Financial Freedom Report #123
- SUBSCRIBE HERE
- GLOBAL NEWS
- RECOMMENDED CONTENT
- BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS
- BITCOIN RECOMMENDED CONTENT
Welcome to this week’s Financial Freedom Report.
In Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Meta has restricted the accounts of human rights activists and organizations at the request of local officials. It is a clear example of a centralized platform being turned into a tool of censorship by authoritarian regimes.
In Bitcoin news, Sparrow Wallet released support for Silent Payments. Dissidents and nonprofits can use this privacy tool to share and post one static public Bitcoin donation address, where each supporter’s donation on the back end lands in a different, hidden on-chain address, making it harder for dictators to identify donors or funding patterns.
We end with an episode of 21 in 21 featuring prolific freedom tech developer Calle, who discusses how Bitcoin-native payments could become a payment rail for AI agents, and why the next generation of internet-native tools will need money that is privacy-preserving and independent of human identity.
SUBSCRIBE HERE
GLOBAL NEWS
North Korea | Dictatorship Implements Rice Price Controls
North Korea’s authoritarian regime is attempting to cap rice prices after a sharp food price surge, but the policy is making the shortage worse. According to Daily NK, the regime ordered local officials to stop street vendors from selling rice above a state-imposed ceiling. This action was in response to rice prices rising above 30,000 North Korean won ($33.33) per kilogram. Officials and undercover agents are now inspecting markets, checking sellers’ account books, and confiscating rice from those accused of charging too much. Traders are responding by pulling rice from public stalls and selling it privately from homes or other hidden locations. For North Koreans, the state’s actions make rice harder to find and more expensive.
In context: The story is an example of a fully authoritarian regime implementing price controls and worsening an already dire economic environment. Instead of addressing root causes, the state is punishing sellers, disrupting distribution, and causing prices to rise as supply dwindles.
Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates | Meta Restricts Human Rights Accounts at Regime Request
In Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Meta blocked the Facebook accounts belonging to civil society groups, researchers, and activists. Affected accounts include those of ALQST for Human Rights, Democratic Diwan, Saudi legal scholar Abdullah Alaoudh, and human rights activist Yahya Assiri. The restricted content reportedly included human rights reporting, regional conflict analysis, security-related developments, and political satire. Meta cited local legal requirements as the reason for the restrictions, complying with requests from an authoritarian regime with a history of using cybercrime and counterterrorism laws to criminalize online expression. This is not the first time Saudi Arabia has taken brutal action against individuals’ online activity.
Why this matters: Human rights groups depend on social platforms to reach people inside closed societies, but those same platforms can be restricted when centralized. Decentralized and censorship-resistant communication alternatives like Nostr or Bitchat matter when authoritarian regimes weaponize platform centralization as a tool of state censorship.
Russia | Central Bank Calls for Visa and Mastercard Exit
A senior official at Russia’s central bank says Visa and Mastercard should leave the country entirely, arguing that the networks no longer perform their original function. The companies suspended Russian operations in 2022 after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, cutting off cross-border card use while domestic transactions continued through Russia’s National Payment Card System. Now, the Kremlin is using that disruption to push payments further into state-run domestic rails like Mir, Faster Payments System, and its state-backed messenger Max. The exit of these companies would deepen state oversight of financial activity, systems, and payments, further eroding financial freedom in Russia.
Iran | Internet Blackout Surpasses 2,000 Hours
Iran’s regime-imposed internet blackout has now lasted more than 2,064 hours, according to reports from NetBlocks, a global internet observatory. Internet shutdowns restrict people’s ability to organize, to communicate with family, and to both share and access life-saving information in conflict zones. The regime’s internet restrictions also weaken financial freedom by cutting off Iranians’ access to online financial tools, including both banking apps and tools like Bitcoin. Iran’s prolonged blackout is a stunning case of turning internet access itself into a tool of isolation and control.
