Charlie Munger Doesn’t Understand Bitcoin: Michael Saylor

Michael Saylor’s latest interview includes a blast at Western elites, specifically Charlie Munger. 

Munger recently penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled, “Why America Should Ban Crypto.” In it, he slammed cryptocurrencies, explaining that: 

“Such wretched excess has gone on because there is a gap in regulation. A cryptocurrency is not a currency, not a commodity, and not a security. Instead, it’s a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house, entered into in a country where gambling contracts are traditionally regulated only by states that compete in laxity. Obviously the U.S. should now enact a new federal law that prevents this from happening.”

This is not the first time that Munger has been openly negative towards bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, having previously called it “rat poison squared” and “a bad combo of fraud and delusion.”

In a Friday interview with CNBC’s Morgan Brennan, Saylor addressed Munger’s recent op-ed and the Western elite’s opinions on Bitcoin. “If he was a business leader in South America or Africa or Asia and he spent a 100 hours studying the problem, he’d be more bullish on bitcoin than I am,” Saylor explained. “The Western elites have not had the time to study … but I’ve never really met someone with an incentive living in the rest of the world that spent some time thinking about it that wasn’t enthusiastic about bitcoin.”

Today’s interview with @MorganLBrennan covered the success of @MicroStrategy, global adoption of #Bitcoin and #Lightning⚡️, the evolution of the crypto industry, and the digital transformation of money. pic.twitter.com/bEnLOVbpiJ

— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) February 3, 2023

Saylor’s criticism of Munger came alongside further descriptions in regards to MicroStrategy’s plans to develop Lightning enterprise software, explaining for the first time in detail that “Microstrategy is actually developing MicroStrategy Lightning, our own enterprise Lightning offering. We’re going to allow CMOs to offer Lightning rewards or bitcoin rewards, like a frequent flier program, to hundreds of thousands or millions of their customers, all of their employees and all of their prospects, at the speed of light off a website — and we’re very enthusiastic about that.”

The MicroStrategy chairman is obviously still bullish on bitcoin’s growth irrespective of the opinion of legacy billionaires like Munger. In addition, his comments highlight his attention to the global nature of Bitcoin and its ability to enable those who are not yet financially connected as the West is.

Saylor has been persistent in his support for Bitcoin, and he believes that other regions around the world are more aware of the potential of the digital asset. With his commitment to developing Lightning enterprise software, Saylor is making clear his dedication to the adoption of bitcoin and to connecting the world in a new way.

2022: A Year Of Grassroots Bitcoin Adoption For Africa

​​This is an opinion editorial by Anita Posch, the founder of Bitcoin For Fairness who has traveled around the world to learn how the globally unbanked can benefit from sovereign money.

In early 2020, during my first visit in Zimbabwe, my assumption that Bitcoin is needed the most in the Global South was confirmed. I found a nation in distress about money, because of a kleptocratic ruling elite that had been defrauding and stealing from their people by inflating the national currency for decades. Despite this, corruption and military support allowed these leaders to stay at the top for over 40 years.

The need was there, but what about understanding of Bitcoin? I found a few true believers and HODLers from the early days, but I didn’t find a single Bitcoin-only event or community. What existed were cryptocurrency trading groups on WhatsApp and Facebook and a lot of scams. The first questions about Bitcoin always were: “How can I join Bitcoin?” (which is the language that scammers are using to lure in their victims) and “How can I trade it?” (which is the language of short time preference).

In 2021, I had the idea to bring Bitcoin knowledge to the Global South with a focus on fostering communities on the ground and connecting them infrastructure-wise and people-wise with the Bitcoin network. Elizabeth Stark of Lightning Labs encouraged me to apply for a donation at the Human Rights Foundation, which became the first donor supporting “Bitcoin for Fairness.”

With the advice of Sharon Dow and Jacob Strumwasser of Lightning Labs, I drafted a grant proposal, which resulted in sponsorships from LEDN, Okcoin, Paxful, Coinfinity, Breez and Trezor. I set up a crowdfunding campaign on Geyser which received over 500 donations from Bitcoiners all over the world. Brad Mills, Peter McCormack and f418_me all donated significant amounts. I’m sure I’m forgetting other donors — sorry about that and thank you each and everyone for your support!

