Former chess champion and human rights advocate Garry Kasparov has called Bitcoin and blockchain technology “very natural choices” in the struggle against human rights violations, Forbes reported on July 23.
Kasparov noted that cryptocurrencies offer greater control over an individual’s own funds, as opposed to fiat which is controlled by governments, corporations, and banks.
The danger of corporations
The danger of corporations, according to Kasparov, is that they are “pretending to be guarding the interests of their customers in America or in Canada,” but when it comes to dealing with authoritarian regimes, “they behave differently.”
The role of bitcoin and blockchain tech, according to Kasparov, is to “help the public regain the control that has been gradually lost to outside institutions.”
“The good thing about bitcoin is that you know exactly the number—the magic number of 21 million. And we understand the formula behind that. But when you look at the other side, the Fed, for instance, you never know how many trillions of dollars will appear on the market tomorrow that will damage your savings,” Kasparov noted.
As the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, Kasparov also endorsed the use of new technologies to oppose violations of freedoms.
“I think the steady rise in popularity of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology as a concept is inevitable because it’s a response to the shift of power from individuals to states or other institutions that may act on our privacy without our consent,” he said.
Notably, Kasparov was skeptical about cryptocurrencies three years ago. In late 2017, he told Portuguese publication Proteste Investe that cryptocurrency was akin to “fake money massively issued by governments,” and suggested that bitcoin was “pure speculation.”
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