Burma | Anti-Money Laundering Law Targets Digital Assets
In March 2026, Burma’s military regime enacted an updated Anti‑Money Laundering (AML) framework that brings digital assets into its purview. The legislation creates a dedicated law enforcement agency that operates as an additional state body and is imbued with greater powers to seize assets and conduct searches without court orders. The law expands state control over a primary financial channel used by activists, NGOs, and ordinary citizens to receive and move funds, in the context of limited financial access and financial repression.
Turkey | Court Ruling Against Opposition Threatens Both Democracy and Economic Well-Being
A Turkish court has stripped the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) of its current leadership, annulling a 2023 vote that made Özgür Özel party chairman. Instead, officials have reinstated former leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in an attempt to secure President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s continued rule. The decision immediately rattled markets, sending the Turkish lira lower and prompting reports of state bank intervention to slow the currency’s decline. The turmoil drew comparisons to the March 2025 arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival. That arrest also triggered widespread financial instability. When authoritarian rulers manipulate courts to weaken political freedom, second-order effects can quickly spread into the financial lives of everyday people.
RECOMMENDED CONTENT
Why Gen-Z Is Rising by Erica Chenoweth and Matthew Cebul
This Journal of Democracy essay examines why Gen Z-led protest movements are spreading through all corners of the globe. The authors argue that the answer is economic as well as political. Youth are frustrated with corruption, currency instability, broken public services, inflation, and systems where insiders capture opportunity while everyone else absorbs the costs. Their research highlights many of the same trends HRF documented in a 2025 report, “Youthquake: Youth-led Movements Shaking Up East and Southeast Asia.”
———————————————————————————————————————Join Us at the 18th Annual Oslo Freedom Forum
Join HRF this year at the 18th annual Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF), hosted in Oslo, Norway, from June 1–3. This year’s OFF theme of “Dismantling Dictatorship” celebrates the activists, thinkers, technologists, and artists who take tyranny apart with ingenuity, creativity, and solidarity. Together, we celebrate stories of courage and explore bold ideas to advance freedom and unleash human potential through innovative solutions. On June 2, the Freedom Tech track will explore how tools like Bitcoin, offline messaging like Bitchat, decentralized communication protocols like Nostr, and open-source AI are helping human rights defenders resist repression.
Purchase Tickets
———————————————————————————————————————
BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS
Sparrow Wallet | Silent Payments Support Released
Sparrow Wallet, a popular open-source and self-custodial Bitcoin wallet for desktop and an HRF grantee, has added support for Silent Payments, a Bitcoin privacy tool. Dissidents and nonprofits can use Silent Payments to receive bitcoin donations through a single static address they can share publicly, such as on their website or social media. In the background, however, each bitcoin donation lands in a different on-chain address, preserving donor privacy. Using Silent Payments would make it significantly harder for dictators to identify the donors or funding patterns of a civil society organization. Its addition to Sparrow Wallet is a huge win for both Bitcoin privacy and the financial privacy of activists under tyranny in all corners of the world.
Hodl Hodl | Lightning Support Added
Hodl Hodl, a non-custodial peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange, launched Lightning Network support in beta. The Lightning network is a payment layer built on Bitcoin that lets users send Bitcoin at a greater speed and lower cost. Its integration means human rights defenders using Hodl Hodl can now do so with faster settlement, lower costs, and greater privacy, all while avoiding custodial platforms or creating accounts. During the beta phase, trades are limited to between $5 and $50.
Why this matters: Hodl Hodl is a channel for activists to buy and sell bitcoin without handing custody of funds to a centralized exchange. Adding Lightning makes that experience faster and more practical for small trades, which matters for people in countries facing banking restrictions, currency controls, or exchange closures. Lightning support is another step in strengthening P2P Bitcoin access that is harder to censor, delist, or shut off.
Ijma | New Open-Source Wallet for Bitcoin, Ecash, and Nostr
A new open-source and self-custodial Bitcoin wallet called Ijma (Arabic for “consensus”) released its third beta version this month, bringing together Bitcoin, ecash, and Nostr in a single app that runs in any web browser. Unlike conventional wallets, Ijma works as a Progressive Web App, bypassing Apple and Google app stores entirely. The new version added support for hardware wallet signing with wallets such as Jade, Coldcard, and SeedSigner. The project is designed to be compliant with Shariah, which prohibits excessive interest, speculation, or gambling, targeting Muslim users where existing tools have had limited reach. However, the wallet has not yet undergone a professional security audit. It should be used with test funds only until a more stable release.
