Bitcoin Forum

When you talk about the freedom you should always point to the view of many scholars who have defined the subject (freedom) it's a compound world at the same time a simple word, which simply means the right to do what you want to and when you want. And one of the ways the government has held its citizen bound is in the financial freedom which is the most important type of freedom because it translates into economic freedom.
Bitcoin on the other hand offers its, users, the total freedom they deserve both in financial freedom and also in the knowledge of how transactions are handled and verify this gives Bitcoin users the total freedom. spend their money whatever way and in whichever amount. Bitcoin activities on the other hand are more profitable compared to other physical traditional activities which have made it users totally free.
What do you think about Bitcoin&freedom

Freedom does not only revolves around owning btc only, you can also own fiat and have financial freedom, the only difference here is with btc you can remain anonymous to some extent and be able to invade tax unlike with fiat that keeps records of all your data.

But a lot of wealthy people don't see this as a problem, take Elon Musk for instance, he has the money to do as he desire even with all his information out there for everyone to see, he just sealed a deal worth $44 billion to buy twitter, no government can stop him from doing whatever he wants with his money as long as he is not breaking any law. Many other wealthy people have the same freedom, so I don't see what is so different in this freedom and the one btc will provide to be honest.

I may not be wealthy but I can do several things without government even flinching towards my direction, to me, I feel as long as you have a clean slate it doesn't matter what kind of freedom, through btc or fiat, you will have it as long as you are not against the law.

It all sounds cool in theory, but on practice it doesn't matter. Regular people are not severely oppressed by banks and governments. Most people live their lives without ever having their assets frozen. Ability to send money to literally anyone in the world sounds nice, but most people are just making regular purchases from legal businesses, or sending money to people they know, so they have no problems with traditional payments. When people will start needing the benefits of financial freedom in their daily lives, that's when Bitcoin will start seeing more adoption.

It's a free world we live in but no single human being is totally free. The freedom of a person is definitive or comes with a limit. Hence, how can one be said to be truly free when there are limits to his or her expression of will power? Yeah, freedom is the will power but when it comes to its expressions, there are lines not crossed.

* Where the freedom of one person ends, its where the freedom of some other person starts.
* Freedom is given, given by the government which is guided by a constitution and explained by a court.

Bitcoin and decentralized systems represents freedom but only to some extent. It might have covered the financial aspect of a person so well as per the secrecy of his or her transactions or investments but there are other acts of free will that it doesn't influence. Mind you, bitcoin operates in centralised systems like the exchanges and more importantly, one needs to swap BTC for fiat to establish a used case. Decentralisation isn't total freedom and there can be no total freedom in the world.

When you say about freedom you say it looks good but the reality is not that simple even though bitcoin is now offering freedom there but do you still not see that there are lots of regulations that indirectly restrain this freedom.
especially in social life fiat is still taking over and of course many still think that fiat is absolute financial that leads to freedom when you own it even though there are some rules there too.

Bitcoin does have freedom but in this case when we live with government regulation of course that freedom is just a word without any real thing in that freedom

Rules are part of living, it is the reason why the whole world is good enough for us all to live in, the moment rules are withdrawn or broken, there will be chaos.
It is because of the rules and guidelines implemented in this forum it is a better place to be, imagine there are no such rules what this place would be.

Government rules and regulations enable you to enjoy peace in your country, you should be glad they are implemented. Take countries where there are high level of insecurity, I doubt you would be willing to live in such place despite the amount of btc you will be offered, your life will be at risk. Government rules and regulations are implemented in this countries but there are no strictness to make the citizens adhere to them resulting to high level of insecurity.

Freedom has certain limits attached to it, if you are seeking for complete freedom could be at a disadvantage to you as well.

Well, in this case, of course, we are aware that even though there is freedom there, there are still limitations, and these things are limited by the existing and applied rules.
indirectly even though bitcoin is something that is free but free does not mean without limitations, not only that there are limitations there. Is freedom with limitations still called freedom?
we know rules have made life better but if you say those rules to bitcoin is it really still something the OP meant freedom?

Regulation is an essential part of life and nothing can exist in its right nature without rules, also note this freedom always comes with a.price tag and that regulation are the price you pay for that so nothing exists in a vacuum. I don't think much about government regulation since that is the only way Bitcoin can interact with other commodities but then again you must know we're those rules applicable not on Bitcoin directly but those rules are enforced on Bitcoin services such as exchanges. But if we only use Bitcoin for p2p payment those rules may not be effective.

