In a Dhaka apartment, bathed in the glow of a brass chandelier, whirring rigs hum with the hidden heartbeat of cryptocurrency mining. Winter sees them relocate, their excess heat warming the corner like a digital hearth. Sifat (surname not given to protect identity), a young man in his early 30s, navigates this clandestine world, his fingers dancing across keyboards to mine and trade coins.

Sifat's days are a digital chess game. He hunts for the most profitable watt, his screen aglow with charts and graphs. Years of experience have honed his instincts, revealing scams and whispers of opportunity in online forums. Most days, his digital gambits yield rewards. But a shadow hangs over his success.

Should law enforcement catch wind of the unseen fortune nestled within his 1,450 square feet apartment in the heart of the Bangladesh capital, his digital empire crumbles.

Frustration simmers in his voice as he explains their ignorance. "This is the future," he declares, “But they [the government] don't understand,” his words a defiant echo in the apartment's hushed hum.

Sifat and his fellow crypto-warriors are bound by a shared passion, a belief in the revolution brewing beneath the surface. They dream of a world free from the shackles of traditional finance, a world where freedom and wealth are not commodities controlled by gatekeepers, but open to all.

“This is not just about profit. It's about a future built on mathematical certainty, where corruption and scarcity fade before the radiant promise of decentralization,” Sifat passionately said. “ These humming rigs are not just machines, but hymns to a future where everyone, in the truest sense, can be rich.”

Birth of a revolutionary idea

US Scholar Langdon Winner famously observed that all technologies have political implications. This is particularly true of cryptocurrency, where the politics of its underlying blockchain technology are defined by a deliberate embrace of distrust, or what crypto advocates proudly term “trustlessness.”

To understand how this works, imagine the following scenario. The Bangladesh government announces that the next election will be held online. Naturally, this upsets Bangladeshis who do not trust its government to count and collect the votes fairly as the last three elections were deemed “questionable” by many independent observers. One solution would be to let people run the vote-counting program on their own computers. If everyone’s voting program could be kept in sync without depending on the government body, people could trust this ‘distributed ledger’ to keep a list of the votes.

“Imagine a giant, digital record book that keeps information accurate and up-to-date across multiple computers, without relying on a single authority or even mutual trust. This revolutionary technology is called blockchain,” Hasib (first name not given to protect identity), another crypto miner like Sifat from Dhaka said.

In 2008, a mysterious figure known as Satoshi Nakamoto introduced both blockchain and a new digital currency called Bitcoin built upon it. The key challenge for Bitcoin was: how to create and distribute new coins without a central bank, and how to prevent users from spending the same coin twice.

Nakamoto's solution involved computers competing in a complex, energy-consuming process to be rewarded with newly created coins. This process, called "mining," essentially determines who gets to add the next batch of transactions (a "block") to the public record.

Bitcoin quickly attracted a diverse group of early adopters, many of whom witnessed significant wealth as the price skyrocketed from $22 in 2014 to nearly $47,000 just three years later. Interestingly, a significant portion of these early supporters were libertarians who saw Bitcoin as a technology aligning with their values.

Firstly, Hasib explained, they came for the politics but then stuck around for the profit later. “In ‘trustlessness’ and ‘distributed ledgers,’ they saw a way to build a monetary system free from the government control — a goal that gained greater urgency in the aftermath of the massive bank bailouts during the 2008 global financial crisis.”

Perhaps no one exemplifies crypto-libertarianism better than Brock Pierce—an American entrepreneur known for his work in the crypto currency industry. Starting in 2009, Pierce mined Bitcoin and achieved significant financial success, reaching the ninth spot on Forbes' 2018 list of the richest people in cryptocurrency. However, his achievements have been overshadowed by allegations of financial and sexual misconduct.

Currently, Pierce is involved in a project called Puertopia, aiming to build a crypto-libertarian community in Puerto Rico. The project takes advantage of the island's favorable weather and tax incentives, arising from the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

Driven by passion, and ideological reason

If the nouveau riche like Pierce are crypto’s landed gentry, then small-time miners like Sifat or Hasib are its subsistence farmers.

