The creator of the Ruby on Rails web framework, David Heinemeier Hansson, called his negative position on bitcoin amid the situation with protests in Canada erroneous.
“I still can’t believe this is a protest that will prove that every bitcoin weirdo is a prophet. And I had to admit I was wrong about the fundamental need for cryptocurrencies in Western democracies,” wrote the Danish programmer.
Since the end of January, actions against anti-COVID restrictions initiated by truckers have been taking place in Canada. On February 15, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergency Act of 1988, which gives the government sweeping enforcement powers and allows banks to freeze the personal accounts of anyone associated with or supporting demonstrations without a court order.
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Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the aforementioned law covers “crowdfunding platforms and payment service providers, all forms of transactions, including digital assets such as cryptocurrencies.”
In the blog, Hansson recalled that since the beginning of 2010, he was skeptical about bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. According to him, the main arguments against were "energy consumption during mining, transaction fees, lack of real decentralization, alleged fraud using the stablecoin Tether (USDT)" and others.
“Now it’s clear to me that I rushed to completely abandon cryptocurrency because of everything that is wrong with it at the moment. Instead of appreciating the fundamental freedom of transactions, which we can best protect now,” the programmer emphasized.