Financial Freedom Report #109
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- GLOBAL NEWS
- RECOMMENDED CONTENT
- BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS
- BITCOIN RECOMMENDED CONTENT
Good morning readers,
In India, the government is piloting a new system that uses its central bank digital currency (CBDC) to distribute free food rations. Beneficiaries receive digital coupons that can only be used for foodgrains at ration shops, expire after a set period, and cannot be redeemed for cash, a significant step toward programmable, conditional payments.
Bitcoin wallets Sparrow and Nunchuck both released updates adding support for sending to Silent Payment addresses. Silent Payments allow organizations and dissidents to share a single public Bitcoin address to supporters that generates a unique address for each transaction or donation. The upgrade makes it easier for donors using Nunchuck or Sparrow Wallet to donate to activists, nonprofits, and movements discreetly.
We also feature a conversation with Iranian Bitcoin educator Ziya Sadr, who shares his experience during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests and explains how tools like Bitcoin have become a necessity for those living under a regime of currency collapse and censorship.
With that context, let’s turn to the week’s full developments.
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GLOBAL NEWS
India | Government to Test CBDC-Enabled Digital Food Coupons
India’s central bank is piloting a new system that uses its CBDC to distribute free food rations. Each month, eligible participants in the program will receive digital food coupons denominated in the CBDC, accessible via a wallet on their mobile phones, instead of traditional paper coupons. These digital coupons can be redeemed for food like rice, wheat, and chickpeas by scanning QR codes at authorized shops or 24/7 ATMs. Officials say the goal is to ensure that food aid is only used for its intended purpose. The digital coupons also expire if not used within a specified period and cannot be redeemed for cash.
Why this matters: The program is a monetary redesign of India’s existing food subsidy infrastructure that directly embeds conditional and programmable payments. The CBDC-enabled coupons create a trail of financial activity within a permissioned system that the central bank can monitor and restrict by purpose, location, and time — to the detriment of individual discretion.
Hong Kong | Jimmy Lai Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison
Media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison last week on charges brought under Hong Kong’s infamous national security law, imposed by Beijing in 2020. Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, is a prominent critic of the mainland’s growing control over Hong Kong and a vocal advocate for civil liberties, press freedom, and human rights. Several of his associates and former Apple Daily employees also received lengthy prison sentences.
In context: Lai was among the first high-profile figures arrested under the national security law. While Apple Daily initially continued operating after his arrest, authorities froze the paper’s bank accounts in 2021, cutting off access to funds that would have sustained operations for another 18 months and forcing the outlet to shut down.
Burma | Crackdown on Informal Currency Exchange
Burma’s central bank has frozen more than 1,340 bank accounts and sentenced five people linked to online currency exchanges, as part of the military junta’s crackdown on informal foreign currency activity. The regime monitored more than 1,200 Facebook accounts advertising stablecoin transactions to identify individuals considered “high risk.” The central bank warned that remaining informal traders will face prosecution under anti-money laundering statutes and the penal code as the regime moves to criminalize all non-state-sanctioned currency trades.
Why this matters: Financially repressing informal currency exchange is a blatant attempt by the military junta to broaden its financial control over currency activity and to force the Burmese people to use the nation’s weak currency.
Senegal | Students Protest Unpaid Financial Aid
A second-year student at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal died at the hands of police last week as students protested unpaid financial aid following months of delayed government stipends, which are often students’ only source of income. Many students at the university had previously mobilized to bring Senegal’s current government to power on promises of reform. The protests began in December and escalated after campus cafeterias were closed, triggering suppression by security forces. Government officials closed the university’s campus and student housing following the death.
Asia | Stablecoins as Banking Infrastructure
Stablecoins are increasingly functioning as banking infrastructure across Asia. Freelancers and migrant workers are using dollar-pegged tokens to send and receive money instantly through smartphone wallets. Remittance fees that once consumed a large share of wages can be reduced to a fraction of traditional wire-transfer costs. For example, stablecoin transactions can cost a fraction of a cent, versus traditional wire transfers, which can exceed $40. According to the Economist, countries like India, Pakistan, and Vietnam rank among the world’s highest adopters of this technology, despite imposing some of the strictest digital asset regulations.
In context: While stablecoins solve real payment frictions in environments marked by capital controls and high remittance costs, they still depend on centralized issuers and currency-backed systems that remain subject to surveillance, freezing, and inflation. Stablecoins may improve efficiency, but they do not eliminate counterparty risk. At HRF, we encourage civil society and nonprofits to use Bitcoin, which operates without issuer control or redemption risk, making it uniquely resistant to financial coercion.
RECOMMENDED CONTENT
Bitcoin and Freedom Tech in Iran with Ziya Sadr & Frank Corva
In this episode from “new renaissance capital,” a YouTube channel that explores worldwide Bitcoin adoption, Ziya Sadr, an Iranian Bitcoin and freedom tech educator, joins host and journalist Frank Corva to discuss his firsthand experience during Iran’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement and the broader impact of currency collapse and state financial repression. Sadr explains how technology like Bitcoin, Starlink, and privacy tools have become essential for accessing funds and information under the regime’s mass censorship. The conversation illustrates how freedom technologies can function in authoritarian environments.
