Bitcoin Fundraising For Ottawa Truckers Freedom Convoy Hits Close To One Million

Original author: Jesse Willms

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Bitcoiners raised almost $1 million for the Canadian freedom truckers and now organizers strategize on how to distribute the funds.

Bitcoin fundraising for the Ottawa Freedom Truckers Convoy has met its goal of 21 bitcoin with more donations still flowing in. Now, over 22 bitcoin worth more than $932k has been raised from 5,511 donors.

The fundraising committee is in the process of consolidating the bitcoin that has been raised and are focusing on how best to get the funds to the truckers. The key holders for the wallets containing funds are tentatively the Ottawa freedom convoy leaders (Freedom Convoy Nonprofit Organization) but this will change shortly.

Since centralized crowdfunding platforms GoFundMe and GiveSendGo are no longer viable fundraising options, with even Canada’s Toronto-Dominion Bank freezing bank accounts used to raise funds for the truckers, bitcoin is fulfilling a key role allowing the protesters to escape financial censorship.

Distribution Strategy

20% of funds raised are being consolidated in a hardware wallet for the truckers organizers to use for immediate needs including food, hotel rooms, legal aid and fuel.

80% of funds raised are being consolidated into a multisig wallet. They are using nunchuk.io multisig wallet because “it makes collaborative custody through multisig intuitive and easy to use for non technical users,” protest organizer and Bitcoin activist, Nobody Caribou told Bitcoin Magazine.

Fundraising committee member BTC Sessions told Bitcoin Magazine:

“For security reasons, we found it to be important that the key holders are not publicly identifiable. There is a new multisig quorum now. Only Nobody Caribou and BJdichter (one of the truckers) are privy to who holds keys. Myself, Greg, and Jeff Booth no longer hold keys, as we were previously points of failure. We ran the risk of 3 key holders within Canada being coerced to give up the Bitcoin. This is no longer the case.”

Options for how to get these funds out to truckers are being considered and will likely depend on the wishes of the truckers. Proposals being considered depending on how the truckers want to receive funds:

• As credit card payments/overpayments
• E-transfer
• Direct bank deposits
• Gift cards

Among other strategies, organizers are considering using Opendimes, a small USB stick that allows you to spend and transfer bitcoin like a dollar bill, to get bitcoin to the truckers — although no decisions have been made.

Funds Are For Truckers In Ottawa

As the country explodes with enthusiasm in their fight for freedom, blockades are going up at a number of Canada-US border crossings from Ontario to British Columbia.

One reporter compared it to whack a mole — as one crossing blockade is closed down they move on to the next crossing.

For the bitcoin fundraising liaison and committee, this is beyond their expectations so they’ve tentatively decided to limit funds to truckers in Ottawa.

This is new territory both for the fundraisers and the convoy organizers and shows that freedom is a priority for many people as donations continue to come in from around the globe, Nobody Caribou told Bitcoin Magazine.