In short
Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
Machado final yr spoke about how Bitcoin has been utilized in Venezuela as a software to struggle autocracy.
Bitcoiners praised Machado following information of her win.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado, seems to be a Bitcoiner.
Machado, 58, who was awarded the prize on Friday, final yr spoke about how Bitcoin has turn into a “very important technique of resistance” for many individuals within the nation.
Talking to Bitcoin Journal, Machado mentioned that the asset has lengthy been utilized by individuals within the nation to get round a collapsing economic system, and that the opposition appeared ahead to embracing the oldest cryptocurrency “in a brand new democratic Venezuela.”
“This monetary repression—rooted in state-sponsored looting, theft, and unchecked cash printing—occurred regardless of our greatest, huge pure sources, and regardless of an oil value increase that peaked at $147 in July 2008,” she mentioned within the September 2024 interview.
“Some Venezuelans discovered a lifeline in Bitcoin throughout hyperinflation,” she continued. “[Bitcoin] has advanced from a humanitarian software to a significant technique of resistance.”
“We envision Bitcoin as a part of our nationwide reserves, serving to rebuild what the dictatorship stole,” she added.
Crypto business bigwigs uncovered the year-old interview following information of Machado’s win—and celebrated the transfer.
“For the primary time in historical past, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a Bitcoiner,” ProCap Chief Funding Officer Jeff Park wrote on X.
Bradley Rettler, director of the College of Wyoming’s Bitcoin Analysis Institute, added: “Like to see Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado perceive Bitcoin as resistance cash.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded Machado the Nobel Peace Prize for “her tireless work selling democratic rights for the individuals of Venezuela, and for her wrestle to attain a simply and peaceable transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who’s been president since 2013 and has dominated the nation with an iron fist, barred Machado from working within the 2024 presidential elections. Following Maduro’s win, worldwide observers mentioned the election wasn’t democratic.
Venezuelans have lengthy used cryptocurrencies as a approach to dodge uncontrolled costs. A poisonous mixture of presidency forex controls, corruption, and U.S. sanctions led the Venezuelan bolivar to break down nearly 10 years in the past.
The nation nonetheless suffers from one of many highest inflation charges on the planet, however the South American nation is usually—informally—dollarized now.
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