Financial & Social Inclusion
Financial & Social Inclusion
Financial & Social Inclusion
The digital, permissionless, and global nature of BTC enables it to increase financial inclusion and opportunity for a wide range of individuals and groups excluded by traditional financial institutions and grappling with limited local infrastructure. Bitcoin is helping to bank the unbanked, providing low-barrier opportunities for people to save and transact. Since BTC can be sent almost anywhere in the world instantly and for almost no fees requiring only a cell phone, it is one of the best tools for monetary remittances, non-profit and community development initiatives, and a wide array of other financial and social inclusion uses. No bank accounts are required. No high fees, long wait lines, account denials, safety issues, and other problems that have plagued many groups left out of traditional financial systems and structures in Canada and around the world.
Human Rights
Financial & Social Inclusion
Financial & Social Inclusion
Bitcoin is bad for dictators and disrupts authoritarian control. More than 80 percent of people in the world live in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes where they are forced to use weak local currencies and are prey to heavy financial censorship and controls via financial institutions. In almost every one of these regimes, money and the financial system are weaponized. From Turkey, to Togo, to Venezuela, to Russia and beyond, a “first-choice” tool of autocrats when dealing with dissidents or political opponents is financial de-platforming. Within this context, Bitcoin has spread quickly as a global, censorship-resistant currency of choice for human rights activists. It is also being increasingly adopted and used used by everyday people living within these regimes to protect themselves from financial censorship, exclusion and currency debasement.
Economic Development and Growth
Economic Development and Growth
Economic Development and Growth
Businesses that build on and with Bitcoin are important drivers for employment and economic growth. These include Bitcoin data centres (sometimes referred to as miners), as well as diverse businesses that enable people to use Bitcoin. It also includes all businesses that accept payment in BTC and save in BTC, taking advantage of Bitcoin's built-in features to increase their income, efficiency, and resiliency. The digital nature of BTC and the ability of Bitcoin businesses like data centres to set up in a wide array of geographical locations also mean that Bitcoin's employment and economic development benefits are not limited to urban centres and large corporations. Bitcoin helps to democratize and distribute economic development and growth, providing opportunities to strengthen small business, rural and urban communities, and to make Canada's economy more resilient for future generations.
The Environment
Economic Development and Growth
Economic Development and Growth
Bitcoin helps advance important environmental goals around the world. Bitcoin data centres (sometimes referred to as miners) are a key driver of this progress and potential. These data centres are a flexible, location-agnostic source of demand for cheap energy. This gives them the unique advantage of being able to locate at landfills, farms, and oil wells, for example, where they capture vented methane and flared gas and them into electricity for use, instead of allowing them to escape into the atmosphere. Bitcoin data centres are also a perfect partner for governments, power authorities, and energy producers across Canada working to scale up renewable energy production and build out our energy grids. Bitcoin data centres provide them an intermittent demand source for energy (ie, they can turn on and off as needed) which is a critical ingredient for the economic viability of these efforts.
Savings and Financial Empowerment
Savings and Financial Empowerment
Savings and Financial Empowerment
BTC is a powerful savings and financial empowerment technology. This is due to the core features that distinguish it from fiat currencies like the Canadian dollar, US dollar, or Euro, and from other traditional savings and investment tools like gold, stocks, and real estate. These core features include: its scarcity (a fixed total supply of 21 million BTC); its deflationary issuance rate (a diminishing amount of new BTC is issued over time); and, the fact that it is a decentralized, global, and digital asset being adopted around the world. These combined features drive the value of BTC upwards over time. In fact, BTC has been the best performing asset class since 2011. As Bitcoin’s global adoption and use grows, its network effect grows, and its value grows making it a powerful longer-term savings tool for individuals, businesses, organizations and governments.
Stronger Businesses
Savings and Financial Empowerment
Savings and Financial Empowerment
Bitcoin enables businesses to receive payments directly from customers, much like cash. The Bitcoin network operates without intermediaries like banks and credit card companies that take hefty fees. Accepting Bitcoin is 100% free and there are no contracts or hidden fees. Payments with Bitcoin settle instantly meaning businesses gain access to their earnings right away. The potential for chargebacks and fraudulent transactions are eliminated. Millions of people around the world own Bitcoin and want to spend their Bitcoin at places that accept it. By simply accepting Bitcoin, a business can be listed on Bitcoin merchant maps and gain free exposure to an exponentially growing market of customers. Thousands of businesses around the world, big and small, are also now adding BTC to their reserve funds to take advantage of BTC's increased value over time.