Why this matters: App stores are a well-documented censorship vector. China removed Bitchat from Apple’s App Store earlier this year. A wallet in the browser that requires no intermediary platform to access puts a self-custody tool beyond that chokepoint. The Shariah-compliant framing broadens access in regions like Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Egypt, where financial surveillance and censorship are commonplace.
Fedi | ChapSmart Mini App Integrated
ChapSmart, a Tanzanian Bitcoin-powered remittance tool, was added as a Mini App inside the Bitcoin ecash app Fedi. A Mini App is a lightweight tool that runs inside Fedi, letting users access services like ChapSmart without downloading a separate application. ChapSmart lets users send bitcoin from a Lightning wallet (or now, from inside the Fedi app) and have the recipient receive Tanzanian shillings directly via M-Pesa, the country’s leading mobile money platform. The recipient does not need a Bitcoin wallet, bank account, or any knowledge of Bitcoin. Users send bitcoin, but they simply receive a normal M-Pesa payment. ChapSmart also lets users buy bitcoin with M-Pesa, top up Tanzanian mobile airtime with sats, and enables merchants to accept bitcoin while settling in local currency.
Why this matters: Fedi continues to add a growing set of Mini Apps inside its platform, combining private transactions and communications with localized tools that make Bitcoin more usable as everyday money under authoritarian regimes. Integrations like ChapSmart and 256D can help people access Bitcoin through payment rails they already know. Exolix enables conversions between Bitcoin and stablecoins, and BTC Map shows Fedi users where they can spend their bitcoin.
Nostr VPN | New Release Adds Multiplatform Native Apps
Martti Malmi, one of Bitcoin’s earliest developers, released a new version of Nostr VPN, an open-source VPN that uses public keys from the decentralized social network Nostr instead of email addresses or accounts. Similar to Tailscale, Nostr VPN helps users create private networks across devices, but it replaces email accounts and centralized coordination with Nostr public keys as identity. A user’s Nostr keypair becomes their identity, and connections are coordinated through Nostr rather than a corporate login system. The new release adds native apps for macOS, Linux, Windows, and Android, expanding access to this privacy tool for dissidents.
OpenSats | 17th Wave of Nostr Grants Announced
OpenSats, a nonprofit funding free and open-source freedom tech, announced its seventeenth round of Nostr grants, funding five open‑source projects that expand use cases for the decentralized social network. Among the recipients is 44Billion, a web‑based app store that lets users discover, install, and launch Nostr applications. This can increase NGOs’ and activists’ access to decentralized, uncensorable tools for fundraising, outreach, and communication. Another grantee, Routstr, creates a Nostr‑powered gateway for AI services. This lets developers pay for AI access with bitcoin, which provides a more censorship‑resistant and permissionless way for human‑rights organizations to access AI tools that can supercharge their efforts. Learn more about the other grantees here.
BITCOIN RECOMMENDED CONTENT
21 in 21: Calle on Cashu, Clawi, and AI Agents
In this episode of 21 in 21, freedom tech developer Calle, who created Cashu ecash, Bitchat for Android, and Clawi AI, discusses how Bitcoin-native payments could become essential infrastructure for AI agents. He explains why agents will need money that is native to the internet and independent of human identity.
If this email was forwarded to you and you enjoyed reading it, please consider subscribing to the Financial Freedom Report here.
Support the newsletter by donating bitcoin to HRF’s Financial Freedom program via BTCPay.
Want to contribute to the newsletter? Submit tips, stories, news, and ideas by emailing ffreport @ hrf.org.
The Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF) is accepting grant proposals on an ongoing basis. The Bitcoin Development Fund is looking to support Bitcoin developers, community builders, and educators. Submit proposals here.
Write a comment