Welcome to this week’s Financial Freedom Report.
In Russia, Putin’s dictatorship officially designated the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) as an “undesirable” organization. The Kremlin specifically cited HRF’s recently launched Tyranny Tracker, which classifies Russia as a “fully authoritarian regime,” as part of the basis for the designation. This suggests HRF’s work is having a major impact on one of the world’s largest dictatorships.
In Bitcoin coverage, OpenSats is prioritizing funding for software developers and security researchers involved in Red Team, a Bitcoin community using AI to respond to vulnerabilities recently found in Coldcard, BTCPay Server, and other projects. The effort brings together dozens of individuals, including many HRF allies, who are scanning critical Bitcoin codebases for bugs and using frontier artificial intelligence (AI) models to help surface vulnerabilities faster.
We include the latest edition of the HRF x PubKey Freedom Tech Series, in which HRF’s Freedom Tech Content Associate, Sarah Moorman, moderates a panel with HRF’s Freedom Tech Education Lead, Anna Chekhovich, and Finite Lead Engineer, Alex Lewin, on how open-source and privacy-preserving AI tools can help advance humanitarian work and supercharge dissidents.
Global News
Russia | Dictatorship Designates HRF as “Undesirable”
The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation has officially designated HRF as an “undesirable” organization, criminalizing HRF’s work inside Russia and threatening anyone who engages with HRF with fines or imprisonment. The Kremlin specifically cited HRF’s Tyranny Tracker, a global democracy index that classifies Russia as a “fully authoritarian regime,” as part of the basis for the designation. Russian officials also pointed to HRF’s advocacy on behalf of dissidents, sanctions-related work, and support for organizations already banned by the regime.
“By criminalizing our organization — even threatening with imprisonment those who collaborate with us — for having a research project that documents how Putin’s dictatorship is a ‘fully authoritarian regime,’ the Kremlin does nothing but confirm our assessment,” HRF Chief Legal and Policy Officer Javier El-Hage said. “We accept this designation as a badge of honor.”
In context: Russia’s designation of HRF is part of a wider system of repression. The Kremlin uses financial repression — including arrests for small donations, restricted access to funds, and foreign agent laws — to cut activists and nonprofits off from money. In Putin’s Russia, financial and political repression are merged into one of the regime’s main tools for isolating and weakening civil society.
Cuba | Retirees Wait for Power to Receive Pensions
In Cuba, collecting a pension now depends on more than reaching the front of the line. A new essay from Havana Times shows retirees in Havana arriving before 8 a.m. to wait outside bank branches for their monthly pension payments, only to find that the banks cannot operate without electricity. Amid rolling blackouts across the island, some lasting for days on end, employees sit outside with handheld fans, computers remain offline, and pensioners wait for power to return before they can access cash for basic goods and services.
In context: The scene captures Cuba’s economic collapse at the most personal level. A pension is supposed to be money already earned, but for Cubans, it is trapped behind a financial system so broken that they must wait for the lights to turn on before they can access money already owed to them. Even when retirees finally receive their pensions, the money is often worth less than $10 per month; the Cuban peso has collapsed by more than 94% in just a few years.
Guinea | Government Rejects ECOWAS Currency
Guinea announced that it will opt out of the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) planned single currency, the eco, and keep the Guinean franc. The decision comes as ECOWAS moves closer to launching the long-delayed currency in 2027, with a possible phased rollout for countries that meet inflation, debt, and monetary stability targets. Guinea is the first member state to publicly retain its national currency. But Guinea’s rejection does not mean financial freedom for Guineans. Just months ago, civil society groups criticized the regime’s plan to print new banknotes to address a cash shortage, arguing that poor financial management and weak trust in the banking system were the real causes. For Guineans, a state-controlled currency system will do little to address the deeper crisis of eroding financial freedom.
