Welcome to this week’s Financial Freedom Report.
In Uganda, the Museveni regime has frozen the bank accounts of several prominent human rights organizations. Those affected reported receiving no notice or explanation for the suspensions, which began just days before the country’s January elections. During the vote, Ugandan officials also shut down internet access nationwide.
In freedom tech news, Boltz, a non-custodial bridge between different blockchain systems, introduced a new feature that enables users to swap bitcoin for the stablecoin Tether, a cryptocurrency designed to remain pegged to the US dollar. The feature may prove useful for nonprofits and activists to easily convert bitcoin to dollars, helping them hedge volatility while retaining control of their money.
We end with a new tutorial by Bitcoin educator Ben Perrin (BTC Sessions), who walks viewers through the new Arkade Wallet. The video explores the potential and trade-offs of the Arkade system, which offers faster bitcoin payments but introduces new trust assumptions.
Global News
Uganda | Regime Freezes Bank Accounts of Major NGOs
The Museveni regime has frozen the bank accounts of several leading human rights organizations, escalating the financial repression of civil society. Uganda’s Financial Intelligence Authority, responsible for monitoring money laundering, froze both institutional and personal accounts to investigate funding received from abroad. Organizations impacted include Chapter Four Uganda, the African Institute for Investigative Journalism, and the Agora Centre for Research, which was co-founded by 2023 Oslo Freedom Forum speaker Agather Atuhaire.
In context: Affected organizations reported receiving no notice or explanation for these suspensions, which began just days before the Jan. 15 contested elections, when officials also shut down internet access. Foreign funding is a standard and often essential part of how international NGOs operate, making these allegations a convenient pretext for the regime to target independent advocates and silence dissent.
North Korea | Regime Sends Undercover Agents to Curb Foreign Currency Use
The North Korean dictatorship is deploying undercover agents to stop citizens from using foreign currency, following a March 3 directive aimed at propping up the collapsing value of the North Korean won on the parallel market. The regime is replacing local officers with newly trained graduates and sending plainclothes operatives (including students) into markets to track illegal exchanges. These agents were ordered to drive down exchange rates using “coercive means” after the regime blamed the currency’s failure on corruption and lax enforcement by previous officials. Officials have set a Sept. 9 deadline to eliminate the use of foreign currency entirely to increase the value of the won.
Why this matters: Rather than address the root causes of the problem, North Korea’s regime is deflecting blame and trying to solve a loss of trust in its currency with increased surveillance and coercion. This crackdown comes even as the regime’s foreign earnings hit their highest point since 2018, fueled by cyber theft and weapons sales to Russia.
Guinea | Civil Society Opposes Printing New Banknotes
Guinea’s regime plans to print new banknotes to address a worsening cash shortage, a move local civil society leaders argue fails to tackle the underlying causes of the crisis. Across markets in the capital city of Conakry, stalls are busy, but sales are collapsing, as customers arrive ready to buy but leave empty-handed due to a lack of cash. The Civil Forum, a coalition of advocates, points to the regime’s poor financial management and its inability to repay commercial banks as the real drivers of the shortage. Without structural reform, Civil Forum argues, any newly printed money will likely be hoarded, converted into foreign currency, or kept outside the banking system.
China | Central Bank Expands Participating Financial Institutions in Digital Yuan
China is expanding its central bank digital currency (CBDC) by allowing more banks to distribute and process the digital yuan. The move will bring five commercial banks and seven joint-stock banks (financial institutions owned by shareholders) into the system. To further entice adoption, China’s central bank has also established an international operations center in Shanghai and made the digital yuan interest-bearing, meaning users now earn a return on their holdings.
In context: The expansion comes alongside China’s continued hostility toward independent digital assets and its ban on stablecoins, reinforcing an ambition for a monetary system that is entirely centralized by the state.
Cambodia | Central Bank Governor Warns of Bank Run Risk
Cambodia’s central bank governor is warning that the financial system faces a severe cash shortage if depositors continue to withdraw their money en masse. The alarm follows a rush of withdrawals at APD Bank, where service suspensions and rumors about the bank’s stability sparked panic. In one instance, a business was reportedly denied entry when attempting to withdraw $5 million, while other customers were told that “technical outages” would last days longer than initially scheduled. To stem the flow, officials have capped transfers through the Bakong (the state-backed digital payment network) at just $300 per customer, further trapping citizens’ access to their own savings.
In context: The warning exposes the inherent fragility of modern banking, where deposits are largely lent out rather than held in full. In limiting withdrawals, Cambodian officials are publicly admitting the system cannot meet the demands of its own depositors.
