Freedom Tech (w/ Human Rights Foundation)

Jason Maier is the author of A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin. In this episode, Jason discusses his research and advocacy in a fireside chat with HRF Research Associate Zac Guignard, with audience Q&A to follow.

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ABOUT FREEDOM TECH:

Each month, the Human Rights Foundation and PubKey dive into specific HRF initiatives with a focus on how Bitcoin and freedom tech will advance humanitarian goals.

These events are FREE and open to the public.

Recorded on March 6th, 2025 at PubKey NYC.

Jorge is the President of the Economic Inclusion Group, a policy group advancing economic and financial inclusion globally. Jorge is known for his work advocating in G7 countries for financial reforms to guarantee a “Right to Banking” for immigrants and human rights defenders. Jorge is also an influential voice in his home country, Venezuela, pushing for greater political and economic freedoms.

Leading the conversation will be Arsh Molu, Financial Freedom Operations Lead at the Human Rights Foundation.

Troy Cross, a professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Reed College. Troy has been involved in bitcoin for over a decade, with a focus on the study of the present and future environmental impact of bitcoin mining. Troy is a fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, co-founder of The Nakamoto Project, and serves as Advisory Board Member to several companies in the bitcoin mining, data center, and the renewable energy industries.

Troy will discuss his research and advocacy in a fireside chat with HRF Research Associate Zac Guignard with audience Q&A to follow.

Gloria is a Bitcoin Core maintainer, primarily focused on the peer-to-peer protocol. Her projects include package relay (BIP 331) and TRUC (BIP 431), aimed at reducing censorship vectors and fee-bumping inefficiencies in transaction relay. She is sponsored by Brink, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting open source Bitcoin development.

Bitcoin Core maintainers are a small (and often misunderstood) group who are responsible for merging contributions from other developers into the codebase.

Gloria will discuss threats to Bitcoin, past, present and future, why she chose to pursue grant-funded development over a corporate position, and how her views on privacy and the need for censorship-resistant payments drive her work.