United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has raised controversy with a recent appearance on BBC News regarding the 2024 elections. Sunak could unwillingly push cryptocurrency adoption among young British amid finance sanction threats to 18-year-olds avoiding joining the National Service.
In a recent video shared in The Guardian report, Rishi Sunak suggests his next term could impose finance, identification, and other sanctions on young British people who refuse to do National Service.
If implemented, this measure could push cryptocurrency adoption among sanctioned people looking for financial protection. Cryptocurrencies are often associated with investments, but a notable use case is self-sovereignty for personal finance and censorship resistance.
Rishi Sunak threatens to impose financial sanctions on young people in the United Kingdom
Notably, the Prime Minister described the implementation of compulsory National Service for 18-year-olds when asked how to enforce it.
“Well, you have a set of sanctions and incentives, and we are looking to models that exist around Europe to get the appropriate mixture of both. There is a range of different options that exist (…), whether that’s looking at driving licenses, all the access to finance, all sorts of other things.”
– Rishi Sunak
In this context, the show host, Laura Kuenssberg, questioned Sunak on the finance sanction threats.
“Access to finance? So, on people that won’t want to do National Services… What? Are you gonna take their bank credit cards away?”
Rishi Sunak, however, did not directly answer the question and concluded by saying his administration will look for different solutions.
Cryptocurrencies as a protection against finance sanction measures
Whether ethical or not, cryptocurrencies have been used by people in many countries to escape finance sanctions or other coercion.
As previously reported by Finbold, Alex Gadstein, Chief Strategy Office of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), believes Bitcoin (BTC) is “bad for dictatorships” due to its properties as “freedom money.” In particular, the peer-to-peer nature of the technology is, in Gladstein’s words, Bitcoin’s grassroots use case.
Besides Bitcoin, other peer-to-peer, decentralized, and permissionless networks such as Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Monero (XMR), and Nano (XNO) are equally capable of increasing individuals sovereignty in these aspects.
Moreover, blockchain infrastructures for decentralized finance (DeFi) like Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), MultiversX (EGLD), and Radix (XRD) are building financial ecosystems that already move billions of dollars daily without relying on central entities.
Therefore, young British people who do not want to join the National Service could look for alternatives when threatened. Rishi Sunak could, unwillingly, push cryptocurrency adoption in the United Kingdom even further by imposing these sanctions. This movement has already been seen in countries like Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Canada, and Argentina.
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