Recommended Content
The Day the Ortega Dictatorship Tried to Turn Us into “Non-Persons” by Félix Maradiaga
In this piece, Nicaraguan democracy advocate Félix Maradiaga details how the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo silences dissidents by stripping them of their citizenship and locking them outside of national borders. He explains how Nicaragua has devolved into a police state that weaponizes sovereignty by eliminating dual citizenship to render critics stateless. While those in exile are erased from national records, their families remaining in Nicaragua are harassed, surveilled, and punished. The regime complements these efforts with financial repression to diminish the voices and efforts of civil society.
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, including freedom tech.
Bitcoin and Freedom Tech News
Boltz | Bitcoin to Stablecoin Swaps Launched
Boltz, a non-custodial tool that lets users swap bitcoin across different blockchain systems, introduced a new feature that makes it easy to exchange bitcoin for the stablecoin Tether (USDT), a digital asset pegged to the dollar. The new feature enables users to swap bitcoin on the Lightning Network (a secondary layer of Bitcoin designed for near-instant, low-fee payments) for Tether, or vice versa, without creating an account.
Why this matters: The new swap feature lets nonprofits and activists manage bitcoin more flexibly, moving into a stable dollar value to avoid price swings without relying on banks or centralized exchanges that authoritarian regimes could easily block or monitor.
BIP 392 | Silent Payments Output Script Descriptor
A new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP 392), a technical standard to update Bitcoin’s functions, aims to fix a major flaw in Silent Payments. Although Silent Payments allow users to receive bitcoin donations without revealing their addresses (which may be surveilled by authoritarians), it currently has a recovery problem: if a user switches between different Bitcoin wallets, the new software often cannot identify those private funds, showing an incomplete or zero balance. BIP 392 looks to solve this issue by creating a universal descriptor, which acts like a standardized manual of instructions. This ensures that any compatible wallet can automatically find and restore these private payments using only a recovery phrase. Watch this presentation from Bitcoin educator NiftyNei to learn more.
Arkade | Arkade Assets Launched on Bitcoin Mainnet
Ark Labs, a company building scaling solutions for Bitcoin, has launched Arkade Assets on the Bitcoin mainnet. The update allows developers to create and transfer tokenized assets, such as stablecoins, directly on top of the Bitcoin network. Unlike standard transactions, Arkade uses virtual transaction outputs (VTXOs), which are off-chain representations of bitcoin that enable nearly instant, programmable transactions while preserving a cryptographic link to the security of the underlying blockchain. However, because VTXOs have expiry timestamps, users must periodically refresh their funds to maintain unilateral control and ensure they remain secure.
Why this matters: For activists and nonprofits, this could enable Bitcoin apps to offer faster payments and access to stablecoins while still offering greater control over their money than traditional financial systems.
Bitcoin Knowledge Base | Bitcoin Knowledge for AI
The Bitcoin Knowledge Base is a new effort by Spiral grantee Elias Roher to organize Bitcoin and Lightning development resources into a structured, searchable format that AI systems can easily access and understand. Today, much of Bitcoin’s technical information is buried in old forums and complex code, making it difficult for AI models to provide accurate or helpful answers. By organizing this data into a unified, AI-friendly format, BKB aims to allow AI assistants to act as expert tutors for anyone, from advocates to new developers. This ensures that as AI tools become a primary way of learning, they can provide reliable, open-source guidance on how to build and maintain financial freedom tools, helping to make Bitcoin more resilient and decentralized.
Bitrefill | Target of Data Breach Linked to North Korean Actors
Bitrefill, a platform that lets users buy gift cards with bitcoin for everyday purchases, suffered a cyberattack on March 1 attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The breach began with a compromised employee laptop, giving attackers access to around 18,500 purchase records, which included email addresses, cryptocurrency addresses, and metadata such as IP addresses. Other personal information was largely not compromised, as Bitrefill does not require accounts or know your customer (KYC) data. The company has since resumed operations and committed to covering all financial losses for its users.
Bitcoin Recommended Content
Arkade Wallet Tutorial with BTC Sessions
Bitcoin educator Ben Perrin has released a new tutorial exploring the Arkade wallet, a tool built on the Arkade payment system currently in development by Ark Labs. In the video, he walks through how the wallet works, focusing on its ability to enable fast, off-chain transactions. The tutorial emphasizes both the promise and tradeoffs of the design, including improved usability and speed alongside added timing and trust assumptions. For users, the tutorial offers a practical look at a new type of Bitcoin wallet still in development and the potential use cases it holds.