Our Impact

Through Bitcoin For Fairness, I visited four African countries to spread Bitcoin education and connections this year. The most time I spent was in Zimbabwe and Zambia, which I visited two times each. In April after Bitcoin 2022 in Miami, I gave up my apartment in Vienna and started my nomad life.

It led me to South Africa in May, where I worked with Bitcoin Ekasi. In June, I was at the Oslo Freedom Forum to connect with human rights activists and freedom fighters like Meron Estefanos, Farida Nabourema and Leopoldo Lopez. COVID-19 stopped me for a few weeks and after the Baltic Honeybadger conference in Riga, I returned to Zimbabwe and Zambia. The last traveling I did in 2022 led me to the first pan-African Bitcoin conference in Ghana.

Zambia

In March, I was speaking to 50 students at the University of Zambia — we hosted a Lightning Network workshop, I gave radio and newspaper interviews and we started a Bitcoin education group on WhatsApp, which has grown to 65 members. All of this was organized by Ndesa, Emmanuel and Japhet, three crypto-interested individuals who hadn’t known each other before. In May, they set up the first Bitcoin For Fairness (BFF) meetup in Lusaka.

In October, I visited for the second time. I was speaking at the Forum On Internet Freedom In Africa 2022 (FIFA22) and at the University of Zambia to about 30 students, and we installed wallets and sent sats. We organized a BFF meetup and donated a RaspiBlitz full node to one of the local Bitcoiners. Together, with the BFF team, we conducted a one-day Bitcoin workshop for journalists.

In December, the fifth BFF meetup took place and the Bitcoin and Lightning node was up and running. The BFF goal to initiate a local group of Bitcoiners to conduct regular meetups and bring Bitcoin infrastructure to Zambia has been fully met. The local BFF group has set up their own ZambiaBitcoinMeetups.com website, it meets at Scallywags a (restaurant accepting bitcoin) and one of the members started a Bitcoin podcast in the local Bemba language on our recently-launched BTC Podcasting platform.

Zimbabwe

We kicked the Zimbabwe trip off with a Bitcoin talk in early March which was attended by 60 participants in the capital of Harare. One of them was Alexandria, who took a six-hour bus ride from Bulawayo, because he didn’t know any other Bitcoiners. I encouraged Alexandria to start a Bitcoin-only WhatsApp group and ask the guests to join. Today, that group has grown to 300 members and is on Twitter, too. Alexandria and his Bitcoin Reach group is fully independent from BFF now. This has also been a goal of mine: self sovereignty and self organization of the communities.

I have actually lost count of the number of Bitcoin meetups that have happened in Zimbabwe since my talk in March, which is a good thing. The meetups in Gweru and Bulawayo were sponsored by BFF. “Run With Bitcoin” Paco was our guest, too.

Zimbabwe, Gweru first #Bitcoin meet up. Sponsored by @BFFbtc@AnitaPosch. Organized by @prestigegroup01, @alesander97. Thank you @RunwithBitcoin for tag pins, our new community in Gweru loved them. Get off Zero! #Bitcoin . Not your keys, not your coins! https://t.co/YJmcDGtcWrpic.twitter.com/i41ANEbOtq

— Prestige Group Network (@prestigegroup01) July 13, 2022

We gave away Trezor devices and I conducted a workshop to help people set the devices up. Because of my work, a Zimbabwean farmer owning a solar power plant came together with someone from the international community, who donated six ASIC miners. The machines have been mining bitcoin from solar power since June 2022.

First #Bitcoin miners in #Zimbabwe! Top 1 country with 400% inflation.

Now people start taking things in their hands. Listen to @UnstoppableBs who made it happen.

👉 https://t.co/3NMueb8eEF@adam3us@Blockstream@SebGouspillou@whiteafrican@obi@dergigi @ODELL @JW75430533pic.twitter.com/qV7GTDyu4v

— Anita ⚡🏳️‍🌈 (@AnitaPosch) July 7, 2022

In September, I visited a remote area in the Eastern Highlands and sent a Lightning payment from my Voltage node to Bitcoin Ekasi in South Africa.