Zimbabwe | Regime Opts to Keep US Dollar in Circulation
Zimbabwe said it will continue to allow the US dollar to circulate alongside its Zimbabwe gold (ZiG) currency until inflation and the exchange rate stabilize. Regime officials said the state is “not rushing” toward a single-currency system, casting doubt on Zimbabwe’s earlier goal of making the ZiG its sole currency by 2030. The hesitation reflects the scale of Zimbabwe’s monetary collapse: the ZiG is the country’s sixth currency in roughly two decades, introduced after repeated failures wiped out citizen savings. Since its launch, the government has repeatedly intervened to prop up the ZiG, including cracking down on money changers, freezing bank accounts, injecting dollars into exchange markets, and later devaluing the currency by more than 40%.
Afghanistan | Smartphone Crackdown
For Afghan women, a smartphone can be a classroom, a workplace, a camera, a way to access money, and one of the last ways to enter public life. In this essay, David Berry and Somaia Ramish break down the Taliban’s reported crackdown on smartphones, including a decree banning government officials from using them and evidence that restrictions are affecting women, medical workers, teachers, and students. Berry compares the Taliban’s fear of phones to the English crown’s fear of the printing press in the 16th century, when officials tried to control printers, pamphlets, and dissenting ideas. Ramish argues that phones now do something even more powerful: They let Afghan women record, access, and share the reality they are living through. Phones bring financial access and education, and they give women a way to preserve memories against a regime that is trying to erase them from public life. And the more a regime excludes people from public life, the more liberating ordinary tools like phones become.
Recommended Content
Teaching AI as a Tool for Freedom with Anna Chekhovich, Alex Lewin, and Sarah Moorman
In the latest edition of the HRF x PubKey Freedom Tech Series, Sarah Moorman, HRF’s Freedom Tech Content Associate, moderates a conversation with Anna Chekhovich, HRF’s Freedom Tech Education Lead, and Alex Lewin, Lead Engineer at Finite, on how open-source and privacy-preserving AI tools can support humanitarian work.
Bitcoin and Freedom Tech News
OpenSats | Priority Support for Bitcoin Red Team
Following the Coldcard incident, OpenSats, a nonprofit supporting open-source Bitcoin software and projects, is prioritizing funding for software developers and security researchers involved in the Red Team, a community-led effort to find critical vulnerabilities in Bitcoin-related software. Led by Bitcoiners including AnchorWatch CEO Rob Hamilton and Freedom Tech developer Calle, the group is reviewing major Bitcoin codebases, responsibly disclosing bugs to maintainers, and using frontier AI models to help surface issues faster. The work is expensive, with contributors spending tens of thousands of dollars on LLM tokens, and OpenSats is helping direct funding toward the researchers doing this urgent security review.
Why this matters: The Red Team response shows how Bitcoin’s open-source ecosystem can react in public: researchers, developers, funders, and AI tools working together to find weaknesses before attackers do. For users who rely on Bitcoin under financial repression, this kind of rapid security work helps make the entire ecosystem safer.
BTCPay Server | Security Bug Exposes Some User Funds
BTCPay Server, an open-source tool that lets merchants, nonprofits, and activists accept Bitcoin donations without relying on custodial payment processors, disclosed that attackers had exploited a bug to steal funds from some users. The exploit granted attackers access to credentials associated with certain Lightning wallets, allowing them to move users’ funds. The project is urging users to update to version 2.4.2 immediately, which includes a security fix. BTCPay Server is also donating to Sparrow Wallet creator Craig Raw and the Bitcoin Red Team for responsibly reporting the issue.
Why this matters: BTCPay Server is a critical piece of Freedom Tech infrastructure because it gives people a way to receive Bitcoin directly, without depending on banks under authoritarian regimes or other intermediaries that can freeze, block, or surveil payments. But censorship-resistant tools still need strong security, fast updates, and careful fund management. For users running BTCPay, update immediately, keep only necessary spending balances in hot wallets, and move larger reserves to cold wallets.
