The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, appears to be a Bitcoiner. Machado, 58, who was awarded the prize on Friday, last year spoke about how Bitcoin has become a “vital means of resistance” for many people in the country. Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine, Machado said that the asset has long been used by people in the country to get around a collapsing economy, and that the opposition looked forward to embracing the oldest cryptocurrency “in a new democratic Venezuela.”
“This financial repression—rooted in state-sponsored looting, theft, and unchecked money printing—happened despite our best, vast natural resources, and despite an oil price boom that peaked at $147 in July 2008,” she said in the September 2024 interview. “Some Venezuelans found a lifeline in Bitcoin during hyperinflation,” she continued. “[Bitcoin] has evolved from a humanitarian tool to a vital means of resistance. We envision Bitcoin as part of our national reserves, helping rebuild what the dictatorship stole,” she added.
Crypto industry bigwigs uncovered the year-old interview following news of Machado’s win—and celebrated the move. “For the first time in history, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a Bitcoiner,” ProCap Chief Investment Officer Jeff Park wrote on X. Bradley Rettler, director of the University of Wyoming’s Bitcoin Research Institute, added: “Love to see Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado understand Bitcoin as resistance money.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded Machado the Nobel Peace Prize for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela, and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who’s been president since 2013 and has ruled the country with an iron fist, barred Machado from running in the 2024 presidential elections. Following Maduro’s win, international observers said the election wasn’t democratic.
Venezuelans have long used cryptocurrencies as a way to dodge out of control prices. A toxic combination of government currency controls, corruption, and U.S. sanctions led the Venezuelan bolivar to collapse almost 10 years ago. The country still suffers from one of the highest inflation rates in the world, but the South American nation is mostly—informally—dollarized now.
