#EndSARS Activists Are Using Bitcoin to Battle Police Brutality

Oct 16, 2020 at 14:55 UTCUpdated Oct 16, 2020 at 15:06 UTC.As protests surge through Nigeria in response to police brutality, one enclave of protestors has turned to bitcoin as a financial lifeline during turbulent times.

Cast out of the traditional system, the Feminist Coalition is now raising donations in bitcoin.

"Quite a few members of the group work in tech," so they made the decision to use Bitcoin as another payment option, said Emma.They started by using Sendcash, a platform which converts bitcoin payments into naira and then deposits these funds into a recipient's Nigerian bank account.

"I would say BTCPay is important because it protects the privacy of donors and prevents the government from easily figuring out what service the protestors are using to cash out their bitcoin into naira," he said.

Since adding the BTCPay bitcoin donation option on Oct. 14, the coalition has amassed roughly 3.14 BTC. Bigger than Bitcoin.

As CoinDesk has reported previously, Nigerians are no strangers to how Bitcoin lets them move money in the shadows of the legacy financial system.

Some Nigerian expats use the Paxful exchange to send remittance funds back home, while others use bitcoin to trade directly with China.

More germane to the recent protests against police brutality, others have even used Bitcoin as an unconfiscatible bank account to avoid police shakedowns for cash.

Still, Emma said that bitcoin is "Not popular among the masses yet at all. There are large barriers mostly in terms of education. However, a lot of young Nigerians are now starting to adopt cryptocurrency and it's growing across the population."

Further, the Feminist Coalition's successful fundraising using bitcoin sheds "Some positive light on cryptocurrency," she says, and promotional efforts by Binance in Nigeria are also softening Bitcoin stigma in the country.