You can still have access to financial freedom in a centralized world just that your source of income has to be declared so you can freely enjoy the total freedom it offers . But for decentralized assets it's the anonymous and right to complete ownership of funds using cryptographic algorithm that makes the significant difference. Freedom can be achieved either ways but it comes in two different format

Financial freedom in the centralized world is only temporary freedom, because all assets owned must be reported and there will be taxes on the assets owned. ordinary people who only do local transactions will have no problem with traditional centralized transactions. But when someone starts to need privacy or anonymity then decentralized assets like bitcoin will be needed.

Bitcoin is the freedom to transact with anyone without any shadow from other people or the government.

Can we say financial liberty instead of financial freedom.
I see freedom rather ambiguous but most times both can be used interchangeably. When we say financial liberty it means you are the controller and decider of your finance while being ethical. While freedom could be no boundaries or being ethical.

Bitcoin offers financial liberty no doubt but the individuals using the Bitcoin are still under yhe laws of the government. That is why there is still troubles when Bitcoin faces some sanctions across the countries.

Self reliance is good description for bitcoin at this point. Since the time of inception thoughts were clear to give freedom and unlimited access to your own money. Unlike banking were you have to rely on forms, applications, approvals and what not if you gonna make domestic or Intenrational payments. Even for domestic transaction certain limits will ask you KYC so on the other hand overseas will call for harder regulations and limitations.
Bitcoin has broke these regulations for us. With the economic cycle of bitcoin businesses can easily accept international payments so no worries about it.

Eventually this will turn a surprise to the governments when they begin to notice they aren't fighting for the people but rather themselves, they enjoy this freedom because they have most of their actions being covered by "immunity" and this is the privilege they enjoyed in which we the citizens couldn't and bitcoin has made justice to that, which is the decentralization and privacy we have in bitcoin and most importantly the anonymity as well.


Bitcoin has not only given us freedom in our finances but it has also stand in gap against inflation that is running the fiat economy into recession or bankruptcy as the case maybe, bitcoin is a digital decentralized currency that gives everyone equal opportunity without being biased in dealing with security and privacy of our financial assets and it value in which the government failed to realize and give.

You can only have financial freedom if you have a lot of bitcoin in your wallet. If you have less than 1 BTC then it might not be enough for you to survived specially if the cost of living in your country is very high.

Of course, we as bitcoin enthusiast know this one, that's why it's better to save and accumulate first before we can claim that we indeed gain our freedom. So invest early and just save as many as you can because the supply is getting thinner.

Owning bitcoin its financial freedom itself. You are anonymous to everyone and trading is easier without any form of third party intervention. But the financial liberty is limited as the people in possession of this bitcoins are still under the government who decides and gives laws governing how you spend your money. There won’t be financial liberty or one becoming self reliance by owning bitcoin until the government has no intervention on how people spend their money, decentralized means of spending and owning money. Which is what bitcoin portray to the world.

Exactly Bitcoin holders are not free from the grip of the government since one still depends on government established institutions and services to get your Bitcoin to the right usage and this is where the place of innovation comes in if Bitcoin can have some level of scalability and acceptance level the story will not be the same as we have now where before a Bitcoin holder could use his/her Bitcoin for exchange you need to go through the services of a third party.
But on a p2p level Bitcoin offers a free market for its users where no third party or need for exchange or other centralized Bitcoin services involvement.

We could actually had that freedom when we do get involved ourselves with Bitcoin or with some coins in the market considering that there is indeed anonymity and being decentralized or cant be controlled kind of stuff

behind but as we all know that it wouldnt be still totally free nor able to get rid on what government is trying to do considering that they do still touch up centralized platforms which means
we arent really that breaking free or having that freedom but if you do make yourself not tangled out or make use of these platforms then this is where you could really able to feel
that freedom.

Freedom belongs to everyone but freedom without rules will be chaos because people tend to do what they want. You can do whatever you want, but still, you have to follow something that is from your government's rules.

Likewise with Bitcoin. Bitcoin provides financial freedom in managing your finances without any third party and without paying any taxes, except taxes for making transactions. And the tax comes from your government through the Bank. So we are free but still under a rule from our government.