I sent a #Lightning payment from the Eastern Highlands in #Zimbabwe to @BitcoinEkasi in #SouthAfrica. A pan-African payment that otherwise is impossible took only a few minutes at almost zero cost. @lightning@jackpic.twitter.com/HoN9dalueH

— Anita ⚡🏳️‍🌈 (@AnitaPosch) September 15, 2022

This tweet had been shared a lot and Trevor Ncube, a highly-acclaimed journalist in the Southern African region, invited me to be a guest on his popular YouTube Show “In Conversation with Trevor.” The show included my wallet setup video in the episode and I onboarded Trevor to Lightning and Bitcoin. Being the trailblazer that he is, he invited me to make his podcast “Value4Value” ready for a bitcoin standard. Now, his show is the first Zimbabwean podcast receiving bitcoin payments via Alby.

After my appearance on “In Conversation With Trevor,” Newsday Zimbabwe published an article titled “Bitcoin Should Be The Currency Of Choice,” writing, “Anita Posch has urged Zimbabwean businesses and individuals to use bitcoin as a medium of exchange because of its low charges when transacting as well as its being less prone to abuse.”

South Africa

In May, I went to South Africa to work with Bitcoin Ekasi, the circular Bitcoin economy in Mossel Bay. First I spent some time in Cape Town and met Bitcoin builders like Carel van Wyk, who was already working on a solution to what later became Pick n Pay’s acceptance of Lightning payments.

Since November, you have been able to pay for your groceries at one of the biggest supermarket chains in South Africa. This is a huge step for the future success of the circular Bitcoin economy in the township. Now, people can earn and spend bitcoin without the need to exchange to the South African rand.

Been washing our vehicles and paying in #Bitcoin at Skhokho Waya Waya Car Cash since September.

Today Skhokho shopped @PicknPay & thanks to @CryptoConverted experienced the #LightningNetwork⚡️ in a whole new dimension.

👀👉🏾 @CryptoConverted#SouthAfrica🇿🇦 & #Bitcoin adoption👀 pic.twitter.com/1l53lq2fMa

— Bitcoin Ekasi (@BitcoinEkasi) December 12, 2022

We also brought a RaspiBlitz and Trezor devices to Bitcoin Ekasi. The senior coach there named Luthando learned how to run the node and I did a hardware wallet workshop with him and the junior coaches. Now, the shop owners in the township can secure their bitcoin savings offline.

The ⁦@the_surfer_kids learning to send and receive #bitcoin ⁩ @Beeblebrox232⁩. ⁦@vryfokkenou⁩ and ⁦@RaspiBlitz⁩ donated by ⁦the @BFFbtc⁩ community. Coaches ⁦@LuthandoSABTC⁩ and Akhona will receive @Trezor wallets. @BitcoinEkasi ⁦@BFFbtc⁩ pic.twitter.com/2I2Wop5SXR

— Anita ⚡🏳️‍🌈 (@AnitaPosch) May 13, 2022

A German television network that was interested in doing a documentary about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies sent a team of theirs to follow BFF and the Ekasi team in the township. Here, you can watch the documentary in German.

Last but not least, I served as the matchmaker between Bitcoin Ekasi’s new teacher, named Ms. Nomsa, and a BFF volunteer, who helped her get knowledgeable about Bitcoin. I also connected Paxful with the community, which led to a Paxful and Built With Bitcoin education center being placed on site.

After months of planning, painting & expanding @the_surfer_kids existing youth empowerment program, here it is:

A #Bitcoin Education Center in the #township!!!

Powered by @paxful & @builtwithbtc ⚡️💡🙏

Thanks to @BitcoinMagazine for covering it 🧡🙌https://t.co/K2bmKRIVaX

— Bitcoin Ekasi (@BitcoinEkasi) October 11, 2022

Ghana

As soon as I heard the announcement of the first Pan-Africa Bitcoin conference, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. Organized by Farida Bemba Nabourema, a Togolese human rights and Bitcoin activist, it came to be the greatest Bitcoin conference I have been to so far. The focus on Bitcoin as a tool for Africans to empower and free themselves financially from colonial and authoritarian structures resonated with the work of BFF.

