we will give up the right to have P2P transactions, thinking that we can do it elsewhere in some kind of, or in a gray zone. But, you know, people like us, we need to have, an app readily available in app store, right? If a wallet is banned, how are we gonna get access to that? We are not cyberpunks. Then it means that we will be excluded, from basically, Bitcoin world, that's it.

So there was a lot there. So let me just try to, let's say, summarize some of the key arguments just to make sure everybody's following along. So what we're talking about here is essentially AML and counterterrorism financing regulations. Now, obviously, now personally, I'd rather abolish the law, abolish FATF, abolish AML, but they do exist. And now, some of the consequences of these laws are that banks and financial institutions are required to collect and store a lot of information on your transactions. That allows, you know, in, in the e-European context or even in a global context, what we're seeing is this kind of transnational legal assistance frameworks where maybe one country is allowed to request from somebody else, "Hey, I want that data." And if Stephan or if Ludo or if Boeta has been doing unapproved political things, then that can have a chilling effect on, you know, pro freedom advocacy because now you're worried about every time you tap your credit card, hey, who, who else is gonna get this data? Not just me and my bank and the credit card company, but this other hostile government potentially, could be, getting that information. And then the other angle you're pointing out as well, and which is- Is also in the paper, so people check out in the links. So it's odfoundation dot eu, and you can see, can the EU's anti-money laundering reform help dictators, right? So that's the link in the show notes. But, the other one there is the de-risking aspect, right? Because what's happening, and I believe, Bo, you mentioned earlier in the conversation, this happened to you. So de-risking has become this term that, we're hearing in financial services where maybe there are certain customers who aren't maybe not that profitable for a bank

To just sort of, well, hey, you know what? This person is working for some kind of not, not-for-profit organization that's high risk in our AML tables. We're just gonna evict that customer. Off you go, we're not gonna bank you. And so, you know, people were talking about this even recently with Nigel Farage, I think, you know, last year, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a big, you know- big, thing about this, but essentially this de-risking is happening out there to people, and so what I think a lot of people, and this is probably something where we as the Bitcoin advocates can do something here, is try to help change this Perception, right? So the perception is, "Oh, AML laws aren't strong enough, we need stronger AML." Right? And so what does that mean in practice? It me-- Yeah, right. That's what they think, right? They think, "Oh, we need stronger AML laws to stop the terrorists and the criminals." And in practice, what's happening is actually a lot of people are getting financially excluded.

Exactly. This is what we have to say, and this is-- We need more and more voices, and this is exactly what we've done, for example, in to financial action task forces. This is exactly what we do in explaining German regulators, one of the most strongest also financial action task forces representative. We did also submission as a civil society coalition and as the victims of so-called, you know, false positives. We are not false positive, it's our lives. We were directly affected of abuse of anti-money laundering counter-terrorism regulations. So they cannot say it is something ab-abstract. We, life example, when we talk to- To them that listen, we are from all over the globe. we from Russia, we from Belarus, we from Kazakhstan, Palestine. I'm living in Brussels. I'm originally from Ukraine. And all of us, like a lot of people from other countries, Turkey, you know, African countries, all of us, we are victims of transnational repression. We deprive right to have financial services as immigrants, as refugees, as angels, and this is the result of unfortunately stronger and stronger anti-money laundering regulation. We understand that it's Need to be kind of provision to fight against, organized criminal groups. But looking to the results, the results right now, if we don't fix it, we, we became a subject of this attack. It became a weapon, very easy and effective weapon for dictators which can easily get all of our data without any remedies. So till nowadays, there is no remedies how to protect your banking data or your crypto asset services data. So if someone wants to take your business, if you're not activist, if you're just a successful business person, and some of your competitors want to basically destroy your business, it's enough for him to know how actually these IML rules operate to organize smear campaign against you, or just to order you to place in some database which bought by financial institutions, you know, and, and, and that's a-- that's it. End of your business, you will be lost your banking services.

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At an automated system level, and some of that has been driven at, you know, if you, if you trace it back enough, it's because of AML regulations.

Yeah, all, all these mechanisms they were adopted, like, like all these complain, compliance mechanism, automated compliance mechanisms at the banks, they were adopted pursuant to the, Financial Action Task Force recommendations, right? It's a part of this, anti-money laundering requirements that each bank should have, but it now became, like, like- This beast on its own, because, how bank compliance works, it's a black box, right? We really, we, we deal at the bank with a front office, right, with some nice lady or a gentleman that friendly to us, trying to be helpful, but then we receive letters that, you know, w- this decision to close down your accounts, please take your funds within like this number of days and, and that's it, right? So what happens in that, black box of compliance? Really, it's for regular customers, it's not known. But there is a mechanism, and right now it's more and more, it's no-not really becoming, becoming less human, more AI mechanism, right? That all this data is, picked up. And when we say, smear campaign. It's not necessarily some kind of negative press in, respectable media, right? That's something that where investigative journalists, have discovered some corruption scandal. No, it's very often like in our cases, in some absolutely obscure websites that exist only to spread this propaganda. It's done in various- Or the languages, languages that, like, Luda was attacking twenty-seven languages. Like, what twenty-seven languages? And there are no, no, no languages, languages, yeah, of the member states. It's like some, in Hindu, why she's attacking Hindu? Like, what is, yeah, what, what is the public interest? Like, or, like, there was a newspaper in Paki-- in s-some website in Pakistan in Urdu. Why? Why, why this people like who re-read, read in Urdu? To know about some Ludmila Kozlovskaya won't be able to pronounce your name, right? This is done only to be picked up. So this is like a situation, right? It's something the idea is like, like, you know, you throw mud, something will stick, and this is what happens. Something will stick, definitely, it will get picked up, and then, all this negative press So the bank is, has this dilemma, should they re-translate and read it and analyze and ask a client questions, what it means, how you gonna address these allegations? Are they really baseless or there, there is something into that? It's gonna be too expensive. It's easier for them just to kick out the client like that. And unfortunately, this is-- we are saying that it happened to us, some people say, "Oh, we are rare examples," et cetera. But this is- It's happening more and more in this, we see how it's happening with the public figures, people that are tagged by mainstream media and for their political views, right? And we shouldn't look at what their political views, whether it's Kanye West or Nigel Farage, we don't care, right, about the views. We care about this mechanism. Why some bank decides whether this person is worthy as a client on the basis of the political views of that person? This is an absolutely ridiculous mechanism, but you have to look at that kind of wider. This is a real mechanism for, censorship, political censorship. So it's already existing in the West, and if we just don't say anything, it's gonna work more and more. And later, when everything's gonna be a-automated, then we won't be able to find who is doing what and like with his bank or somebody else, because all this compliance is going to be outsourced. Elsewhere in somewhere on the cloud, a-and that's it. And so some mechanism going to decide who's gonna live and who's gonna die. This is quite dangerous trend.

