Nigel Farage, the architect of the UK’s exit from the European Union, says Bitcoin is “the ultimate freedom” and has drawn parallels with his successful Brexit campaign.
A founder member of UKIP – the UK Independence Party – in 1993, Farage served as an MEP in the European Parliament from 1999 and became leader of UKIP in 2006.
Despite being consistently re-elected in his European seat, he helped orchestrate a popular protest against conventional political parties in the UK which ultimately led to the 2016 referendum – with voters opting to leave the EU by 52% to 48%.
Farage then led the Brexit Party – since renamed Reform UK – from 2019 to 2021 in a bid to hold the government to account during the UK’s separation from Europe.
He is now a presenter for GB News.
“I led a political insurgency, I took on the establishment,” he told a panel at Bitcoin Amsterdam.
“I believe in freedom; in liberty; and that the nation-state represents the best way to do this. I’m absolutely proud of campaigning for Brexit, achieving Brexit, and I believe it is the first brick out of the globalist EU world.
“With Bitcoin, we’re seeing a similar type of insurgency: an economic insurgency that is being driven and led by people who are worried about the sheer size and scale of big government.
“Governments cannot come near it: they cannot tell me what I can and cannot do with Bitcoin and, in that sense, it is the ultimate freedom, it is the ultimate liberty.”
He said that the existing financial system “owns and sets the status quo”, adding: “They are very comfortable… and they don’t want anything to come along and disrupt. And I think Bitcoin is seeing that.”
On regulation, he said: “If we work cleverly, with lawmakers…there’s a good chance in America, the UK and perhaps South America too that we can actually get a sensible level of regulation.
“The level of knowledge of those who will be regulating is very, very low. Lawmakers need some real education, and that’s not an easy thing to do.”
Farage said that Central Bank Digital Currencies such as the digital pound and digital dollar, currently in the planning stages, “will take away our economic freedom”.