Prior to the conference, I helped Marcel Lorraine, the founder of Bitcoin Dada, a women-focused Bitcoin education group raising funds, to visit the conference and I also met Noelyne Sumba and Mary Imasuen who organized a BFF sponsored meetup in Nigeria earlier this year.

After the conference, we organized a BFF meetup together with the local Bitcoin Cowries community in One Corner Garden, a restaurant accepting bitcoin, where we installed wallets, gave away a Trezor device and spoke about how to earn bitcoin.

Built Educational Content And Infrastructure For Communities

The Bitcoin Flyer

On top of all of the above, I published the BFF Bitcoin flyer together with the C4 Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium. The flyer is an easy and cheap-to-produce Bitcoin FAQ to give away at meetups or conferences. With the help of volunteers, we translated the flyer to twelve languages, including Swahili, Luganda and soon, Akan Twi and Eritrean. We encourage volunteers to translate the open-sourced folder into their local languages.

BTC Podcasting

Together with Michael Bumann from Alby, I developed a new podcast hosting platform called BTC Podcasting, where Bitcoiners can host their podcasts for free and, at the same time, earn bitcoin from their listeners without the need to run their own Lightning nodes. BFF wants to encourage communities to start their own podcasts. Given that the cost for internet bandwidth is very high and the speed also doesn’t allow video streaming in many African regions, we learned that audio is a much better medium through which to reach people.

Documentary: How Bitcoin Enforces Human Rights

One of the most compelling reasons for me to start working with and for Bitcoin was the humanitarian and social aspects. The possibility to stick it to authoritarians and take the power out of their hands and put it back into the hands of the people was compelling.

During the last six years since I started in the Bitcoin space, it became clear to me that only Bitcoin delivers fair access for anyone to take economic action and that it is essential for enforcing human rights. This is the reason why I called my NPO initiative “Bitcoin For Fairness” and why I wrote an essay for Bitcoin Magazine about “How Bitcoin Enforces Human Rights.”

I also produced a podcast and a video documentary about it, so that people can share these thoughts easily with their peers. The importance of the Bitcoin project may not be underestimated. It’s our only shot to regain digital and financial privacy and to have an alternative system for the short-sighted, debt-based and consumption-driven fiat economy. If we mess up, there will be no similar freedom project in the near future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXLiwrrk3sk

Learnings

Blockchain technology and crypto are big in African countries. But the differences between Bitcoin and altcoins are widely not understood. Altcoins and their marketing departments have done a great job of letting people believe that they are the better Bitcoin, telling them that the original is slow and not scalable. Even the people who are organizing events and sharing crypto knowledge haven’t heard of the Lightning Network or sidechains like Rootstock or Liquid yet.

In most countries, crypto and stablecoins are king. Only in Nigeria is the share of Bitcoin usage higher than that of altcoins, as I was told by Ray Youssef, the CEO of Paxful. In Zimbabwe, a trader who exchanged a volume of $6 million in 2021 told me that most people are using USDT, and only a handful of convinced Bitcoiners are HODLing.

There are hundreds of free guides, tutorials and videos about Bitcoin, but where to start? Five out of 50 people at my first talk in Lusaka were interested in Bitcoin only. They are isolated and far away from where the experienced users and developers are — it’s hard to catch up. They can’t afford to attend Lightning hackdays or other Bitcoin-focused conferences, which are mostly in the U.S. or Europe. Traveling to other African countries is expensive and cumbersome.

There is a need for more boots on the ground to share knowledge and tools. Nobody I had met at my talks was using a hardware wallet. The devices are very expensive for the average person and hard to get. I gifted a BitBox02 to a friend in Zimbabwe two years ago and he told me that he hadn’t set it up yet.

