Over 5,000 ‘Bitcoiners’ contribute to Canadian truckers as donations approach $1 million

Over 5,000 contributors have raised money for the Canadian truckers protesting COVID-19 restrictions via Bitcoin (BTC) following GoFundMes decision not to distribute the remaining $9 million to the Freedom Convoy 2022 campaign.

Indeed, as of Friday, February 11, 5,061 donors have given Bitcoin for the truckers on Tallycoin, with a total of over 21 BTC gathered worth roughly $925,340 at the time of publication, as the amount of contributions closes in on $1 million.

Bitcoin for Canadian truckers. Source: Tallycoin

The campaign is able to receive all Bitcoins directly into crypto wallets in which they keep custody of the keys since they are using Tallycoin to facilitate the process.

Whatsmore, Tallycoin, in contrast to GoFundMe, does not have the ability to withhold any of the funds that have been raised. While also allowing Bitcoin contributions to be made both on-chain and across the Lightning Network, resulting in greater efficiency overall.

Campaigners turned to Bitcoin after the suspension of a GoFundMe fundraiser, in which more than $9 million in contributions had already been received for the campaign.

Shortly after the suspension, GoFundMe revealed it would not distribute the $9 million to the Freedom Convoy 2022 campaign as, apparently, it has violated its terms, stating the “peaceful demonstration has become an occupation.”

Therefore, the truckers were unable to access the funds, prompting a group of Canadians to take it upon themselves to gather money for the truckers via other ways, with the group choosing to use Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.

Since the Bitcoin network is decentralized, it is not under the jurisdiction of a single organization or entity. Furthermore, Bitcoin may be sent peer-to-peer between any sender and receiver who has a Bitcoin address, regardless of where they are located.

Its worth mentioning that it appears additional donations were made using Bitcoin in the last 24 hours in response to the second effort to prevent contributions from reaching Canadian truckers via a traditional fundraising site.

In Canada, the Superior Court of Justice has given an injunction to the Ontario Provincial government prohibiting millions of dollars in contributions made via the GiveSendGo website from reaching the Freedom Convoy participants.

Journalist and Speaker Andrew Lanton tweeted:

“The Ontario government says it has effectively frozen all donations made to the trucker convoy through GiveSendGo. It is now a criminal offense to have any ”dealing“ with money from donations through this platform.”

This marks the second instance where the truckers have been refused access to funds after GoFundMe blocked $9 million in contributions last week and later refunded contributors in response to public outcry.

It has been determined that contributions made to the “Freedom Convoy 2022” and “Adopt-a-Trucker” pages on the GiveSendGo fundraising website are responsible for the newest effort to defund the protest. The “Freedom Convoy 2022” campaign had raised $8.4 million as of February 10, while “Adopt-a-Trucker” had collected $686,000.