WBD266 Audio Transcription
How Bitcoin is Helping Protesters in Belarus with Alex Gladstein & Jaraslau Likhachevski
Interview date: Tuesday 6th October
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Alex Gladstein & Jaraslau Likhachevski. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
In this interview, I talk to Alex Gladstein the Chief Strategy Officer at The Human Rights Foundation and Jaraslau Likhachevski from BYSOL We discuss the political situation in Belarus, the protests and how Bitcoin is helping activists.
“I’ve never been a crypto enthusiast, I never believed in it… until this summer.”
— Jaraslau Likhachevski
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Alex, good to see you. How are you?
Alex Gladstein: Great to see you, Peter. Doing well.
Peter McCormack: Good, good. Jaraslau, nice to meet you.
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yeah, likewise, Peter.
Peter McCormack: It's a fascinating story to talk about; I spoke to Alex about it the other day. So, look, I think a really good starting point, before we get into what's been happening, how people have been using Bitcoin in Belarus, is get a real good understanding of what's been going on in the country and a bit of the history of the politics, just so we can fully understand the situation you're in right now.
So, as a starting point, can you just explain to me a little bit of the history of Belarus; can you talk to me about the independence and how the constitution came about, what actually happened with the constitution, what was in it, before we start talking about how you essentially now have a dictator in the country?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yes, so the history is quite long, but the last time we received independence was 1991 after the Soviet Union collapsed, and all of the former Soviet states became independent. It was a Russian Constitution made during the first years of a sovereign country. They started working on the Constitution 1991, finished 1994, and by this Constitution it is supposed to be presidential and a parliamentary republic and the first president had to be elected.
So, 1994, we had our first presidential election take place, where the guy named Alexander Lukashenko won this election and then, very shortly during the next two years, he redesigned the Constitution as he wanted it to be. So, he increased presidential power a lot and Belarus became a full presidential republic with minor power of the parliament. Then, he started ruling just on his own.
In early 2000, it was probably 2001, he changed the Constitution again, which allowed him to be re-elected as many times as he wants, so here we are now 26 years having the same guy ruling the country, which brings everything to quite a depressed condition and also, economics and all stuff from the country.
Peter McCormack: And, Alex, just flicking over to you quickly, in terms of what Lukashenko did in changing it from a two-term Constitution to essentially allowing him to be re-elected as often as possible, how typical is this of an authoritarian to campaign on a populist ideology and then ending up becoming a dictator? It feels like I have a limited exposure to dictators through the work you've done and you've exposed me to, but it just feels like a very typical journey?
Alex Gladstein: Yeah, historically it's right out of a dictator's playbook. You see the same thing across the world in different regions where you have an independence hero, who comes to power as a result of either decolonisation, or the defeat of some sort of foreign power. Robert Mugabe's a great example; Fidel Castro's a great example; and, Lukashenko's a great example. They campaign and publicise themselves as the people's hero, that they're going to save the country, and there are a lot of true believers at the beginning usually.
Hugo Chavez is another good example of somebody who came to power and maybe had a lot of popularity, authentic popularity, at the beginning; but then, over time, they dismantle the court system, the free press, they get rid of any sort of business or oligarchic competitors, they establish political prisons. You're watching this happen of course in Turkey as well and many other places.
So, I would say it's quite typical and Lukashenko has orchestrated it almost perfectly according to the dictator's playbook, and now he faces the biggest test to his rule, obviously, since establishing power in 1994. And, it's incredible to see the bravery of the Belarusian people stand up and say, "We've had enough".
Peter McCormack: Yeah. Jaraslau, I've been following it on the news, I've been following the protests and the thuggery of the police and Lukashenko's thugs, but I wanted to ask, if he's had six terms, there are a lot of protests now; I don't remember, on any of his previous elections, seeing any protests. I don't actually -- I can't recall previous elections. So, on his third, fourth or fifth term, did anything similar happen?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Something similar but not that massive as it is this time. So, there were huge protests during the 1990s, when he had been trying to merge back Belarus and Russia together and build this "common state", as they call it. So, there were huge protests and it stopped the process of re-merging. Then, he won the election in 2001 quite clear, so there were a few protests.
In 2006, there were protests; they were quite big and they have been lasting for at least a couple of weeks. Belarusians were inspired by an example of Ukrainian people, who won their first Maidan in 2004, and we've tried to do the same in Belarus. I was 19 years old then, so I can remember it clearly. Then, there were huge protests after the election in 2010 in December, but it was cracked down in one night. So, it was quite a brutal crackdown by special police forces; hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated, but it was completely smashed.