There is a need for more local Bitcoin infrastructure and the Africa Free Routing project is a great start, because the two nodes I was able to bring are not enough. One great example of a solution built for Africa by an African is Machankura, a custodial Lightning wallet, which allows you to send and receive bitcoin on a feature phone without internet connection. It’s using the same technology that mobile money providers in Africa have been using for years called USSD. We used it in Zambia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCiK1AZuPRM

Going Forward

Building in the bear market was not an easy task, but thanks to the BFF volunteers and donors, we did so. Our goal for 2023 is to focus even more on education around self custody and privacy.

One thing we learned is that after all of the crypto scammers who have been hitting the African continent, building trust by being on the ground is essential. But it’s not enough, there has to be a possibility to stay connected and offer further knowledge to the communities and especially the individuals who are driving their groups.

That’s why I’m going to build a community site with online courses and education around non-KYC bitcoin, privacy tools and, of course, self custody in 2023. At the same time, BFF’s goal is to find more volunteering translators for the Bitcoin flyer and to accompany Bitcoiners to develop their community podcasts and start earning bitcoin.

This is a guest post by Anita Posch. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Vidi, Vici, Satoshi: The Lightning Torch Has Reached Its Final Destination

The Lightning Torch, a Lightning Network payment that has been forwarded to bitcoiners around the world via Twitter, has run its course and reached its end in the charitable hands of Bitcoin Venezuela.

It’s grown a lot since we last covered it in February. In fact, the term “Torch” doesn’t seem to do it justice anymore. At this point, it could rightly be called a bonfire.

Admittedly, it’d be impossible to pass a bonfire around the world (a Torch sounds much more feasible), but the Lightning Torch doesn’t care much for the impossible or implausible. Ten years ago, the prospect of passing a digital payment to every continent shy of Antarctica would have been unthinkable. Even less thinkable: this payment chain would be passed uninterrupted (well, mostly uninterrupted, save two kinks) over 275 times with hardly anyone’s own opportunism getting the better of it.

It’s intersected with economically sanctioned countries like Iran, fallen into the hands of a Finnish model, been highly publicized after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took part and become a gleaming example of bitcoin’s resilience as a currency that has no regard for borders, edicts or politics.

lnbc28600u1pw9n7g7pp5enjn8exsyymyl6mlxmcvy7fdcwuh04z96swfmtasznppglgdyvsqdqqcqzysc8rve6vdwuvketcn7yp8gu3ltvq29vj588erp3at9z2msqj0yhhjdwsf7qtfy5lwf8favm6u3wr5qklvprlhrz89pknpdfxnc55wy6sqnrxjh7

— jack (@jack) February 5, 2019

As the Torch enters its final stretch, it has cleared a series of significant hurdles; from escaping greedy hands to transcending economic sanctions, the Torch has more than lived up to the hopes of its Prometheus.

“I never expected it to go anywhere,” Hodlonaut, the Torch’s creator, told Bitcoin Magazine. “It was just a fun little thing that I did; it’s not like I sat and planned this out.”

Igniting the Flame

Like any Twitter trend that goes viral within a niche community, the Lightning Torch began as a bit of “fun.” Hodlonaut, whom I have described as an astronautical tomcat before (and will again and again), wanted to spread excitement for and awareness of the Lightning Network, so he decided to send 100,000 satoshis to the first person in his tweet thread that he trusted.

It came with a catch — or at least an expectation. The recipient would have to add 10,000 sats and then pass it on to someone else, then that person would add more, and so on.

Some LN fun..

– I send 100k sats with https://t.co/va7XSnFii0 to the first person I choose to trust that replies to this. – That person adds 10k sats and sends 110k to someone (Either from reply to a new tweet, or this thread)

.. and so on

How many sats before it breaks?

— hodlonaut (@hodlonaut) January 19, 2019

“If somebody asked me on the first day, ‘How far do you think it would go?’ I would have said, ‘10 or 20 hops,’” Hodlnaut recalled. Turns out, he was lowballing it. After 292 passes, it would reach the 4.29 million satoshi limit Hodlonaut set for it.

