Bloody crap news.

My ESTA was unexpectedly rejected to the states.

The airline won’t check me in and the USA certainly won’t let me in ⛔️

I’m stuck in Lima, Peru 🇵🇪

I’m devastated. I can no longer speak at Pacific Bitcoin.

I’m now struggling to find a way home to Europe as most layovers pass through the States 🇺🇸

I’m really sorry to let everyone down, particularly Cory, P, Stephen and the Swan team.

I was really looking forward to Pacific and just soaking up the LA bitcoin vibe.

At some point over the past month, my ESTA status changed and I wasn’t notified. I checked it before flying to Peru in early September.

I keep a copy of my esta on my phone and didn’t think to log in to the esta dashboard before flying to the states for the third time this year.

Ive searched and the rejection is undoubtedly because of me being in Cuba for the bitcoin documentary I shot there.

Im surprised as @RunwithBitcoin flew to the states successfully yesterday and he was in Cuba as well.

Either way, gotta learn from this and move on.

Next steps.

- work out how to get home.

- find some work to cover the $3k expense of this monumental kerfuffle.

- book an appointment with the British embassy to explain that I am in fact not a Cuban collaborator for a new visa.

- be less of a moron.

I’m really sorry. Hope you’re having a better day than me.

And to those going to Pacific, please send it 🧡

I've just received a grant of $25,000 USD (in Bitcoin) to work alongside the Human Rights Foundation educating political dissidents around how to use BTC. I'm very humbled and excited.

Rather than focus on me for this post though, I want to take you on a journey regarding one of the stories I've witnessed at the Oslo Freedom Forum that has had the most impact on me.

In Oslo 2022, I watched a woman take the stage and talk about her activist husband who had been abducted and imprisoned in Nicaragua, leaving their daughter fatherless, as they had no contact with him at all.

I also met a wonderful woman learning about Bitcoin wallets for the first time, as a way to fundraise and get money into countries where dissident bank accounts would be shut down.

A year later I returned to Oslo and learned two things.

1. The woman I spoke with/coached and the woman onstage were the same person. Her name is Berta Maradiaga.

2. Due to the efforts of the HRF her husband Felix had been freed and returned to them for the first time in 3 years. They even showed a video of his daughter's tearful first reunion.

I encourage you to watch all 3 videos here. It is a harrowing story and it emotionally broke me watching it play out in real time. I got to spend a bunch of time with Berta recently at Bitcoin Park in Nashville, and she continues to learn about BTC and how it can be used to further their cause. She is wonderful.

Grab your tissues.

Felix In Oslo 2019 (Before being imprisoned)

[SPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT]

[ANUNCIO DE ORADOR]

Burak started in Bitcoin in 2017, exploring and building around mining, payments, wallets, developer tools and most recently, Bitcoin-style smart contracts. In 2023, he proposed Ark - a new second layer scaling solution that has the potential of onboarding billions to bitcoin in a self-custodial way.

For more info & tickets 🎟👉