And then, 2015, there were no protests, again because of the Ukrainian story, but this time it worked vice versa, because everyone was completely terrified by the prospective of having war with Russia and Putin. That's why 2015 went calm and no one wanted to try to get rid of Lukashenko, because everyone was afraid of Putin. But this year, something amazing happened.
Peter McCormack: Okay, we'll come onto this election. Just one more thing with relation to Russia, what are the dynamics of the relationship with Russia, because it seems quite complex? I read about the attempts to reunify, but then I've also read about Lukashenko also having a fragile relationship with Putin. But, at the moment, I've also seen that Putin is offering security to the Belarusians. How does the relationship work; and also, what is the size of the Russian population that still lives in Belarus; and how influential are they?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: First of all, I have to say that's the game of two grandpa dictators and both of them hate each other, because the only goal for Lukashenko back in the 1990s was to be President in Russia and sit in the Kremlin. So, that was his major goal and he made all of this friendship with Yeltsin at the time, just to replace him in the Kremlin. But, when Putin took over power in Russia, they broke up ugly and they've never been friends since then. So, they are supporting each other because they need each other. If Putin loses Lukashenko, he most likely loses Belarus, and he lost Ukraine already, he lost Georgia and he wants to be an emperor and collect back Russian empire in the borders of the Soviet Union; so, he's doing his best to keep all together here.
At the same time, Lukashenko is miserable in economics, so he cannot feed himself, and then he needs Putin to ask money over and over again. On the other hand, if Belarusians again get rid of Lukashenko, then Russian people will see that it's possible to get rid of Putin, because they're acting quite the same. Putin just started six years later than Lukashenko, so they are following with some delay. This year, Putin has done exactly the same that Lukashenko has done in 2001. He allowed himself to be re-elected as much as he wants.
So, yeah, they have to support each other, but they don't like each other and they are talking about a common state and Putin wants to build a common state with Belarus, but Lukashenko knows the moment it happens, he loses his power here and then he is out of the game. About Russian population, you asked?
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Jaraslau Likhachevski: It's relatively small because on one hand, we are very close to Russians culturally and we are speaking the same language. Despite the fact we have our own language, all the population in Belarus speaks Russian. Lots of people know both languages, but everyone knows Russian. But at the same time, there's a strong point for Belarus, because all of the Russians integrate in Belarusian society very quickly and they're just becoming Belarusians. We had another national statistics check last year and I think it's less than 5% of people who made themselves Russians.
Peter McCormack: Okay. Alex, obviously the work with the Human Rights Foundation, so much of it is focussed on authoritarian regimes and you've taught me so much about it. How much was Belarus on your radar before the elections? I've noticed that Lukashenko describes himself, has described his leadership, as authoritarian, but how much was he on the HRF's radar and were you concerned in the build-up to the election?
Alex Gladstein: Well, he was always a major focus for us, especially before this populous wave in Eastern Europe a few years ago, where you started seeing authoritarian relapse in Hungary and Poland. He was often called -- Lukashenko was called Europe's Last Dictator and one of the very few Stalinist remnants from the Soviet Union era. And, the political climate was always known to be the worst in Europe from a democracy perspective, and we worked for years with political prisoners, who had been jailed and tortured; some had been killed; and we helped get their story out.
But, Belarus was never a sexy topic. It was never, you know, something that was able to conjure the world's attention. It didn't have terrorism or oil, and he was very much -- I think Lukashenko was very smart about keeping a low profile internationally so he could continue to repress at home. I think something that's worth repeating, that was just mentioned, was his economic relationship with Russia as well which, as an international community we've noticed obviously, is that Putin props up Lukashenko.
And just a few weeks ago, it was made public that Putin had ordered all these state-controlled banks in Russia to extend their lifeline to Belarus and try to keep it afloat, because he knows that's the last straw, right. If Lukashenko cannot keep the economy afloat, then he will crumble. So, we've been paying attention to both the political and economic situation there and this is certainly unprecedented.
What's been amazing to observe from our perspective is the democracy movement. Oftentimes, it is not peaceful in different countries; oftentimes, it gets co-opted by extremists. You saw this happen across the Middle East, for example, often tragically. Oftentimes, it gets quashed immediately. Here in Belarus, we're seeing something fairly unprecedented where it has remained almost entirely peaceful and where the people just continue to march every day, despite getting arrested, tortured, imprisoned; and everything's on video.
So, there are all these incredible -- I mean, Belarus is a very connected country, so you're watching, live, a revolution happening, and you're watching people getting sucked into secret police cars, at the same time as you're seeing people get the shit kicked out of them on the street. And then you're seeing, the next day, 100,000 people come back out on the stress, and it's amazing to watch women being like a huge presence in this. And obviously, the legitimate elected ruler of Belarus is, at the moment, a woman and women are kind of leading this revolution in many ways.