The seminal passes were mainly lowkey Bitcoin enthusiasts and/or professionals just looking to get in on the fun. They included a couple of duplicate passings, as interest wasn’t fully fledged. Everything ran pretty smoothly during the Torch’s first days and (nearly) everyone played nice. I say “nearly” because, on the 14th pass, the Torch ran into a problem.

What if I Decide it to keep it? 😂what will happen to me ?

— Adonis🇩🇴 (@SerWisdom69) January 20, 2019

sirLordBTC (who, with an EPIC name like that, we’re not surprised tried to screw the system), absconded with the Torch when it was worth under $10. So, all in all, it’s not like he profited much from his sophomoric trick — he likely just wanted to be a contrarian little edgelord.

Hodlonaut actually predicted that, after those first 10 to 20 successful hops, at some point the Torch would be stolen. Technically, his foresight was accurate but, thankfully, the sender, Ruben Johansen, refueled the Torch with 250,000 satoshi and passed it along to someone else. Cracking on, the only other trouble the Torch had would come at 2.51 million satoshis, when pseudonymous user eduard_btc decided to “seize” it because he could.

“So I’m currently proudly holding the Lightning Torch. I’ll seize it because i can, and no one can stop me. This is bitcoin, Lightning Network is unfairly cheap and fast” – Eduard (@eduard_btc)

He received a lot of heat in the ensuing Twitter thread, wherein he justified his decision with the whole “don’t trust, verify” schtick. Still, he eventually buckled under the communal pressure as the general consensus was that he was acting like a jerk, so he sent it back to sender Klaus Lovegreen, who had already pledged to reup the balance and pass it on to a more trustworthy individual.

Building Heat

Barring those two outlying users, the Torch’s movement has been largely uninterrupted. And it eventually made its way to plenty of big name bitcoiners.

An early one of these was Pierre Rochard. A staunch Bitcoin maximalist, Rochard’s popular Lightning node launcher has garnered him a reputation for being one of the space’s premier Lightning Network enthusiasts and educators, so it made sense that he’d hop on so early, and it’s fitting that he’d get to take part.

From here, the flame would pass between the hoi polloi and high profiles alike. Jack Mallers, Brooke Mallers, Nicolas Dorier, D. Dickerson, John Carvalho and the Bitrefill team, Armin Van Bitcoin, Zack Voel, Anthony Pompliano and even Andreas Antonopoulos would all hold the Torch before it hit the 150 passes mark. Halfway to 300 passes, the Torch’s popularity definitely reached a tipping point.

At this juncture, Matt Odell reached out to Twitter Co-Founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, who responded by sending Odell an invoice. Crypto Twitter freaked out, the news made industry (and mainstream) media headlines and the Torch’s prominence blazed forth, putting it in the hands of even more bitcoin (and other cultural) leaders.

From Dorsey, it would go to Lightning Labs Co-Founder Elizabeth Stark. The next 85 passes would be populated by industry heavyweights like Samson Mow, Riccardo Spagni, Alena Satoshi, Whale Panda, Giacomo Zucco, Changpeng Zhao (who took the opportunity to shill BNB), Justin Sun (who took the opportunity to shill TRON), Erik Voorhees, Meltem Demirors, the BitMEX Research team, Ben Davenport, Randy Brito, the CoinGecko team, Boxmining, Mia Tam, Andy Cheung, Charlie Shrem, Vijay Boyapati, Adam Back, Reid Hoffman — and even the team here at Bitcoin Magazine.

Thanks Reid! It’s an honor ⚡️🔥 #LNTrustChain#LightningNetworkhttps://t.co/3IOhDkoRH5

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) March 1, 2019

Later on in its lifespan, it would also pass through the hands of the team at Slush Pool, Peter Wuille, Jill Carlson, Laura Shin, Peter McCormack, the “Free Ross Ulbricht” campaign and our own Aaron van Wirdum.