Blockstream | Swap Tool Announced After Boltz Shutdown
Blockstream, a Bitcoin infrastructure company, announced Blockstream Swaps, a new tool designed to help users move between Bitcoin and the Lightning and Liquid Networks without giving up custody of their funds. The announcement comes after Boltz, a major swap provider, said it would remain offline following months of automated, AI-assisted attacks. Blockstream says Swaps was already in development, but recent events accelerated the need for more redundancy across Lightning and Liquid infrastructure.
Why this matters: Noncustodial swaps make Bitcoin easier to use by letting users move between different payment layers, all at relatively low cost. But Boltz’s shutdown also showed how much wallet functionality can depend on one backend provider. Once Blockstream Swaps becomes publicly available, it adds another option to the Bitcoin ecosystem, helping reduce single points of failure.
lnp2pBot | Venezuelan-Built Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin Exchange Suspends Operations
lnp2pBot, a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange tool built on Lightning by Venezuelan developer and HRF grantee Francisco Calderón, announced that it is indefinitely suspending operations after months of cyberattacks. The team said it absorbed losses to keep the service running, but no longer has the resources to defend against attackers using AI models to exploit the bot at scale. No users will suffer financial losses, and the team says it will resolve the few pending payments individually.
Why this matters: lnp2pBot was built as a defense against authoritarian financial controls, giving Venezuelans a way to buy and sell Bitcoin without handing over personal information to exchanges that the dictatorship monitors or restricts. If tools like lnp2pBot are to survive, they need funding, security support, and resilient infrastructure — now and in the future.
MARA Foundation | Slipstream Opens Private Path for Vulnerable Bitcoin Transactions
MARA Foundation, an initiative of the MARA Bitcoin miner and AI firm, announced that Slipstream, its direct Bitcoin transaction submission service, is now publicly available. Slipstream lets individual users submit Bitcoin transactions directly to the pool operator rather than broadcasting them through the public peer-to-peer network. MARA says it is not charging additional fees for the service for now, although users remain responsible for paying appropriate Bitcoin transaction fees.
Why this matters: In the wake of the Coldcard seed-generation vulnerability, Slipstream could help some affected users move funds more safely. In many multisig setups, spending reveals the public keys and rules needed to unlock the coins. If attackers monitoring the public mempool can match those keys to weak Coldcard-generated private keys, they may be able to broadcast a higher-fee theft transaction before the user’s rescue transaction confirms. By submitting directly to a miner, Slipstream can keep that information private until the transaction is mined, reducing the window for attackers to respond and protecting user funds.
Krux | Lead Developer May Step Down From DIY Bitcoin Self-Custody Project
Krux, the community-built firmware that turns generic computing devices into air-gapped Bitcoin signing devices, released version 26.08.0 with new security fixes and usability improvements. But the bigger news is that lead developer and HRF grantee Odudex said he will step down to prioritize work on other Bitcoin projects, warning that Krux could be gradually archived unless another proven contributor takes over. Krux helps users sign Bitcoin transactions offline, without storing private keys on an internet-connected phone or computer. For activists, nonprofits, and people living under authoritarian regimes, tools like Krux can make self-custody cheaper, more accessible, and easier to verify than relying only on commercial hardware wallets. The possible sunset is a reminder that open-source self-custody tools do not survive on code alone. They need maintainers, reviewers, contributors, and communities willing to keep critical infrastructure alive.
Bitcoin Recommended Content
Ecash on Bitcoin: A Practical Guide to Cashu and Fedimint by D-Central
In this guide, D-Central explains how ecash brings cash-like privacy to Bitcoin payments through tools like Cashu and Fedimint. Ecash lets users hold and send private bearer tokens backed by Bitcoin, making payments fast, cheap, and difficult to surveil. But ecash is not the same as Bitcoin self-custody. Users trade direct custody for stronger privacy and easier spending, which means these tools are best used like cash in your pocket, not savings in a vault. For human rights defenders who need financial privacy under tyranny, ecash is a promising piece of freedom tech.