So, it's just been really interesting for us to watch and we're doing whatever we can to support the movement.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'm not going to attempt to say her surname, but we're talking about Sviatlana. Can you just pronounce her name for me? It's Sviatlana …
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Tsikhanouskaya.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'll stick with Sviatlana! Could you just, just so people listening understand, just the background to her candidacy, because there's an interesting background with her background, right, who also himself has an interesting background?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yeah. So, I guess she never planned to be a political person at all, not like having an elected president, and her husband was a small interpreter in Belarus, and he has been trying to build his own business and buy some real estate. He had lots of problems with local authorities because of the bureaucracy working ugly and corruption and that kind of stuff, so he just took for a while a camera and started driving round the country and giving people a free mic and asking them what do they feel, how do they live, what kind of problems they have. And then he made a proper YouTube channel just showing these videos with regular people on the streets.
He became so popular that at some point, he decided to be become a candidate in the presidential election and he had been bidding on the same target audience that was very loyal to Lukashenko through all of these years. Lukashenko had been frightened that this simple guy from out of nowhere can beat him and he just threw him into jail. While he'd been in jail, and that guy's name is Sergei Tikhanovsky, his wife, Sviatlana, just came to submit the application in the Central Election Committee, and they told her, "No, you cannot submit his application; he has to do it on his own". "Well, he's in prison". "So, Sviatlana, that's life. He cannot be a candidate anymore as he is in prison". She went back home and came back in a couple of hours and said, "Okay then, I'll take his place and I'll take part in this presidential race", so that's the beginning of the story basically.
Peter McCormack: Although, Lukashenko wasn't happy, right? Am I right in saying he said, "Belarus isn't ready for a female leader"?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Lukashenko is very conservative and he is extremely sexist. So, he could never believe that a woman could beat him. That's why he threw in prison all the candidates except her, just because she is a woman and he thought that it wouldn't be a problem for him to win versus a woman. That was his biggest mistake, I guess.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. Alex, how much do we know about the elections? I've seen Lukashenko claim he received 80% of the vote and I've also seen Sviatlana claim she received up to 70% of the vote. How much do we actually know?
Alex Gladstein: Well, it's difficult to have full understanding because it's a police state and the press continues to get literally imprisoned, and any independent outlooks are getting their licences taken away, so it's hard to have a clear picture. But, from what we can see, from observers who are independent and obviously on the pro-democracy camp, Sviatlana was winning certain areas by a landslide, and then those areas came back in the official results as the opposite outcome, where Lukashenko won it in a landslide.
So, there's just outright rigging across the country and it really looked like, from a legitimate point, and I'm sure Juraslau has a better estimate than me, but it really looked like she'd won and in reality, he comes out and he's the 80% victor. So, it's a total rigging of the election from our perspective.
Peter McCormack: Juraslau, is that true; was there a general feeling across the country that she was winning and there was a huge surprised when it was announced that it was Lukashenko; or was it the case that you expected Lukashenko to do this?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: No, that's exactly why people came out on the streets and people came out on strikes all around the country, because all of the numbers -- and we've done pretty good homework, so we've built lots of digital instruments to calculate the votes on our own. So, we've built our own tool, so we get numbers there around 65% for Sviatlana. We've built another solution to actually calculate votes on polling stations. We had more than 1 million out of 7 million voters took part and registered in this application, and there Sviatlana won by far, more than 80%. But of course, most of this audience was democratically orientated.
We collected all of the official results from over the polling stations and there were quite a lot of stations where Sviatlana officially won; there were quite a lot of stations where Lukashenko officially won; but most of the stations, I guess 60% to 70%, they never showed official results, just because they had discovered this, they had to put their signatures and then they can publish final protocol. So, there were huge fights inside of these committees and they did not have a quorum to put enough signatures and that's why they couldn't show final protocols. So, legally, this election failed. And yeah, counting all of the numbers, we can say that Sviatlana won this election by far.
Alex Gladstein: And just to point out, there's tons of evidence of whistleblowers, who were in charge of reporting the vote, being approached by government authority figures and being asked to falsify the numbers and then these people resigning and saying, "I'm not going to do it", and those people have gone and talked to the press about this. So, this is like a comic amount of vote-rigging that has happened.
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yeah, and they were called to come on polling stations wearing white bracelets, just simple white bracelets, and all of the people that came forward had been wearing these. So, it was quite obvious during the main working day that Sviatlana is winning by far. That's why when the next day, Lukashenko announced he has won by 80%, hundreds and thousands of people came out in the streets and then all of this violence started.