With names like these partaking, the Torch’s popularity was hotter than ever. What started as a fun experiment had grown into a cultural movement of sorts with multiple components. This memetic metamorphosis (both the cultural evolution of the Torch and its meme value) has even been chronicled in the artistic renderings of CryptoMemeCentral. In short, the Torch became immensely popular and graduated to full meme status; the tracking of it has become a sort of pastime in the bear market and big names fanned its popularity.

But this popularity also had the unintended consequence of shutting common bitcoiners out. Some on Twitter complained that the surplus of elites vying for the Torch meant that they had become overrepresented in the pool of passers. Tweeting his opinion, Hodlonaut agreed and suggested that it would be wise to keep the process from devolving into exclusivity.

“It looked at some point like it would turn into something that was unavailable to the common guy,” he told Bitcoin Magazine. “I think fortunately we ended up with a good balance overall. There have been periods of only high-profile people, but pretty organically, it ended up in the hands of lower-profile people.”

Circumventing Sanctions, Reaching Disadvantaged Populations

Following a particularly long strand of high-flying passers which ended with Bitcoin Magazine, the Torch not only landed in the hands of under-the-radar bitcoiners, but it would blaze on in some of the areas that need bitcoin the most.

“Bitcoin is a safe-haven,” Ziya Sadr, an Iranian Bitcoin enthusiast and technology writer who took the Torch, told Bitcoin Magazine.

Around the time we took the Torch, a groundswell of community sentiment was pushing for Sadr to accept the Torch on behalf of Iran. The symbolic move would speak volumes to the power of permissionless, censorship-resistant currency, given the international sanctions that have economically annexed the country from the bulk of the world and its government’s repressive stance against technology and financial tools (bitcoin being no exception here).

There was a general fear that, as a financial instrument, bitcoin is prone to the financial sanctions that the U.S. government has levied against Iran. As a U.S.-based company, Bitcoin Magazine’s owner, BTC Inc, didn’t want to take the risk. We even asked the U.S. Treasury on Twitter if sending bitcoin to Iran this way would be permissible (and didn’t get a reply).

Hey @USTreasury, is it possible to send a #Bitcoin payment using #Lightning over to @ziya_sadr in Iran without going to jail or getting fined? #askingforafriend#LNTrustChain@stevenmnuchin1

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) March 1, 2019

So we sent it to Welsh bitcoiner Bitgeiniog instead, who (as promised) passed it on to Sadr in what they called a “cypherpunk, authoritarian-busting move.” For Sadr, who believes that the fretting over sanctions “triggered people to think that bitcoin isn’t what it’s meant to be: a tool to defy censorship which will not conform to governments and sanctions,” the historic moment was incredibly moving and had a significant impact on the Iranian Bitcoin community.

“It was a very bold and public experiment, getting in touch with sanctioned people, people who are exiled from the rest of the world,” he said. “This carried a lot of optimism for the Iran Bitcoin community, and this community represents the rest of people in Iran: the Bitcoin community has people from every category; there are businessmen, investors, entrepreneurs, teachers. It gave us promise; it proved to us that Bitcoin is borderless.”

Hodlonaut said something similar about the Iranian pass in our conversation, namely that the “main takeaway [is that the Torch] connects people directly.”

Sadr said that this gesture of goodwill shows that the Iranian Bitcoin community, which some of us in the West may ignore, “is on equal ground” with the rest of the world.

I’d venture to say they’re even on higher ground. In a country where MasterCard and PayPal are banned (and your bank account can be frozen if you’re caught transacting with either), bitcoin offers a tenable alternative to an unstable economic climate.

It even opens up access to the web at large, said Sadr. He purchased a virtual private network using bitcoin from NordVPN, something he couldn’t dream of doing with the rial, given international sanctions. Telegram, YouTube, Twitter, you name it — all of these are blocked in Iran, but they’re accessible with a VPN.

Sadr, who freelances in exchange for bitcoin to make ends meet, said that bitcoin is increasing in popularity as the rial’s value plummets. People are attracted to earning their wages in foreign currency and bitcoin is more attractive still, given its ability to circumvent the government’s vice grip on personal finances.

“There’s a very active black market — everything is a black market in Iran. Foreign currency markets are black market, so it’s actually the norm,” Sadr said.