You make it sound like the sole purpose of banks was to suppress the financial freedom of the people. It doesn't, I'd say the word "limit" would be better? But this is all within agreements with the user for wanting to use the services of the bank. It may not seem like the best for some people (or they've had a lot of issues and gripe with it), but you can't deny that the system help(ed) in improving the qol of trying to handle and manage the finances they have (in one way or another).

Sides, Bitcoin usage is still bound by laws. Bitcoin may be a medium that can surpass it, but we as users should at the very least abide by the laws that make society well, a society.

Freedom ends where others freedoms start. This is what we were thought at school when I was a little kid. If you mean something like freedom to kill someone, that is not freedom for example, it means that you are getting into someone else's freedom. Abraham Lincoln said it the best "If we submit ourselves to law, even submit to losing freedoms, the freedom to oppress, for instance, we may discover other freedoms previously unknown to us."

This is what freedom is all about, if you want to see how you should design your freedom and want to learn if you oppress anyone or if you are oppressed, ask yourself "is this request of freedom changes anything in anyone else's life or not" and you will have your answer.

Why I think their is more freedom in bitcoin, having a bitcoin you can have access to it at anytime to make purchase of anything. Like in the region where I come from, their is certain amout one would want to withdraw from the bank and it will take different processes and some hours because of the crowd you will meet in the bank who want to also make withdrawal, getting your fiat for personal use is a problem,  bitcoin has more freedom without any stress.

Governments could also use that to their advantage if they just smarten up a bit. I mean crypto is a decentralized thing and could be private for many people but considering the KYC we have right now and how people are willing to share that and even pay taxes for it just so they could have crypto as a taxable and regular thing, then we could see governments use that to their advantage.

You have everyone who owns crypto thanks to KYC, you know how much they have from the exchanges, you know this because they file it when they are paying taxes to you and you collect more money from people this way as well. It is a great benefit for any nation to accept it, and tax it.

I don't see much point in your post, especially when you say


You say it in general terms, as if anyone with 0.001 bitcoin saved had financial freedom. Furthermore, there are many people who do not own bitcoin and have financial freedom.


I agree, but people who are financially free and have a lot of money (not those who have just achieved financial freedom and could live without working but with just enough money to get through the month) can also use that money to have a degree of anonymity.


Well, it depends, I think you say that because you think so, full stop, not because you have data to back it up. I can think of many people who have traded bitcoin and lost money, despite the fact that bitcoin has been very bullish over the years.

What's stopping you from spending fiat? Limiting its amount? And what about bitcoin? Moreover, its volatility at some point will not give you the privilege to spend what you expected to spend.

Therefore, freedom with Bitcoin or freedom with fiat currencies is limited only by their number. A person who is not financially secure remains in a difficult situation in all situations. But if you write that with bitcoin, you can avoid taxation, I will say otherwise. It is easier to pay taxes, sleep peacefully, feel like an honest person, and have a clear conscience.

I guess at the end of the day, Freedom is subjective because it doesn't matter whether you hold Bitcoin or fiat, you have been able to spend them freely once you have not broken any law and have a peaceful living as @lovesmayfamilis mentioned. We read about cases of Bitcoin hackers that have been tracked down and apprehended because they brock the law, so even when they had Bitcoin were unable to truly live freely and the same goes for Fiat too

I have also read once here how people want there to be better regulations to crypto and that would bring sanity and more confidence to the space thereby encouraging more adoption. so it is whether you chose to do the right thing with what you have in possession, Bitcoin or Fiat that matters about freedom and not the entities themself.

Bitcoin is part of being independent, indeed I admit that bitcoin is part of being independent, we are free to invest whenever we want, we are also free to make any transactions we want, but we should not put fiat currency aside, because fiat currency also gives us freedom, we can do whatever we want with the money we have, but there are also countries that restrict the withdrawal of fiat money, and we are not given the freedom to do what we want.

I think Bitcoin has the ability to help make one self-reliant since it makes us enable to use it in our own ways and has no constraint of depending on any system or say investment perse. It helps us to do things in our own ways and also helps us meet our own needs. It has the capacity to rely on and manage one’s own affairs.

There is a saying ‘We must always bear in mind that we are not going to be free, but are free already.

We must remember that decentralization is the first condition of growth the best example is Bitcoin. What you do not make free, will never grow...