Peter McCormack: As I understand it, Sviatlana's in Vilnius in Lithuania at the moment. What is the current status, or what is the current situation right now?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Legally, or …?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, legally.
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Okay. In Belarus, legally, Lukashenko won because no law is working at the moment in Belarus and Lukashenko is the only law in the country. So legally, he proclaimed himself as the new president. It happened a week ago and that's the status in Belarus.
At the same time, most of the European countries and US and Canada, they did not recognise Lukashenko as the elected leader and they are making statements that the election failed. So, he's not a president for international society anymore. And Sviatlana yesterday met with Emmanuel Macron, the President of France. Next Tuesday or Monday, I don't remember, Sviatlana is meeting with Frau Merkel in Berlin. And so, we can see the European leaders meeting Sviatlana instead of Alexander Lukashenko.
Though we cannot legally declare Sviatlana as the president, because legally the election failed, we are building political weight around Sviatlana and pressure around Alexander Lukashenko to transfer power in the country from Lukashenko to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Peter McCormack: Okay. Alex, are there any good examples of similar situations where an authoritarian has stolen power, as Lukashenko has here, and protests have led to them being overthrown?
Alex Gladstein: Well, a good example is one that you and I are quite familiar with, that happened last year in Bolivia. There is still a transition of course happening, but there you had a strong man who, again, was popular in the beginning, won an election in Evo Morales, won another election, and then tried to change the rules so he could rule forever, and did change those rules. And the people, on the fourth time he tried to get re-elected, came out on the streets in their hundreds and thousands, even the millions, and he was forced out and he's gone now, and there's a transitional government.
It's not been easy; it's been violent; it's been difficult; but, that is a pretty clear example of this people power being successful. I mean, you saw the same thing, to an even more effective degree, happen in the early 2000s in Serbia, where the people came out on the streets for months and months in the summer and fall 2000 and eventually, by October, they were able to force out Slobodan Milosevic, and he left, and that country took a turn for democracy. So, there is a track record of this happening in quite a few places around the world.
Peter McCormack: Okay. Let's talk a little bit about the protests, Juraslau. Can you talk about the kind of numbers that have been coming onto the streets and the tactics of the protesters? A couple of things I noticed, I've seen these front lines of women essentially building chains to protect the protesters; can you talk about some of the things that have been happening?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: The biggest marches happen on Sunday. In September, there were some days when it's been calculated that over 300,000 people in Minsk, out of 2 million population, and the same or more all around the country. The tactics of the protesters depends a lot on the tactics of the police forces.
In August, it all started very brutal and afterwards, protesters, they've been trying to avoid straight, physical contact with the police forces, because it was quite hard and police forces were being in full ammunition. And, it's being exhausting if protesters were not fighting with them, but just driving them around the city. It's difficult for them physically to move and run around the city in full equipment when it's 30+ degrees heat.
So, during the first marches, all of the people have been gathering together in the city centre and then moving from there to somewhere. That was nice from the perspective of counting them. But lately, they've changed tactics, and they've been starting their marches from suburbs, from neighbourhoods, moving to the city centre and then, police have been blocking roads and they have to move the other way round. So, there are loads of people all around the city, moving here and there, blocking the roads, marching with flags and bars and that kind of stuff; but that was more difficult to calculate them.
But, we see that it's going to be two months soon already, but people keep coming out on the streets. More cruel police acts; more people came out on the streets and Alex mentioned it already, the protest is very peaceful. So, we have seen some episodes when people have been protecting themselves physically from police forces, but people never attack a police force first; which quite often, from my perspective, because that's demoralising police forces a lot. They are not sure anymore that they have to continue their job.
At the same time, people are striking on big enterprises that are owned by the state. As Lukashenko has been trying to control everything in the country and more than 80% of big enterprises are controlled by the state, and that builds huge, economical pressure and Lukashenko doesn't know what to do with it. He's trying to deal with it again with special police forces, and sending them to plants and mines, and he's trying to make people work.
Peter McCormack: Well, we'll get into that because the strike's, what's happening, obviously the connection to the story is very interesting; but, just a couple of questions before we get into that. I was in Santiago in Chile a while back for the protests there, and that was a real opportunity for a lot of women to come out on the streets and protests, and it was a real revolution for the women within the protests as well; it was like a separate movement. It sounds like that's a very similar -- and, Sviatlana, has she essentially liberated Belarusian women in a certain way?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yeah, it's quite a lot women revolution, because even during the election campaign, there were three major candidates: Sergei Tikhanovsky, Viktar Babaryka and Valery Tsepkalo. Two of them have been thrown to prison and Valery, he had to leave the country. And then, all of their initiative groups merged together and they've built one big headquarters, and there were three women in the head of all of this: Sviatlana herself; wife of Valery Tsepkalo, Veronika Tsepkalo; and head of Babaryka's headquarters, Maria Kalesnikava, who is in prison now. They were three women's faces leading all of the campaign.