And, one other thing, around, I guess there's also stuff around the travel rule and, some of these other aspects that are coming as well. So that will also make compliance more difficult, and it, it'll also become maybe a little bit harder to actually self-custody your Bitcoin. So obviously, most Bitcoiners, we, we care about not your keys, not your coins. so if you could spell out for us what is the threat there?

Exactly, I mean, you actually pointed out very, very well. I mean, what's happened with us and why we care about Bitcoin, we call Bitcoin as human rights. Now when we see that financial institutions uses a weapon against civil society, against opposition, Bitcoin is a human right And when we see that, all crypto asset services providers going to be operating just in the way how traditional financial institutions, we understand that crypto asset services providers unfortunately going to be the same weapon for regimes, just as, traditional banks. And that's why, of course, we defend, everything around self-hosted wallets, peer-to-peer transactions, but not only. For us, it's also important to defend CoinJoin and also mixers because this is something which protect our privacy, if we- Regimes know and can identify with their very sophisticated tools, everyone on blockchain and state disinformation forever. All of us exposed as activists. So we need to have privacy tools to be able to protect. We don't go outside and just expose how much money we have in our pocket. The same should be with our self-hosted wallets. We should have just like general tools to protect our privacy and, our security even. So this is a basic right. And again, if we don't- Explain, of course, unfortunately, by bureaucrats who perceive everything with the easy approach, we need to over-regulate everything just because we need to escape or criminals. And the end of the day, who is using, the biggest financial institutions in third and third-world countries? Dictators. Who support organized criminal groups? Dictators. So we need to look what real instruments tran-transacting with billions of dollars and other currencies used by organized criminals? Groups and how to deal with it, not just blaming and making a scapegoat or actually Bitcoin, which the only complicated, I have to say, very complicated, but the only one human rights tool for activists right now, because we don't have others instruments. That's it.

Okay, so look, we're getting close to time, but, let's summarize a few of the key concerns. So as we've spoken about, I guess there's two main categories here. You've got the kind of the proof-of-work attacks, and then the, the attacks on self-custody and, you know, privacy and security, concerns. And so we are looking for people who have useful stories in terms of, proof of work mining or, on the financial exclusion side, of, you know, human rights stories. And, I think there's also a public battle, right? It's like a social and cultural battle, right? We can't let there be this perception of, "Oh, Bitcoin's only for criminals and drug money," kind of thing. No, actually, the-- it's a, it's a good thing, it is a normal thing to want to save with Bitcoin and to use Bitcoin And whether, whether if you wanna use Bitcoin, you know, in, you know, without, without third parties, if you wanna be able to self-custody, it's an important thing. So I think those are some of the angles that, you know, if you're a listener of the show, make sure you share this out, especially with other EU Bitcoiners, because it does impact you. So, any closing thoughts there, from your side? And, yeah, just I guess finish up with any thoughts on, you know, the ask from

The area of, of de-risking, because it's very hard to, we, we actually, know a lot of people that, had their bank accounts closed and lost access to the financial services. And when we say de-risk, it b-basically means people lose their bank accounts, they can have problems obtaining insurance, mortgage, like, like you name, right? It's all financial systems. so we're looking for people like that who are willing to- Give, testimonies because there is a certain stigma attached. Nobody, when, when people encounter the risk, they don't wanna speak about it because it's kind of shameful. I'm not a criminal why I got kicked out by my bank. But there can be a number of reasons, and you, you probably don't even know about them. You have to raise these questions. You should be open about it. This is one, one aspect, right? We definitely, as we, spoke already, we- We need more miners, especially those who, use renewables, that that's, for us, kind of key people because we can't address any technical issues on our own. We're looking-- we have expertise from a different angle. And, and then I just wanna say that, you know, on behalf of both of us, we, it's human-- Some, like Luda said that Bitcoin is a human right, and, you know, you see, you hear a lot in the Bitcoin community that Bitcoin is freedom, right? But we are human right defenders. We know that both freedom and human rights, they should be defended, and you have to fight for human rights and for freedom, because it's very easy to lose both. And this is the same with Bitcoin, you have to fight for this privilege to use this instrument. Yeah. So we join the

fight. People

can join with us. Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Exactly. Join the fight, guys.

Okay, great. Well, well, thank you both for joining. As I said, links are in the show notes and, Luda and Botar, thank you for joining me today.

Thank you, thank you, Stefan. Thank you. Thank you everyone for listening us.