Fiat currency is not getting put aside, it is not really a thing where you need to become full-time crypto and never use dollars ever again in your life type of situation. Obviously you are going to require a bit of situation where everything will get better or worse, but at the end of the day we are talking about a situation where bitcoin needs to help you to get it better on your worse days.

If you use fiat regularly like you have been, and like human has for over a century now, that means you are going to just add in bitcoin to some portion of it and that is where it will help you, just a side deal where you invest and earn, think of it like gold or stock market basically.

If we put Bitcoin as a way of becoming Self-Reliance, I think the Bitcoin early investors are the best example.  Since OP tackles financial freedom, which in definition is:

Early investors on Bitcoin should have this financial freedom since their holding had increased thousands to million folds.


I highly contradict your opinion, if all businesses were made free they will all get bankrupt.  If you offer your service for free, yes you can grow your contacts of people to exploit you and you will end up starving because you don't have money to feed yourself.  ;D. In the end, you are dead even before you see your growth.  In relation to Bitcoin.. it isn't free. You need funds to buy a machine to mine them.  You need to invest money to get them. And having decentralization also has its own price.

Yeah, another thing is that BTC doesn’t automatically make you rich, it’s something that takes time. You have to invest and you will have to patience for the market to become bullish, which I know most people hardly do, because they don’t have much to spare, they just want to invest and make earnings quickly which is usually not the case.

But, anyone who is able to have that level of patience and wait till the market goes up will always benefit from it. A lot of people has indeed obtained financial freedom through this.

This is why a lot of newcomers have different perspectives on bitcoin or crypto in general.
They thought this is their path to financial freedom but there's more than meets the eye in this industry.
You can't get rich just by joining or getting on board this market. You need hard work in investing, trading, mining or whatever you ventured with.
This is not a ticket to get rich quick but will give you opportunity to improve your financials if you know what you are doing.

Bitcoin offers freedom if you know how to use it properly.Putting your Bitcoins in a centralized custodial wallet/exchange platform doesn't mean "total freedom".
I don't know what do you mean by "Bitcoin activities"?Do you mean crypto trading?NO,crypto trading isn't more profitable than "traditional physical activities".Most of the crypto traders are losing their money.
I don't know where did you come up with this conclusion?This sounds delusional to me.
Freedom is all about responsibility,making the right choices and sticking to them.Being free doesn't necessarily mean that you will be more successful with what you are going.Failures are a big part of making choices and a big part of learning and improving as a person.

I see the "freedom" a bit differently to other people..... Yes, some people might say that the public are not restricted in the transactions that they are allowed to make with Fiat currencies, but they are wrong. Those people have not been restricted yet.... and people will not learn what Financial freedom are..until that happens.

Let's take donations to WikiLeaks ..... Now it might show you a Credit card option on the site and PayPal ... but what if you do not want people to know about your donations? A while ago all credit card payments to WikiLeaks were blocked ==> https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-mastercard-move-to-choke-wikileaks/?sh=5b987a152cad

What happens when you run a legitimate business on "Backpage" and all Credit card payments via "Backpage" were blocked? (Or PornHub, if you are into that..or earning money from that)  ???

Who will they decide to block next? How will that influence your decisions to make transactions to those platforms or services?

One of the things that really got me interested in bitcoin is how simple it is when it comes to making transactions. It is very cheap compared to most other means there is, and then you don’t need much to make use of it, no paperwork like you would do when making use of banks. It has just simplified everything so well.

No matter where someone is around the world, all they need is just create an account which is setup instantly and you have your address which is the only thing needed for the transaction. And it is really a cool technology.

Total financial freedom for me is you have all the control of your money no matter how much it is and you can also hide it from the public and let yourself play poorly when in reality you know for yourself that you are capable of buying anything you want. Unlike the norm that you need to be transparent to the government about how much money you have so that they can acquire some taxes from you and spend it for themselves and they will gonna be interested in your assets when you are not paying them well.

Bitcoin and freedom has been the terminologies hand-in-hand for the past couple years. Bitcoin paved way for decentralized transactions that free the users from the reach of the government as well as the inconvenience from the traditional processes. In addition, it gave and still gives the users the opportunity to have a sideline for additional income and even a main job to become their main source of fund.

However, recently, there are many changes that has made which entirely moved the usual dynamics of bitcoin. Bitcoin is still a decentralized entity, however, in some platforms, there are now regulations imposed. Some platforms such as in trading, are now regulated by the government. Which is why some requires KYC to their customer. Hence, freedom is now vaguely felt compared before.

