In the winter of 2018, Anna Chekhovich was sitting in the Moscow offices of the Anti-Corruption Foundation when the call came. Their bank accounts had been frozen. All of them, overnight, on orders from the Kremlin. For most organizations, this would be a death sentence: no salaries, no legal fees, no operational budget, no oxygen. But years earlier, when the political climate was already darkening and Chekhovich could feel the walls closing in, the foundation had quietly begun accepting Bitcoin donations. It was a precaution, almost an afterthought at the time, but it became one of the key things keeping them alive.
