• Check Your Financial Privilege

  • By: Alex Gladstein
  • Narrated by: Guy Swann
  • Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (70 ratings)

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Check Your Financial Privilege  By  cover art

Check Your Financial Privilege

By: Alex Gladstein
Narrated by: Guy Swann
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Publisher's summary

Alex Gladstein has a lot to say about Bitcoin, human rights, financial privilege, and personal freedom. In Check Your Financial Privilege, he says it, starting with the fact that anyone born into a reserve currency like the euro, yen, or pound has financial privilege over the 89 percent of the world population born into weaker systems.

In Nigeria, human rights activists depend on Bitcoin for donations after crackdowns by authoritarian regimes. In Cuba, after a dual-currency system devalued the peso, those who saved in Bitcoin managed to stay afloat. In El Salvador, where remittance fees and exchange rates can eat away a simple money transfer to family members in need, Bitcoin offers hope with lower fees and faster transactions (and now it's legal tender).

As CSO of the Human Rights Foundation, Gladstein is uniquely positioned to detail the rise of Bitcoin from cypherpunk dream to the real-life Bitcoin stories happening to real people across the globe. For people around the world, outside of Wall Street, Bitcoin offers a means of freedom from inflation, political strife, and an outdated monetary system. For these people, the majority of the world’s population, it might even save their lives.

©2022 Alex Gladstein (P)2022 Alex Gladstein

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What listeners say about Check Your Financial Privilege

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  • JL
  • 10-11-23

Incredibly informative!

A must read for anyone looking to understand the global monetary system, how it affects the developing world, and how Bitcoin can benefit everyone.

While I normally love the narrator Guy Swan’s work, I found his attempts to speak in various accents cringeworthy and super distracting. I almost gave up and just bought a physical copy.

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BTC MAXIMALIST REVIEW

As a BATM owner/operator since 2014 I’m pretty critical of “stakers and shakers,” and even though I was slightly put off by the title, this a great book for Bitcoin support and supporters.

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Well worth the credit; re-frames your world view

Love the framing of the discussion. This will make you re-think this whole problem (if you even knew it was one!)

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  • DK
  • 12-17-22

Brilliant historical breakdown

In his clarifications of where we’ve been, the author has woven together the dollar’s dominance, with the literal exploitation of developing nations. He presents a clear case a solution.

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Extremely thoughtful and educational world economic overview

If you’re interested in how the current global financial system works, how we got where we are, or what may be coming next, read this book.

Contains a meaningful amount of history as well as incredible stories of just how crippling the current financial system can be to those without real power.

I’ll be passing it along to those I care most about because the information is that important.

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The reason why we need Bitcoin

The book details how fiat money has been a means of controlling and impoverishing the have nots and has been a tool of the powerful and elite.

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An extremely important piece of work!

A must read/listen to understand how the manipulation of fiat money is the root cause behind most of the big problems today and how Bitcoin is the best chance we have to solve them.
First class research, dense with content yet easy to comprehend. Beautifully read.

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Very Insightful and Nuanced

This is an exceptional book on Bitcoin, mainly because it explores topics that are excluded from Western discourse. I have read a lot of Noam Chomsky's work, and I believe that Alex Gladstein is a continuing Chomsky's legacy with his journalism and pursuit of the true nature of the world.

This book focuses on the "why" of Bitcoin, rather than the "how". I think that this is the best way to present Bitcoin to the layperson. You don't need to know how Bitcoin works to use it. All you need to do is experience it. People in financially privileged nations will not get much out of using Bitcoin for the first time because, honestly, it's fairly lackluster when compared to Paypal or Cash App.

But for the remaining, vast majority of people on this planet, their first use of Bitcoin is more likely to be one of absolute wonder. For most people on this planet, for all of the people who are ignored by those with privilege, Bitcoin is a way for them to rise out from under the iron fist of their financial rulers. Bitcoin is a way for them to finally transact with their neighbors and community without "people in power" taking unfair cuts. Bitcoin gives power to the people and takes power away from middlemen (read: extortionists).

Guy Swann does an excellent job with his narration. I think I heard him significantly improve throughout the audiobook, and I hope to hear him narrate more in the future.

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Primary reading for an equitable financial system

Address and proposes solutions for financially oppressed peoples. This book should be primary reading for anyone curious to look outside their own bubble.

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Such a eye opener

This book opens ur eyes
So many awesome stories

Just remember

Stack sats and stay humble

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