Obviously, lots of other Belarusian women supported this movement and they have been very active on the streets during the protests. And as, again, Lukashenko is a huge sexist, it's his police forces who have been dealing brutally with men but never touched women. And, it worked for quite a long time.
On Sundays, we have common marches; on Saturdays, we have women-only marches. They are also huge and sometimes it was funny because, during the common marches, there are some kinds of tactics and plans; during the women's marches, they just move in the direction, then they're changing their minds and moving in the opposite direction, so police forces never knew where to block roads and what to do with them. But, they never touched them physically until two weeks ago, I guess. Then, they've started capturing women also, so now they're thinking how to change the tactics.
And yeah, women often have been protecting their men, and it worked until lately, so that's a very interesting moment also.
Peter McCormack: Okay. And just one more question, then I've got a couple more for Alex, then we'll get onto the strikes in detail. Does Lukashenko have much support, and are there any protests in opposition to your protests?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: I don't think that Lukashenko himself has much support. There are a group of Belarusian citizens that are supporting Lukashenko, it's impossible that he had no support at all, but we had amendment that he has 3% of supporters around the country. During the election campaign, it wasn't true; he had from 12% to 20% of supporters for sure but after the violence he started on the streets, it fell down dramatically.
But, he built the system that is afraid a lot of any kind of changes, because this system take uncertainty, they don't know what could happen next if anything changes, so the system tries to keep status quo. And, that's why lots of officials, police forces, they're trying to freeze the situation and keep it as it is. But, I don't believe that these people support Lukashenko in their hearts; they just don't know that there can be an alternative and that they can be free and live in a democratic state and do some private business, or some arts or create something. That's something they have to discover yet.
Peter McCormack: Right. Alex, your team must be monitoring what's happening in terms of arrests, the thuggery of Lukashenko's police force? I did see videos of people being snatched off the streets. How typical is what they're doing; is there anything particularly concerning?
Alex Gladstein: Yeah, I mean there's horrific torture. I mean, the graphic videos and images that are available for all of us to look at, as a result of social media, are sickening. I mean, there are men, women of all ages and professions being beaten to the brink of death and then just released. There are people who are being released in a condition where every inch of their body is bruised and broken.
And the government, as Juraslau is saying, as they get more desperate, they get more violent; this is something that you see generally as revolutions wear on. And, they weren't going to touch the women before and now they are, right, and it only gets worse from here. So, the commitment to peace is critical. It is much, much more likely for a revolution to work if it remains peaceful than if it goes violent. The success rate, based on an analysis of more than 100 -- I think, actually more than 300 people's movements over the last 100 years, basically says that non-violent movements are just much more likely to succeed. So, we'll have to see; it's a big moment here, but we can expect the regime to get more violent as we move forward.
Peter McCormack: Right, so let's get onto the interesting stuff about Bitcoin, because obviously that's what the show's about. I obviously wanted to learn about the current situation there, because I think it's important for people to listen to this, but how did you two become connected, Alex; involved in what's happening?
Alex Gladstein: Sure. Well, for background, HRF has for more than a decade been working with Belarusian opposition leaders, Belarusian democracy activists, and there are definitely two generations here. There are an older generation of people, who are 50, 60, 70 years old who have been fighting Lukashenko for decades and most of them, obviously if they are active, they have escaped, so they live in western European countries, or they live in Poland, Britain, Germany, and we have been supporting them and we've been working with them and giving them platforms to speak.
But, something different has happened here where, we not only have the activity of the older generation, but you have a new, younger generation of Belarusians, who are in Canada, America and Europe but also, of course, obviously out on the streets, being very active, and they have a different way of approaching things. And I think the two together are very powerful in terms of traditional tactics plus new tactics. And, what we are watching now, where Juraslau and his colleagues are basically building, with their BYSOL organisation, a support network for people who are striking, is really smart and strikes right to the heart of what is keeping Lukashenko alive here, which is the state-run economy.
