How Bitcoin Helps Civilians Escape The War in Sudan
"Sudan has been under transitional military rule since 2021, when Sudan’s revolutionary government was overthrown in a military coup."
- "The civil war in Sudan, which broke out in April 2023, is a power struggle between two people: Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo, leader of the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leader of Sudan’s military junta."
- "Years of economic marginalization and monetary inflation, which rose to over 350% in 2021, have fueled the conflict. As the Sudanese banking system collapsed, bitcoin offered a lifeline to escape the war."
“It was almost impossible to send money back home. When my aunt called me about bitcoin, I understood that it could have implications beyond my own little online world,' said SudanHODL.
- "When tensions intensified, SudanHODL had no other way to get his family to safety than bitcoin. As his parents boarded a bus from Khartoum to the Ethiopian border, he transferred BTC to a trusted trader who exchanged the bitcoin for cash, allowing his family to start a new life."
“They couldn’t take anything with them – no money, no gold, not even a mobile phone. Anything valuable would have been a serious threat to their life,” he said.
- "SudanHodl started remotely leading Sudanese bitcoin meetups and trainings, including BTC Sudan, a group he co-organizes with people on the ground in Sudan and over 500 Discord members."
- "In addition to BTC Sudan, SudanHODL also organized a bitcoin fundraiser for Sudanese medical staff."
“The medical situation is extremely dire. There is no humanitarian aid. Doctors are unable to purchase supplies. Some are using plastic bottles as chest drains,” SudanHodl says.
- “Especially in the countryside, people have been working 16-18 hours a day and were still not able to make ends meet. People are desperate. When militias offered $500 to start fighting, it seemed like a good deal to them,” he added.
- “Most people keep their money at home in gold or USD. When the RSF began looting people’s homes, many lost their life savings,” said Rania Aziz, a Sudanese human rights activist and co-founder of the Sudanese grassroots initiative Interconnect.
- "Personally, Aziz has found broader support for stablecoins. “It’s less scary to trust a new form of currency when the price doesn’t go up and down over night,” says Aziz. But she, too, sees bitcoin as the long-term solution due to its decentralized nature."
- “Bitcoin is not an investment”, says SudanHODL. “In Sudan, there is a genuine need for what bitcoin can do.”