LocalBitcoins and Telegram chats are part of this black market and have become common watering holes, and there are two Iran-specific exchanges that people will use to trade, despite the government’s best efforts to block the URLs to these sites.

For the Iranian Bitcoin community and its online hubs, Sadr said that “the number has been growing, even though it’s a bear market — we still see, regardless of all the FUD that’s being spread in the media and the space, the numbers are growing in the communities that I’m active in.”

As part of the Persian New Year custom, Sadr and his bitcoin buddies have been giving people money. But for this year’s holiday, they’re not passing out rials — they’re sending sats through the Lightning Network or through mainnet. He thinks that the token of gratitude will help to educate his countrymen and help ease their access to a financial system that they otherwise might not be able to leverage.

“I meet a lot of people who know that they can use bitcoin to transfer money easily, but they just haven’t tried it yet,” Sadr said.

The Torch’s Legacy

The situation in Iran calls to memory Venezuela’s own political and economic hardship. The Torch has made it there, too — multiple times in fact. The Torch ultimately reached Bitcoin Venezuela, a charity organization which has fed thousands of economically dispossessed citizens thanks to cryptocurrency donations. As its final bearer, Bitcoin Venezuela will blow the Torch out and transmute its altruistic embers into food, necessities and medicine for Venezuelans in need. A number of community members have pledged to match this donation.

⚡️ All good things must come to an end! We (me and @Chris_Stewart_5) passed the torch to its final recipient, @btcven ⚡️

preimage: 58dea15cd4d3898718ae013b18a773d6af8ee80e68c54d7d783ce12ffdf54959.

it's been an honor 🙏 https://t.co/TAlZDMSWK8

— torkel (@torkelrogstad) April 13, 2019

The Lightning Torch may have begun as fun, but its intersection with economically and politically destabilized areas is anything but trivial. Its ability to transcend borders, nationalities and ideologies is testament to the fact that Satoshi’s gift to the world (and its grassroots community) is resilient and, by and large, chock-full of goodwill.

“I think that says a lot about this community,” Hodlonaut mused. “People are good in this space. I’ve seen so much positive stuff coming out of this.”

The “random” and “organic” trajectory of the Torch, he continued, “tells volumes about the global nature of bitcoin.” Sure as Satoshi, the proof is in the numbers.

In total, 278 unique participants from 56 countries have sent the Torch to every continent except for Antarctica (though one passer did place their phone on a rock from Antarctica while receiving it, but that really only counts in spirit). Just over 7 BTC has been transacted (roughly 700 million satoshis!) over a period of 83 days.

So inspiring is this experiment-turned-movement that it has spawned offshoots. Obscure altcoin Ravencoin had an on-chain version, and there’s one called the Tiny Torch that has taken off on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, too. While he had it, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee intimated that he would fork the Torch to Litecoin’s Lightning Network. This didn’t go over too well, though, and Lee eventually removed the tweet with this claim (some saw it as self-promotion and Hodlonaut wanted to make sure there was no confusion between offshoots and the #LNTrustChain hashtag that has demarcated the Torch’s movement).

Hodlonaut doesn’t want the original to fork either, less it get “stale.” He said that a finish line is necessary and that, without it, the Torch loses its significance.

He also told Bitcoin Magazine that keeping track of the Torch’s movement and documenting the phenomenon on its website has been a taxing, “around the clock” job. Given how much impact the Torch has had, we asked him what would be next when this was all over.

“I think I need a vacation,” he chuckled in response.

Well, he’s more than earned one, and thanks to the number of ancillary torches that have proliferated under the light of the original, he can take his rest while the influence of his creativity shines forth in multiple iterations. Much like Satoshi passing the Torch of his creation to a decentralized community of developers and enthusiasts, Hodlonaut’s ingenuity has been passed to a community eager to continue this exercise of trust.

So, the Lightning Torch’s creator can take his vacation; Bitcoin doesn’t take vacations.

To see all of the places the Torch has been, you can track its movementshere. If you would like to join others in donating to Bitcoin Venezuela, please visitthe charity’s website.