Across the globe, in corners where crypto is forbidden, a hidden network of miners and traders defy the rules. They dedicate hours to their humming rigs, guarding against digital threats, their rewards uncertain, sometimes disastrous. These aren't the crypto elite, raking in riches; they're barely afloat.

Hasib initially saw quick cash in crypto trading. But something deeper took hold. He found liberation in the decentralized world, a stark contrast to the "evil" of fiat money. For him, crypto wasn't just a currency, it was a rebellion against an inflated, government-controlled system.

He traces this modern predicament to US president Richard Nixon, the man who severed the golden cord, unleashing the era of fiat. “This paper-based system, devoid of physical backing, is merely numbers and ink, its value dictated by supply and demand, not intrinsic worth,” he said.

Governments print more, our hard-earned money depreciates. Sifat, the other crypto enthusiast of Dhaka calls it a hidden inflation tax, a silent theft of purchasing power. “But in crypto, the equation flips. New coins aren't conjured from thin air; they're forged through computational sweat, like mining gold from the digital earth,” he said.

This is the appeal, the draw for Sifat and his fellow outliers. In their viewpoints, they’re not just mining coins; they're building a different world, one where value is earned, not printed. “It's a risky, uncertain path, but for these true believers, the ideological prize outweighs the financial gamble,” said Sifat.

Against the laws

Diverging from Sifat's optimistic view, Tanvir Ahmed Siddiqui, a Bangladeshi economist, challenges the notion of cryptocurrency as a viable currency.

"The essential qualities of any good currency are: durability, portability, divisibility, uniformity, limited supply, and wide acceptance. The problem is, cryptocurrencies fall short in most of these areas,” he said.

Their price swings, according to Tanvir, render them unsuitable as a store of value or unit of account. He further criticizes their anonymity, making them attractive to criminals and unsuitable for law-abiding businesses and individuals. He also points out the limitless potential supply due to the ever-growing number of cryptocurrencies, further undermining their value.

Finally, Siddiqui says, the lack of government recognition, including Bangladesh's stance against them, as a major obstacle to their widespread adoption.

Since 2014, Bangladesh has maintained a cautious approach towards virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Two cautionary notices issued by the Bangladesh Bank declared such transactions illegal, citing inconsistencies with existing laws and potential risks of money laundering and terrorism financing. Banks were instructed to refrain from facilitating any cryptocurrency transactions.

In 2019, this stance further solidified when the Bangladesh Bank categorized cryptocurrency purchases as illegitimate online payments, punishable by up to a 12-year sentence.

“Transactions in virtual currencies can be listed as crimes as per the Foreign Exchange Control Act 1947, Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2012,” Mezbaul Haque, spokesperson of Bangladesh Bank said, “As of this point, we have no plan to legalize cryptocurrencies soon.”

Meanwhile, neighbouring India pursued a similar path, with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposing a ban on virtual currencies in 2018. However, this ban faced legal challenges, culminating in a landmark Supreme Court judgment in March 2020.

Finding the RBI's justifications for the ban insufficient, the court lifted it, paving the way for potential cryptocurrency adoption in India.

Existing laws in Bangladesh throw sand in the gears of cryptocurrency adoption, according to Mizanur Rahman, a banker and Fintech magazine editor. The magazine, the first of its kind in the country, champions financial technology.

For Rahman, legal language around "currency" and "mining" poses a major roadblock for crypto in Bangladesh. These terms, he explains, evoke images of government-controlled activities like printing money and digging for minerals, which are off-limits to individuals.

“While the Bangladesh government appears open to blockchain for payment systems, its "good blockchain, bad crypto" approach frustrates me,” Rahman said, pointing out that crypto mining and trading are thriving in Bangladesh, despite the legal grey area. “I think this is the best time to recognize crypto and regulate its trading and mining.”

Hasib, the crypto enthusiast, shrugs off the lack of legal clarity. He sees the technology's potential for financial freedom as too valuable to ignore, even if it means operating outside the traditional system.

“I have been in it out of passion. The liberty that it provides is unparalleled to anything. You are minting and trading something that has actual values, unlike the evil fiat currencies which will eventually bust the bubble that it creates,” he said.