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Financial Freedom Webinar: Bitcoin for Nonprofits
HRF will host a free, three-day webinar from March 23–25 guiding human rights defenders and nonprofits on how to use Bitcoin to resist state censorship and financial repression. Sessions run daily from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EDT and are designed for all experience levels. The training will be co-led by Bitcoin educator Ben Perrin (BTC Sessions) and Anna Chekhovich, financial director at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, who will share practical tools for receiving donations, securing funds, and sustaining activism when bank accounts are frozen or surveilled.
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BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS
Mostro | Released in Beta
Mostro, a peer-to-peer app for buying and selling bitcoin over Nostr, launched its first beta version on Zapstore, a decentralized app store. Created by Venezuelan developer and HRF grantee Francisco Calderón, Mostro is specifically designed to aid people under tyranny in acquiring bitcoin without sharing excessive personal information. The tool helps add another layer of privacy to Bitcoin use that is critical for human rights defenders, journalists, and nonprofits operating under authoritarian regimes. The beta release marks a step toward a full public launch, which will make the peer-to-peer bitcoin exchange more accessible and resilient in difficult environments.
Sparrow Wallet | New Release Brings Greater Privacy and Compatibility
Sparrow Wallet, an open-source and self-custodial Bitcoin wallet for desktop and an HRF grantee, released an update that adds support for sending to Silent Payment addresses using hardware wallets. Silent Payments is a static address protocol for Bitcoin that allows transaction senders to generate unique addresses from a receiver’s static public key. For example, a nonprofit could publish a single Bitcoin donation QR on its website, and each supporter’s contribution would arrive at a different address. Outside observers, like chain analysis firms or dictatorships, would not be able to easily link those payments together on the blockchain, thereby increasing privacy. The release also brings wider hardware wallet support, making Sparrow more accessible to users worldwide. Readers looking to use Sparrow Wallet can view an in-depth tutorial here.
Aqua | Multi-Wallet Support and New Interface
Aqua Wallet, an open-source and self-custodial mobile Bitcoin wallet, introduced multi-wallet support as part of its new interface. Users can now manage separate wallets for various purposes, such as saving, spending, personal funds, and organizational funds. This structure makes it easier to maintain clear boundaries between funds while staying fully in control of custody.
Why this matters: Multi-wallet support pairs well with Aqua’s native BTCPay Server integration via the SamRock protocol, providing a free, open-source payment option that is great for nonprofits looking to easily and accessibly accept bitcoin donations. You can watch a full tutorial of Aqua wallet here.
Nunchuck | Support for Sending to Silent Payment Addresses
Nunchuck, a self-custodial Bitcoin multisignature wallet, now supports sending to Silent Payment addresses, making donations from Nunchuck wallet more private. Silent Payments is a static address protocol for Bitcoin that allows transaction senders to generate unique addresses from a receiver’s static public key. Those wanting to explore Nunchuck further can watch this tutorial from Bitcoin educator BTC Sessions.
Lightning Labs | Toolkit for AI Agents on Lightning Released
Lightning Labs has launched an open-source toolkit that enables AI agents to transact directly on the Bitcoin Lightning Network (an application layer on Bitcoin for fast, low-cost payments). The novel tools enable autonomous systems to run a Lightning node, pay invoices, and access paid services. Lightning Labs frames the toolkit as infrastructure for a “machine-payable web” and positions Lightning as a native payment rail for AI systems.
Why this matters: As AI systems become more autonomous, they will increasingly need a digitally-native way to pay for data, APIs, compute, and other services without relying on bank accounts, credit cards, or centralized payment processors. For activists, Lightning-based AI agents could also offer a way to engage with AI services and the broader internet without requiring a bank account or government-issued ID. Lightning provides instant, programmable, low-cost payment infrastructure that can operate globally and without permission.
OpenSats | Sixteenth Wave of Grants Announced
OpenSats, a nonprofit supporting open-source software and projects, recently announced its sixteenth wave of grants. The latest wave supports projects like the Cashu Dev Kit, a developer toolkit for building applications that use Cashu, a private, Bitcoin-backed ecash system. OpenSats also extended a grant to Rust Bitcoin, a group of open-source developers building Bitcoin software libraries in the Rust programming language to diversify and strengthen the network’s foundations. These grants help ensure that open financial tools remain freely accessible to people under tyranny.
BITCOIN RECOMMENDED CONTENT
BitMEX | Mitigating the Impact of the Quantum Freeze
Even if future quantum computers were capable of breaking Bitcoin’s current cryptography, the network could theoretically upgrade to freeze vulnerable coins while still allowing legitimate owners to recover them in the future. In this article, the BitMEX research team examines how Bitcoin might respond to such a threat. One proposal uses a hash commitment, a short digital fingerprint that proves you knew a secret at an earlier time without revealing it. Another approach uses zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic method that lets someone prove they control a wallet without exposing their private key or seed phrase. These solutions would require changes to Bitcoin’s rules and could increase the workload for those running the Bitcoin software. However, they show that even in a quantum future, there may be ways to protect users while preserving Bitcoin’s underlying security.
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