"Bitcoin can mean different things to different people.
To me, it represents a personal fight for freedom. Having lived in a country where basic freedoms were suppressed, Bitcoin holds a special significance for me.
My family left Ukraine, which was then a part of the Soviet Union, in 1989.
There, prices were fixed, capital was controlled, information was censored, people were routinely and arbitrarily jailed, and the government set exchange rates that hid the truth of the ever-devaluing ruble.
The economy was failing to supply basic goods.
Many people lived in tiny apartments with three generations of family members.
A pair of jeans could cost you a month's salary.
If you ever saw a line forming at a store, you would stand in it regardless of what was being offered that day because you would purchase anything you could and exchange it on the black market for what you needed.
Although I was lucky to receive a high-quality high school and university education after immigrating to the United States, I was unaware of the role of monetary policy in shaping Soviet society until I started learning about Bitcoin at the age of 35.
I asked my parents about what happened to our money when we left the Soviet Union.
What I learned shocked me.
When my family left the Soviet Union, the government only allowed us to exchange $100 per person at their fixed ruble exchange rate.
The street value of these rubles was almost nothing, so we took what little we could, along with suitcases of trinkets, to sell on our way to America.
This was an example of the ugly face of capital controls: we could leave the country, but we had to start over.
Our money wasn't really ours.
I discovered this problem wasn't unique to the Soviet Union.
It continues to happen all over the world today.
By controlling the flows of capital, governments can effectively control their population, preventing the free movement of people to better jurisdictions and censoring people by cutting off their ties with financial services.
Bitcoin fixes this.
Bitcoin makes money truly portable and difficult to censor, giving people a real bargaining chip against their leaders for the first time in history.
If only my family had access to Bitcoin when fleeing the Soviet Union, we could have left with our wealth intact."
https://go.swanbitcoin.com/index.php/email/emailWebview?md_id=2906&email=ODc1LVhLUS02MzQAAAGQM_Vs8x1ZU4OBV_CL-LdkwVJua1pthy3wbJdJnG_OraACCGbnekIRV-EIUEgLxmjpZtbENE--ihGfHsjJU_Ch0y2U8PG5UGOg
Jeremy M. Boles
npub102…qpxpt
2024-01-02 23:53:46
Author Public Key
npub1027r94w7gaqls4lwkfj399wu5ajkhcuukx8qun93gk55ea0kxukqpqpxptPublished at
2024-01-02 23:53:46Event JSON
{
"id": "d1ca7db086254ea1306dc37abbeccbcbbda6b5c1b269975f54c07ec03236f459",
"pubkey": "7abc32d5de4741f857eeb2651295dca7656be39cb18e0e4cb145a94cf5f6372c",
"created_at": 1704239626,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "\"Bitcoin can mean different things to different people.\n\nTo me, it represents a personal fight for freedom. Having lived in a country where basic freedoms were suppressed, Bitcoin holds a special significance for me.\n\nMy family left Ukraine, which was then a part of the Soviet Union, in 1989.\n\nThere, prices were fixed, capital was controlled, information was censored, people were routinely and arbitrarily jailed, and the government set exchange rates that hid the truth of the ever-devaluing ruble.\n\nThe economy was failing to supply basic goods.\n\nMany people lived in tiny apartments with three generations of family members.\n\nA pair of jeans could cost you a month's salary.\n\nIf you ever saw a line forming at a store, you would stand in it regardless of what was being offered that day because you would purchase anything you could and exchange it on the black market for what you needed.\n\nAlthough I was lucky to receive a high-quality high school and university education after immigrating to the United States, I was unaware of the role of monetary policy in shaping Soviet society until I started learning about Bitcoin at the age of 35.\n\nI asked my parents about what happened to our money when we left the Soviet Union.\n\nWhat I learned shocked me.\n\nWhen my family left the Soviet Union, the government only allowed us to exchange $100 per person at their fixed ruble exchange rate.\n\nThe street value of these rubles was almost nothing, so we took what little we could, along with suitcases of trinkets, to sell on our way to America.\n\nThis was an example of the ugly face of capital controls: we could leave the country, but we had to start over.\n\nOur money wasn't really ours.\n\nI discovered this problem wasn't unique to the Soviet Union.\n\nIt continues to happen all over the world today.\n\nBy controlling the flows of capital, governments can effectively control their population, preventing the free movement of people to better jurisdictions and censoring people by cutting off their ties with financial services.\n\nBitcoin fixes this.\n\nBitcoin makes money truly portable and difficult to censor, giving people a real bargaining chip against their leaders for the first time in history.\n\nIf only my family had access to Bitcoin when fleeing the Soviet Union, we could have left with our wealth intact.\"\n\nhttps://go.swanbitcoin.com/index.php/email/emailWebview?md_id=2906\u0026email=ODc1LVhLUS02MzQAAAGQM_Vs8x1ZU4OBV_CL-LdkwVJua1pthy3wbJdJnG_OraACCGbnekIRV-EIUEgLxmjpZtbENE--ihGfHsjJU_Ch0y2U8PG5UGOg",
"sig": "2490ef229a7e726554ae68a82f7eae1e23ab07e53132de87385526db9090f0de4f61593ac0828fb2d0b7c54dbb15f9db88b6da5ef677c395764e07ffcdbe8aaa"
}