Although this is still a case to case basis because we use different platforms, wallets, etc. It will be subjective the way how we view freedom as well. Nonetheless, these changes, if you don't want to grasp, you can find alternative ways. Or perhaps you can also try to adapt.

Bitcoin is definitely one way to be free from the control of the government and be able to spend it however you want and whenever you want without worrying about anything.
But it still doesn't mean you are completely free because the government is watching you and many times having a control on you.
You just don't know how but the government can literally own you if they want to because we all have fallen into their trap.
Earning an income from the jobs created by the government and being controlled by third parties and then have to give a cut of your income to the government as tax.
Doesn't all of this sound like you are not living a free life at all.

Freedom is not a complex word but everyone can easily understand it. When you have bitcoin, it doesn't automatically mean that you can now do anything that you wanted to do but there are still some restrictions and besides, not all country legalizes the use of bitcoin. That simply means that the government itself still has the control. Criminals can prefer bitcoins, due to the fact that its transactions are anonymous and irreversible which is perfect for their shady activities. This is why many governments are still against the use of bitcoin. We can use bitcoin but we should use it in a legal way so that we won't experience any problems.

Freedom in this context entails only the financial aspect which is the freedom to own and do whatever you want with your finances as long as you have it in Bitcoin and a none custodial wallet that only you have the private key to the wallet, you can send and receive Bitcoin anytime you wish to without interference from any institutions or government unless you want to use centralized Bitcoin services such as an exchange. When we talk about freedom in Bitcoin we simply mean the freedom to own and use at will bit as a citizen you are under the law of the land and that law must be respected and obeyed in totality.

Because the original purpose of bitcoin was created to remove obstacles in the financial world, for example when making transfers abroad, the process does not need to wait for working days, but only takes a matter of hours or even minutes.
and without involving third parties such as banks, and also there are no regulations that could potentially hinder the payment process and that's the freedom that I feel and everything is controlled by myself and is also anonymous which can hide my identity during the transaction.

If this had bee gotten I think there would be no need for a gold rush on bitcoin for security and decentralization because that's what the word freedom quonote here. we need to understand that government aren't giving us this and the only means we can achieve it is through anonymity and decentralization which is all about bitcoin.


Those are the likes of KYC related challenges whereby you will be limited to perfoming certain amount of transaction within a limited time frame, many people find this very challenging because the restriction is not in favour of many businesses and individuals find at an unsecured means to exposing their private and financial circumstance to a third party corporate body.

Everyone with their way of understanding, I can easily say that the freedom can be mostly referred to only the user, lover as well the enthusiasts Globally not everyone using bitcoin and there some places that are yet to know and discover more facts about the digitalization which involved; Primitives village that includes lack of internet access, poor communication and failure of radio signals. But yet they have their buy and sell working effectively without barrier, they also live their lives freely without any cause or at low cost. So if I may say, the freedom connotes to those who are actively involved just we both since we can transact, buy and sell free on the internet without any interference other than being careful for destination address or the receivers.

Bitcoin promotes freedom, but it isn't an absolute path to freedom. You're still subject to the jurisdiction of your local government. Right now you're witnessing the attempt of most governments to regulate bitcoin by requiring registration information of miners and crypto users or taxing it at exorbitant rates. Bitcoin makes financial regulations easier to circumvent, but again, you're bound by law. Now, you're not bound by the government's poor decision to handle monetary policy, though. Whatever your local government might do to drive the currency into the ground has no consequence to a self reliant crypto user.

@riso2015 Fiat never gives financial freedom, it was backed by the government but advise you to read the little explanation provided by the OP about financial freedom.
@Doan9269 The political rules and understanding of the government will never let them give us the needed freedom and freedom is not only achieved through anonymity and decentralization because freedom can also be achieved through no censorship. However, anonymity in Bitcoin requires some effort.

Yes, you are right but if you look at it as the p2p level Bitcoin offers its users total freedom as you own your keys and your wallet, and you can transfer to any wallet of choice without any interference from the government. The drawback will only come when you move out of the decentralized system to centralized services, so if you use Bitcoin as a decentralized alternative currency then you are sure of total freedom but when you via in for the use of third-party Bitcoin services such as exchange and the rest you begin to lose your freedom and start exposing your privacy.