The way we met is through a popular software company called PandaDoc, based partly in Belarus and partly in San Francisco. The creator of PandaDoc, the CEO, Mikita, got in touch with HRF; he wanted to support what was happening there, and we teamed up to raise some money, several hundred thousand dollars, to support BYSOL and other organisations. Some of that money is obviously, as we'll describe, being directly given to Belarusians, who are striking, in the form of Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Juraslau, can you just explain who BYSOL are?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: To keep a long story short, it is the Belarus Solidarity Foundation. So, there've been several movements in Belarus during this year. The first one, called BY_covid19, during the first wave of COVID, Mr Lukashenko ignored the thread completely and he didn't manage to supply hospitals with the basic protection, like face masks and protection costumes and ultraviolet lamps. So, there were still movements to supply hospitals with that.
As my company is the MediTech company, we've got doctors working all around the city in Minsk. So, we've been supplying them with protection and working together with BY_covid. Then, the other initiative came up called BY_help. When the election campaign started, lots of people have been imprisoned and they got penalties, and then they've been injured during the protests. So, BY_help initiative helped these kinds of people. That's the same people running these initiatives.
After the election -- I've been involved since BY_covid, and after the elections, we've seen that we have quite a lot of people being fired because of their political position; we have quite a lot of people striking and losing their livings; and we decided to establish a third foundation, Solidarity Foundation, to support these kinds of people who are economically repressed.
So basically, we are helping people who have been fired mainly because of their political position; we are helping people who are leaving their state service because they don't want to commit crimes, they don't want to be the hands that the regime commit crimes with, and they are usually some mid-authorities or some police officers; and the third category, we are supporting people who are on strike on state-owned entities if they are economically repressed.
Peter McCormack: Right, how much were you aware of Bitcoin; were you already aware?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yeah, I'm a software engineer, so I'm aware of technology. I've been working a little bit with the blockchain, but I've never been a crypto enthusiast; I've never believed in it as a stable currency, because the exchange rate of Bitcoin is floating up and down like a rollercoaster, and I believed it until this summer.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, until this summer. Once you get to use it for a certain purpose, it does change things. Okay, Alex, you've explained this to me in the past, but do you want to explain how BYSOL are using Bitcoin right now?
Alex Gladstein: Well, yeah, I'll sow a bit of background. Okay, so people are withdrawing their money from bank accounts across Belarus sort of en masse. Also an essential bank, at the same time, is running out of liquidity. So, there's an economic collapse happening inside Belarus, is the background here.
And, from a macro perspective, we can also see, from exchanges like Paxful, that all of a sudden there is also now a premium on Bitcoin. So, as of a few days ago, there was a US$2,500 premium on Bitcoin inside Belarus; so, the average Bitcoin price was around US$13,000 at the end of last week, whereas obviously the price here, or wherever else, was around US$10,500. So, there's this huge demand for Bitcoin inside of Belarus right now.
Peter McCormack: Sorry, just to interject, is that because essentially, there's a run on the bank and there's a fear of a currency collapse?
Alex Gladstein: There is both of those things. I mean, again, people are withdrawing their money from banks and the central government is struggling to prop up the central banks with reserves; its reserves are disappearing. Last month, the government lost more than $1 billion of reserves. So, its reserves are dwindling closer to zero and people are demanding their money. And as we all know, with the fractional reserve banking system and how it works, not all of their money is there and there are obviously going to be bank runs.
So, people are converting some of their money into Bitcoin and there's a high demand, which creates liquidity, which is really good for what I'm about to describe, which is that because Bitcoin is now being used more and people are aware of it, we are now able to send Bitcoin to people as this sort of global permissionless medium of exchange, and they are able to easily convert it into Belarusian rubles. There are people that are very happy to buy the Bitcoin from them once we send it to them, for rubles, and the whole process takes minutes, or hours at most.
And the way, you know, I'll let Juraslau describe it in detail but essentially, what you need to know is that these people who are striking are vetted by BYSOL. I mean, on Telegram, they explain who they are, what their situation is; they get documentation; and then BYSOL will give them a grant of about €1,500; they'll send it directly to them in Bitcoin. And then, a lot of folks in Belarus are using this app called Trustee; there's other apps as well. It's basically a Bitcoin wallet and they receive the Bitcoin, and then they type in their account number, their Rabin number of their bank, and they sell the Bitcoin for rubles.
On the backend, what's happening is that wallet is tapping into a peer-to-peer network, where a Belarusian or a Russian or a Ukrainian is receiving the Bitcoin and wiring them directly the rubles. So, there's no centralised authority here, so there's no way for the government to shut this down; even if it wanted to, they'd have to shut down the whole banking system. So, this is a really remarkable way of getting money into Belarus whereas, as human rights activists, we don't have many other options. I mean, we could wire money to people in Latvia and Poland and have them withdraw it into cash and euros and carry it across into Belarus, but that's not a very safe way of doing things.
