The Story of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Bitcoin
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The Story of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Bitcoin
Maria Corina Machado has shown that the tools of democracy are also tools of peace, one of which is Bitcoin.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy: Byron Gilliam
Translation: AididiaoJP, Foresight News
Maria Corina Machado received news of her Nobel Peace Prize while in hiding.
The "Iron Lady of Venezuela" and "Joan of Arc of Latin America" has been in hiding since Nicolás Maduro threatened her with "maximum justice" following the 2024 election, which clearly showed she was Venezuela's legitimate president.
Machado reported experiencing assassination attempts and kidnapping since then, but refused to leave the country.
She sent her three children to safety abroad but chose to remain herself. According to the Nobel Committee, "this choice has inspired millions."
This is an example that should resonate beyond Venezuela: "Maria Corina Machado has shown that the tools of democracy are also tools of peace," the committee added.
Machado says one of those tools is Bitcoin.
She told the Human Rights Foundation that the Maduro regime "weaponized the financial system against its people," citing hyperinflation that once reached 10 million percent in 2018.
Since 2008, the Venezuelan government has confiscated citizens' savings by removing 14 zeros from its national currency—today, it takes 100 trillion bolivars to buy what one bolivar could purchase in 2008.
"A bag of candy is worth far more than a bag of national currency," said one dispossessed Venezuelan. "Because candy holds its value."
Machado advocates Bitcoin as a better, lower-cost store of value: "Some Venezuelans have found a lifeline in Bitcoin, using it to protect their wealth and fund their escape."
Yet Machado herself uses it not to escape.
"Our campaign operates without access to banking," Machado said. But they can still receive donations: "Unlike bank transfers, which the regime typically blocks, Bitcoin donations cannot be seized."
In this sense, Bitcoin has helped Machado lead resistance against Maduro within Venezuela.
It has enabled many other Venezuelans to survive and resist Maduro.
"Bitcoin bypasses government-imposed exchange rates and has helped many of our people," Machado added. "It has evolved from a humanitarian tool into a vital means of resistance."
Jorge Gray Hreizati of Economic Inclusion, another protesting Venezuelan, says this makes Bitcoin part of a "technological strategy" against authoritarianism.
"The key to defeating authoritarian regimes lies in citizens having widespread access to free technologies like Bitcoin, Signal, and Nostr," he wrote.
Bitcoin especially gives his fellow citizens "the ability to overcome Maduro's financial surveillance and repression."
Many places around the world live under similar oppressive conditions.
Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation estimates that "87% of humans are born into either authoritarian regimes or collapsing fiat systems."
He explains that in much of the world, "traditional banking systems are simply no longer sufficient to effectively fund democratic efforts."
Yet Bitcoin is keeping resistance alive in regions where state-issued currencies "cannot be used for basic human rights activities."
Gladstein says Bitcoin is increasingly becoming the currency of such movements and is on track to become the standard currency for "human rights activism and beyond by 2030."
We're used to seeing grand Bitcoin price targets for 2030—but can it reach an even greater activist goal?
If so, the Nobel Committee may be credited with helping make it happen.
Gladstein notes that "the vast majority of Bitcoin critics live in the United States or Europe and are blinded by immense financial privilege."
By awarding the peace prize to an ardent user, the Nobel Committee could help dispel bias and improve Bitcoin's image in that 13% of the world where it isn't needed—except as an investment.
For Machado, the main benefit of the Nobel Peace Prize is greater safety through increased fame.
"It raises her profile and increases the cost of trying to suppress and destroy her," explains Gideon Rose of the Council on Foreign Relations. "By conferring benevolent international recognition upon her efforts, the Nobel Prize may protect her life."
For Bitcoin, the significance of the award is that Machado, likewise, bestows her goodwill upon a frequently maligned cryptocurrency—which may protect it from attacks by critics.
Because only authoritarians like Maduro would oppose free technology.
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