Canadian authorities continue to try to boycott cryptocurrency transactions for the so-called Freedom Train. This time, 34 cryptocurrency addresses linked to the protesters were blocked.

The blockades were carried out by the Ontario Provincial Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) – the equivalent of the Federal Police. The two institutions ordered all regulated financial firms to stop carrying out transactions for the 34 blocked wallets.

The list started circulating on Twitter on Thursday morning (17). According to Coindesk and other portals, its content is authentic. In this sense, the 34 addresses belong to five different blockchains:

• 29 addresses (BTC);
• an address of ();
• an address of ();
• an address of ()
• an address of (LTC)
• an address (XMR).

“All crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use must now register with financial transactions. Registration must be done with Fintrac, who will report suspicious or high volume transactions to the government,” an RCMP spokesperson said.

joint work

In addition to the Ontario Police and RCMP, the Statements Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC) is also involved. Together, the three bodies are investigating cryptocurrency donations for the truck driver protests that have brought the country to a standstill.

As CriptoFácil reports, thousands of truckers have stopped the streets of the capital Ottawa in recent weeks. Demonstrators protest against isolation measures adopted by Justin Trudeau’s government, including the mandatory vaccination passport.

To quell the protests, Trudeau passed the Emergencies Act, which gives the prime minister special powers. Based on this law, the government authorized banks to freeze the bank accounts of those involved in the protests.

With the possibility of lockdowns, truckers and donors have turned to cryptocurrencies. A decentralized fundraising campaign collected more than 20 BTC, or about 1 million reais.

Canadian banks go offline

To add to Canadians’ fears, the country’s largest banks experienced outages in their systems on Wednesday. As a result, several customers were unable to access their bank accounts, including at the four largest banks in the country:

• Royal Bank of Canada (RBC);
• Bank of Montreal (BMO);
• Scotiabank;
• Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC).

According to the e-Transfers website, wire transfer systems, online and mobile banking have been particularly affected. Users said access problems escalated between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. Brasilia time.

However, some offline services were also affected. Users reported on Twitter that they could not use their bank cards at ATMs.

Fears of bank confiscations sparked a demand for looting among Canadians. According to Google (NASDAQ:) Trends, searches for the term bank run peaked on Wednesday.

Bank run refers to a scenario where a large number of people go to banks to withdraw their money. In the current financial system, institutions operate on fractional reserves, i.e. banks keep only a portion of all customer deposits.

In short, if the customers all go to the bank at the same time, the institution ends up running out of money to pay everyone. And whoever arrives last risks not receiving a penny.

RBC bank said it was a technical issue and online operations would soon be restored.

By CryptoFacil