In early February, with the snowy streets of Ottawa’s downtown full of big rigs and protestors, Nicholas St. Louis, a local physiotherapist and the trucker convoy’s self-described “Bitcoin team lead,” posted a YouTube video in which he sang the digital currency’s praises.
Bitcoin would let the protesters, who’d gathered to oppose COVID-19 public health restrictions and air a host of other grievances, “receive global donations without any obstruction,” St. Louis told the camera. A few days earlier, the crowdfunding site GoFundMe had shut down an effort that had raised over $10 million to support the protests. A Bitcoin fundraiser was St. Louis’ proposed solution. According to documents later filed in court, he believed it was effectively beyond the reach of the law: “Uncensorable, permissionless and when you custody it properly it is unconfiscatable.”
Little did he know that three police forces including the RCMP, the federal government, and a team of civil litigators were about to challenge that belief.
