The Gilets Jaunes bank run in France

For the ninth weekend in a row, people will take to the streets under the Gilets Jaunes movement in cities all over France. What originally started as a protest against fuel tax rises has escalated into a full-blown rebellion against Macron’s government and the status quo.

Today, protesters plan to perform a run on the banks. They will attempt to withdraw their money in an effort to prove the banks do not have the required capital on hand.

Banks have long been the enemy of Bitcoin. When Cyprus entered financial difficulty in 2012-13, many citizens realised that they could not access their own money. This in turn actually led to a positive price movement in Bitcoin as people began to look for alternatives.

With the bank run happening today in France, some are suggesting that Bitcoin is in a prime spot again to show that there is another way.

Rather than relying on a central authority to control your money, you can control it yourself by having the private keys to your Bitcoin. This is, in essence, one of the key selling points of Bitcoin as a whole. A currency that relies on no central authority. Many other cryptocurrencies suggest that they follow similar decentralised systems. However, cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum still have the stumbling block of Vitalik Buterin being the leader everyone follows.

Whether the bank run will have much of an effect on the banking system of Bitcoin is certainly up for debate. The recent proof of keys event whereby people withdrew their Bitcoin from exchanges was similar in its idea. People were attempting to see whether the exchanges had the necessary funds to provide their customers with their coins. This ended up being a bit of a damp squib, though.

The wider protest movement of the Gilets Jaunes in France has been fascinating to follow. What began as a protest against the fuel tax has turned into a much wider movement. The suggested bank run is just another step in this process that continues to run on.