Tales from the Crypt #76: Alex Gladstein

— Alex Gladstein's background in human rights work, starting with smuggling information into Cuba in 2007 and later expanding to North Korea, helping dissidents access restricted media and knowledge.

— Bitcoin as a tool of financial liberation from government control, hyperinflation, sanctions, surveillance, and restrictions on banking access in broken economies and authoritarian regimes.

— Digital panopticons like WeChat in China that combine social, financial, and payment functions, enabling governments to track spending habits and enforce social credit scores that restrict behavior through surveillance rather than overt coercion.

— China's Belt and Road Initiative ($1 trillion) exporting surveillance technology (facial recognition, 5G infrastructure) globally to Latin America, Africa, and Europe, enabling centralized digital money systems.

— The Uyghur detention camps in Xinjiang, DNA harvesting programs, and cultural genocide as examples of how technology enables authoritarian control and why financial privacy and sovereignty matter.

— Bitcoin and decentralized money as a peaceful Manhattan Project—a global voluntary effort to build infrastructure that shifts geopolitical incentives, making it harder for governments to ban or control financial systems unilaterally.

— Run a Bitcoin node over Tor and contribute to the Tor relay network; decentralization of nodes is not passive—individual participation directly prevents surveillance of the Lightning Network and makes Bitcoin more robust against ISP censorship.

— Support privacy-focused projects and developers through financial and moral backing (donations, engagement, advocacy); these builders sacrifice higher salaries at tech companies to defend financial and data sovereignty, and they lack mainstream media support.

— Learn and teach Bitcoin's real use cases in broken economies, not speculation; educate activists, journalists, and civil society leaders in authoritarian regimes so they understand Bitcoin as a lifeline, not hype, and have a tool ready before they need it.