“I would like bitcoin to be legal tender in Germany”. The dangers of the digital euro; Bitcoin as a tool to protect individual rights. Interview with German MP Joana Cotar.
The energy policy in Germany is ridiculous. Companies are leaving because they can no longer pay their bills. In an industrialised country like ours, this is madness. Bitcoin mining can stabilise networks.
Joana Cotar
It has been just under a year since Berlin shut down the last three nuclear reactors in the country and then reopened, albeit temporarily, coal-fired power plants to meet the demand for electricity. Energy policy is not up to par in Europe’s most industrialised nation and Bitcoin, although seemingly distant from the topic, could actually play an important role in lowering energy costs in Germany as well.
This is claimed by Joana Cotar, an independent German MP who became well-known among bitcoiners after giving a pro-Bitcoin and anti-digital euro speech in the Berlin Parliament.
Cotar first came into contact with Bitcoin in 2013, when her brother told her about it as an investment opportunity. She began to study it two years later and realised that it could be ‘the solution to so many problems‘, as she tells Atlas21.
That is why, after leaving the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party in 2022, she decided to focus on Bitcoin. “The decision to focus on Bitcoin is not directly related to my exit from the party,” she explains. “I tried to bring my point of view into the party, but I was unsuccessful. The real reason is that I am fighting for freedom and to be part of a formation that suddenly sides with Putin, China or Iran and avoids condemning censorship is something unacceptable to me. I am fighting for the opposite values.”
You launched ‘Bitcoin im Bundestag‘ (‘Bitcoin in the Parliament’): how is the initiative structured?
“We created a website and a newsletter full of information about Bitcoin for MPs and their their employees. We then launched a series of events inviting experts in the field, including Roman Reher (creator of Blocktrainer, the best-known Bitcoin informational channel in Germany) and Samson Mow. We reached 200 registrations at the events, from all parties in the Parliament. I think it was a really important result.”
“I know about EU plans to ban Bitcoin,” Cotar explains. “This is nothing new; they have been trying for a long time, but they don’t understand that they can’t really do it. That’s also why I thought: ‘Let’s do something‘. They have no idea what Bitcoin really is. They think it consumes a lot of energy, that it is used for money laundering, and that it is used by terrorists, like Hamas. That is what the conservatives in Germany say, because that is all the German and EU newspapers write about. Explaining to them that bitcoin is an opportunity for the future is crucial because only well-informed politicians can make good decisions,”
You have stated in the past that you would like bitcoin to be legal tender in Germany. Do you still think so?
“Yes, of course I do. Usually Germany is always behind in terms of digitisation. We always see the risks and never the opportunities. So why not be, for once, one of the first countries to realise that this is a huge opportunity? And if Germany were to do that, I am sure many other countries would follow. We don’t have to start with the legal tender right away: we could start by allowing people to pay taxes in bitcoin and then look at all the necessary regulatory frameworks. But we have to start now, otherwise we will miss the opportunity.”
Would it make sense to invest some public resources in bitcoin?
“Yes. I think it is an investment that can be relied upon. Maybe not all resources, I am not an extremist like some of my friends who invested everything in bitcoin.” (laughs)
What percentage would you suggest?
“For Germany, I cannot say. In my personal portfolio, half of the funds are in bitcoin, the other half in shares and similar products. And bitcoin is performing better, but it’s not just about investments, it’s also because of the fact that it’s decentralised and incensurable money. We saw what happened in Canada to truckers who refused to get vaccinated: they turned to bitcoin. Bitcoin is a way to defend one’s privacy against the power of government.”
In your speech to Parliament that went viral, you said that the digital euro is of no use to anyone except ‘the ECB and politicians with a different agenda, that of total surveillance of citizens‘. In your opinion is there a real risk that the introduction of the digital euro could lead to a society modelled on the Chinese social credit system?
“Absolutely. People still trust politicians too much. They promise us that the digital euro will not be used for surveillance and will be introduced for our own good. The reality is that there is no reason to have a digital euro if you don’t want to monitor people.”
ECB members often emphasise that the digital euro will be developed to protect the privacy of users and that it will be almost as private as cash. Isn’t that enough?
“They’re lying! They’re liying, come on. They also told us that the euro would be a great idea and that it would be as stable as the German Mark. Every promise they made to us about the euro has been broken. Why should we believe them when it comes to the digital euro? I have been in politics for over ten years and I have learnt that politicians cannot be trusted when they promise us something, because they think about their money, their power, their job. They don’t really think about people. And if they can install an infrastructure to maintain their power and control all citizens, they will do it for sure. They have always done it in the past.”
Some object that in democratic states, the powers of governments should be regulated by constitutions and laws. How do you respond?
“We all saw what they did during Covid. The rights guaranteed by the German constitution were denied. They told us: ‘It’s for your own good. We are looking after your health’. I am not vaccinated, so I was not allowed to go to the restaurant, I could not fly, I could not give my speeches here in the Parliament from my regular seat. Here in Germany there are doctors who have challenged certain measures and the state is still prosecuting them. They can no longer practise their profession. The police raided their homes just because they said: ‘We have rights, you cannot take them away from us‘. If you look at what has happened over the past two years, I am sure that if the German government had said, ‘Let’s take all the people who have not been vaccinated and put them somewhere‘, the majority of the population would have agreed. I thought we had learned from our history how manipulative politicians can be and how, if you don’t question what they say, really bad things can happen.”
Could Bitcoin move politics towards a more libertarian worldview?
“Yes. That is why I am pushing the Bitcoin im Bundestag initiative. You can explain to the Greens how important Bitcoin is for the energy sector, you can make the left understand the role of Bitcoin in financial inclusion. Bitcoin has so many advantages, you just have to find the right way to talk about it to the right people.”
