On the fateful day of February 17, 2022, we received a Mareva injunction from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, ordering us to freeze and disclose information about the assets involved in the Freedom Convoy protest.

Little did we know that this event would change the trajectory of our small startup and forge the DNA that is now deeply ingrained in Nunchuk.

It was a shocking and difficult moment. The mood within the team was solemn. Most of us had never been near a courtroom, yet we could sense the gravity of the situation.

Nunchuk, at this point a startup still in its infancy, had somehow become entangled in one of the most controversial conflicts of the Covid era. The Freedom Convoy protest erupted mainly because of the mounting frustration of the working class over two years of social distancing, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates. Many were deprived of their livelihood and any sense of normalcy. People had had enough. Something had to give. The Freedom Convoy protest lit a fire in the Western world and quickly inspired similar movements globally.

We became involved because a few days earlier, several Bitcoiners had helped protesters set up a Nunchuk wallet to receive Bitcoin donations. Nunchuk is a self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, meaning the court's order is one we were technically unable to comply with. Nor was Nunchuk a Canadian company. Yet, the threat seemed very serious, and there was no telling how far the Canadian government was willing to go.

A week prior, Justin Trudeau had — for the first time in Canadian history — invoked the Emergencies Act. Designed to be used during wars or against terrorists, the government began wielding its tremendous power against the protesters. Protesters’ bank accounts were frozen without due process — actions later deemed unreasonable and unjustified by a federal court. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) demanded that regulated financial firms blacklist Bitcoin addresses allegedly connected to the Freedom Convoy. The Ontario Securities Commission flagged tweets by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Kraken CEO Jesse Powell criticizing the use of the Emergencies Act to law enforcement. Balaji Srinivasan declared that “All pretense of ‘democracy’ is gone.” Sites like GoFundMe seized, then returned, millions of dollars worth of donations under pressure from Canadian authorities. Police began mobilizing in Canada’s capital. It seemed the authorities were willing to use everything at their disposal, even extraordinary measures, to quash the protest.

Many Bitcoin companies, US companies included, wanted nothing to do with the protest despite having tens of millions in VC funding, fearing the wrath of the Canadian government. Jesse Powell, having previously donated one bitcoin to the protest, warned users that Kraken “cannot protect you” from the Canadian government. Elon Musk, who voiced support for the protesters, tweeted “I wish I could help. At this point, it seems that voting at the next election is the remedy.” The most powerful CEOs in the world seemed powerless in the situation.

Friends and lawyers I talked to also gave conflicting advice. Who, in their right mind, would want to say no to one of the biggest governments in the world, who just showed that it’s willing to throw around its full weight? Do you even have the resources to fight if it becomes a drawn-out legal battle? They could litigate us to death. Everyone was on edge. So much uncertainty was in the air.

I told the team about the court order. Concerned about the increased risks they might bring to their families, two members of our team decided to quit shortly after. I told them I understood and wished them luck. The rest of the team stayed.

I thought about the possibility of having to shut down Nunchuk, if push came to shove.

To complicate the situation, my own personal life was also in great upheaval.

Around the time Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, I learned that I would soon become a father. I went from pure joy to total distress within a week.

I thought about the world my child was going to grow up in.

Then I thought about why I got excited about Bitcoin and decided to start a Bitcoin company in the first place.

If Bitcoin couldn’t matter in a situation where people needed it most, what good is it? Is there any value in building a Bitcoin company at all? How will it be any different from the corrupt and permissioned financial system we grew up with? The one that brought the world to its knees in the Great Financial Crisis, along with many other social woes that we’ve only begun to understand since the shift in 1971? What’s the point of it all?

What will I tell my son, when he grows up, about what happened in February 2022?

Then I sat down and wrote a reply to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

The Path to Autonomy

That email became our North Star. It clarified our mission: to build tools that maximize individual financial freedom and privacy, minimizing reliance on any third party. As Nick Szabo famously wrote: "Trusted third parties are security holes." Our commitment to advanced multisig architecture and open standards ensures that we can never unilaterally access user funds — a principle forged under pressure.

This event taught us that true sovereignty requires technologies designed to withstand pressure. Not just from governments, but from time itself. If we are to secure wealth for generations, our solutions must eliminate all single points of failure.

This commitment is why we have dedicated ourselves to building the most trust-minimized solutions possible. Our new on-chain timelock inheritance protocol, enabled by the innovation of Miniscript, is the direct continuation of the journey that began in February 2022. It is the first assisted inheritance solution designed to outlive the company that created it — guaranteed by the Bitcoin network, not by us.

We are building Nunchuk to help secure the world we want our children to inherit.

A world that respects individual freedom and privacy.