So, we now have a new way of providing economic support for the democracy movement, and it's been kind of amazing to watch, basically. According to BYSOL, they've sent more than €350,000 into Belarus in this way over the last couple of months.
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yesterday, it was €403,000 already.
Peter McCormack: Wow.
Alex Gladstein: Yeah, so they raised close to €2,000,000, you know, so far, and it's amazing to see that such a large percentage of it has actually been sent in and spent on keeping the protest movement alive and on keeping the strikes alive, and Bitcoin is the preferred and really best medium for that right now.
Peter McCormack: So, Juraslau, Alex mentioned grants of US$1,500. Do you know what about the average wage is in Belarus; monthly wage in dollars?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: That's a national legend; the average wage has to be €500. So, Lukashenko is promising this €500 since early 2000s. He reduced this number from time to time, before the election usually, but then the Belarusian ruble defaults and the salary again falls down to €300, €350, something like that. So, we've made it €1,500 because that's like three months' wage, which gives people space to find a new job, or to attend some programming courses or something like that, and give them a chance to start a new life.
Peter McCormack: So, the people you've been providing the grants to, what's it been like teaching them about Bitcoin, helping them understand it, getting them setup on the technology; any hurdles you've had to get people over?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: We are trying to keep it as simple as possible, so we're basically teaching them how to install the wallet, how to link their bank account with this wallet, and how to sell Bitcoins; or, if they want to buy Bitcoins later, if they earned some of their own money. So, we're just teaching them how to trade with the wallet. So, we're not diving deep into blockchain technology and how it works or why it works, so we start with simple stuff.
It works quite good, you know. Right up to the election, first three or four days, Lukashenko shut down all of the internet in Belarus, yeah, and all of the people around the country, they've learned how to use VPN and proxy servers in exactly the same as it works here. So, we just teach them how to use crypto wallet, how to receive Bitcoins, how to sell them for Belarus rubles, and that's it.
Alex Gladstein: And, you were saying you've taught all these people how to do this, and no one has kind of given up in frustration. Everybody you've given the money to has figured it out?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yeah.
Alex Gladstein: So oftentimes, Peter, in this industry, you get a lot of armchair observers saying, "Oh, it's too hard to use". And it's like, well when people have to actually use it, they figure it out. Don't underestimate the average person. I mean, the stuff at this point is not that hard to figure out. It's not that much harder to figure out than using Instagram or using Twitter, you know, at the end of the day; it's a phone app.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I mean I'm one of the people who says that sometimes as well. But, it feels to me, Alex, like the use case here is a little bit more on the -- it's solving a specific problem; it's giving people access to money. It's a little less of the, learn about Bitcoin, save Bitcoin, backup your private keys, kind of situation. This feels a lot more like this is providing specific support for the protests themselves?
Alex Gladstein: Correct. This is a situation where people under duress in a difficult political climate are relying on Bitcoin's censorship resistance and permissionlessness, and they are receiving money from abroad in a way that the government cannot stop, and they are converting it into rubles in a way that the government cannot stop, and that is what is important right now. And again, this is like Bitcoin as a bridge between monies. It's a way for me, with dollars, to support someone in Belarus, who uses rubles, in a way that takes minutes and is not possible to stop.
But also, as Juraslau is saying, and as we're seeing macro-wise on the demand in these local markets, people are also beginning to convert their rubles, which are deteriorating, collapsing; and, we don't know what the ruble's going to be worth in three months; we have no idea. They're converting it into Bitcoin, right, as this speculative store of value. So, you're seeing both use cases unfold here.
Peter McCormack: Juraslau, how widespread is the knowledge of Bitcoin? Is this still quite niche within the protests, or is this something that a lot of people are now talking about?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: It's spreading. When people hear that they can receive money with Bitcoins, they are obviously interested in this and start to Google. And the more people receive it, the more they know about it. But it's worth mentioning that this is just a first step we're using here, because now I'm a big fan of the technology and of the changes it brings. So, that's just the first step to use Bitcoin to transfer from euros outside of Belarus into Belarus rubles inside of Belarus.
But now, actually, we've started building a platform, a blockchain platform, which allows to build a digital ID, which will allow people first of all a wallet online for some initiatives we want to run in Belarus. Then, we'll try to build some kind of crypto-economy, because if it's working safer than the standard currency in Belarus and it's more stable, then it gives us an opportunity to build a global Belarusian economy, where all of the Belarusians all around the world can be involved and they can donate, or buy something, or pay for some service in Belarus. That gives us huge opportunities.
Alex Gladstein: And I also think it's important to note here that this is not reliant on a charity, or some governmental UN agency providing aid where we have to think about altruism and giving. The liquidity and the availability for me to send Bitcoin, and that person to use it, is reliant on capitalism and greed and markets and profits. It's much more resilient than the EU getting together and saying, "Hey, we're going to give the Belarusian people a certain amount of money", because those are bureaucrats and they could change their minds tomorrow.
This is very different; this is an unstoppable phenomenon where we can send this money in and it can be converted, because people are making money off of it and they want to convert it. So in that way, it's really fascinating to look at as this sort of unstoppable phenomenon. And I would note that obviously, Belarus is very different from many other countries around the world in that almost everybody has a smartphone and it's a very wired country. There are a lot of technology companies coming out of Belarus, a lot of these companies; there's a huge IT sector, so maybe we shouldn't use it as a proxy for like Libya or the Congo.
But, in this particular case, people, as Juraslau was saying, are very quick to learn about how they can receive and sell and buy Bitcoin; and they're not going to forget it. It's not like, let's say the revolution happens and actually, by some miracle, there is some democratic transition, it's not like people are going to forget about this censorship-resistant, permissionless money afterwards; it will remain in their minds. So, it will be really interesting to see what happens from here.
Peter McCormack: Well, Alex, this is something you've been talking about for a long time, ever since I've known you, how Bitcoin can help people in these situations; and actually, you're now seeing it play out in real time. It must be quite validating for you to see?
Alex Gladstein: It's only something I've been saying because I've been observing it. Before Belarus, I've seen people get their wealth out of China; I mean, I was seeing people get their wealth out of Venezuela; we were supporting people in different countries in the Middle East with this. There's just so many stories around the world, so yeah, it's great to see people learn about this tool, which is open to everybody. You don't need an ID to use this thing, and it's important that people know about this tool and have it in their toolbox as they fight dictators in the future.
Again, it's just a tool. The people are doing the work here and there's this remarkable bravery and millions of people fighting for the future of their country, and they could very well fail. But at the end of the day, we sometimes underestimate how important money and economics and finance is in all of this. And to have an ability to provide people a lifeline like BYSOL is doing, to do it in a way that's beyond the control of government and corporations, is a new thing for humanity. And it is a big challenge for dictators and it is a big help for democracy movements. People are only going to start to understand that more and more and more.
Peter McCormack: It's brilliant. All right, Juraslau, before we close out, is there anything else you would want to tell people who are listening to this?
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yeah. Please donate to Belarusian Solidarity Fund with your Bitcoins!
Peter McCormack: All right, well listen, I will put that in the show notes. Alex, is there anywhere you want to direct people to, to find out more about this?
Alex Gladstein: Yeah, I mean if you want to learn about our cooperation with BYSOL, we have a, and you can put it in the show notes, but we have a URL that we've created; I'll just type it here. It's called defendbelarus.funraise.org and it explains what we're doing on our side with the fund, it shows how much we've raised and quite a bit of that is going to BYSOL, and then BYSOL has their own Facebook page, which can also go on the show notes.
But, yeah, get involved. I mean, this is an opportunity for bitcoiners, who believe in the revolutionary power of it, to put their coin to good use and to change the world in a small way by supporting a Belarusian who's made that brave decision to strike against a country and a regime that's reliant on the state-controlled economy, and to give that revolution a little more breathing room. And, they can do that with this technology that they've become really interested in.
So, I hope that the Bitcoin community can take a look at this and decide to make a difference in this area, so that's our hope.
Peter McCormack: Amazing. Well listen, look, all the best, Juraslau, I wish you all the best. I hope you get your peaceful transfer of power. I've never been to Belarus, so hopefully I'll get over there at some point and come and visit the country.
Jaraslau Likhachevski: You're very welcome as always.
Peter McCormack: Well, hopefully when the planes are flying.
Alex Gladstein: I'll be on the first flight to Minsk once the regime falls!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, we'll both head out there, Alex.
Alex Gladstein: But the goal, Juraslau, is for HRF to be able to organise with you in the future for an Oslo Freedom Forum in Minsk; that's the goal.
Peter McCormack: Well, I'll definitely come to that.
Alex Gladstein: It will be a beautiful day.
Peter McCormack: All right, guys, well listen, look, thanks for joining me for this. I'll get this out as soon as possible; I really want people to hear this interview. I think it's fascinating what's happening. Alex, you know I love your work and, Juraslau, I wish you the best and if there's anything I can do for you, please do reach out to me.
Jaraslau Likhachevski: Yeah, thanks, Peter.
Alex Gladstein: Thanks for providing a platform, Peter. Take care.
