Financial Freedom Report #144
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- GLOBAL NEWS
- RECOMMENDED CONTENT
- BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS
- BITCOIN RECOMMENDED CONTENT
Welcome back to the Financial Freedom Report.
In Russia, we examine the first two months of the nationwide digital ruble rollout and the state’s efforts to restrict alternatives. As the central bank expands its central bank digital currency (CBDC), new rules set to take effect in July 2027 would ban peer-to-peer digital asset trading and restrict transfers to self-custodial wallets, pushing more financial activity through state-approved channels.
In Bitcoin news, software developers demonstrated a working integration of PISA, a privacy tool combining Payjoin with cross-input signature aggregation (CISA). Although still a prototype, PISA points to a future where human rights activists don’t pay extra for financial privacy, and draw less attention for doing so.
We feature Notes From The Margin, a newsletter from writer and dear friend of HRF, Ayelen Osorio, who examines how new technologies, like many featured in this newsletter, empower marginalized individuals and communities worldwide.
Let’s explore the details.
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GLOBAL NEWS
Russia | Digital Ruble Goes National
In an op-ed for The Moscow Times — an exiled independent outlet that Russian officials designated “undesirable” in 2024 — HRF CBDC tracker fellow Nick Anthony reflects on the first two months since the Bank of Russia switched on the digital ruble nationwide. The third iteration of this CBDC is issued directly onto the central bank’s ledger, with no commercial bank in between. More than 220,000 Russians opened accounts in the first month, triple what the central bank projected. But the risks are there for anyone to see. Deposits into digital ruble wallets are capped at 300,000 rubles (about $3,690) per month. In 2025, the central bank tested “conditional spending,” running smart contracts in Tatarstan that restrict what state-allocated money can buy and where it can go. Anthony calls the result “tyranny technology.”
The connection: Peer-to-peer bitcoin trades between individuals will be barred after July 1, 2027. Further, all buying and selling must run through regulated intermediaries, with retail purchases capped at 300,000 rubles per year per intermediary. Russians will also be banned from transferring digital assets to self-custodial wallets on the same date. Whether the state can actually police trades between two individuals, or an individual’s bitcoin activity, is another question. But it is without a doubt Russia’s dictatorship is compelling more users into its CBDC system.
Burma | Crackdown on Currency Exchangers
Most money exchange counters in Burma have stopped trading dollars after the regime ordered exchangers to transact only within officially posted rates and fears spread of inspections and arrests, according to DVB. The few traders still around are trading at the regime’s “official rates,” which sit below the parallel market price, so Burmese who need to sell dollars are forced to take significantly less than their money is worth. This follows last week’s report that the regime borrowed up to 2.1 trillion kyats from the central bank to cover its 2026–2027 deficit, printing and borrowing the kyat into the ground and then policing the price. It’s the same playbook the junta ran in June 2024, when it arrested at least 35 money changers and gold traders the last time the dollar spiked past 4,600.
In context: Burma’s currency effectively has three prices — the regime’s official rate of 2,100 kyats per dollar, a bank trading rate of 3,660, and a parallel market rate near 4,700. When dollars must be exchanged at the official rate instead of the parallel market rate, Burmese families receiving money from abroad can lose more than half their purchasing power in the conversion alone.
Iran | State Admits It Is Slowing the Internet on Purpose
At her weekly press conference on Oct. 13, Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani confirmed what Iranians have known for months: “Obviously, the agencies in charge of this field are sometimes forced to reduce the speed of the Internet. We do not deny this in any way.” The admission makes official what connectivity data has shown since the January crackdown, the same month Iran imposed a near-total blackout that lasted more than 12 weeks. It comes as the rial continues to implode, with the dollar now trading above 2.6 million rials on the parallel market.
In context: Restricting internet access while the currency collapses and protesters fill the streets leaves Iranians with fewer ways to communicate, organize, and protect their savings. Whether justified by the state as a security measure or not, the result is the same: Ordinary Iranians lose access to information and services at a time when they need them most.
Sudan | Currency Hits Record Low Amid Civil War
Sudan’s pound hit a record low of 10,000 per US dollar on the parallel market this month, down from roughly 600 before the civil war began in April 2023. Twenty percent of that fall came in the past month alone, as the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces entered its fourth year. Both sides are funding their efforts through smuggled gold, seized oil infrastructure, and checkpoints that tax civilians on the move, and food prices rose at an unprecedented rate in September, according to the World Food Programme’s market monitor. Sorghum, the country’s staple grain, jumped 48% in a single month, and staple foods cost between 81% and 176% more than a year ago. For families already struggling to survive, wages and savings buy less each month, leaving fewer ways to escape the economic devastation of a war they did not choose.
Nigeria | Surveillance Deployed Against Protesters
A six-month investigation by the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism documents how Nigerian agencies built one of Africa’s most aggressive surveillance apparatuses. The procurement spans a decade — more than $2 billion in public money spent on surveillance tools between 2013 and 2022, including mobile interception, social media monitoring, and biometric ID systems. When Nigerians protested an economy with inflation at a 28-year high, these tools went to work on them: Security forces tracked demonstrators through their phones, followed them to their homes and churches, and arrested more than 1,200 people in 10 days, according to the National Human Rights Commission.
In context: Nigeria’s financial repression and expanding surveillance state are increasingly difficult to separate. The naira has lost more than half its value since mid-2023, while the central bank’s attempt to introduce a digital currency, the eNaira, has struggled to gain adoption. Today, the expansion of mobile interception tools and biometric databases raises another concern, giving officials more ways to identify, monitor, and potentially punish individuals for how they communicate, organize, and transact.
RECOMMENDED CONTENT
Notes From The Margin by Ayelen Osorio
In her newsletter, Notes From The Margin, writer and dear friend of HRF Ayelen Osorio explores the intersection of technology, human resilience, and the people and stories that mainstream media often overlooks. Rather than focusing on business news or product launches, Osorio shares how advances in technology affect people’s lives, and whether they empower individuals or hand those in power greater control. What began as a journey documenting technologies like Bitcoin has since expanded to include emerging AI tools that are opening new possibilities for activists and individuals worldwide. Read it here.
BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS
PISA | Demo Combines Bitcoin Privacy Tools
Bitcoin developers demonstrated the first working integration of two technologies that, together, would make private Bitcoin payments cheaper. Software developer Fabian Jahr — who researched CISA as an HRF fellow in 2024 — built the prototype, called PISA, alongside Dan Gould and the Payjoin Development Kit team at Lugano’s Plan B Forum in Switzerland. The first technology is Payjoin, which has the recipient contribute an input to what would otherwise be an ordinary bitcoin payment. The combined transaction weakens the default assumption that every input in a transaction belongs to the sender. This greatly increases privacy, but it does not make the payment anonymous. The second is CISA, a proposed upgrade in which a transaction carries one signature for all of its inputs instead of one per input. This matters because the input a Payjoin adds would normally add a signature and therefore cost a higher fee; CISA lowers that added cost, so a wallet can do a Payjoin without charging users a premium for it.
The impact: Today, paying extra for Bitcoin privacy can itself attract attention. An outside observer, such as an authoritarian regime, may question why someone is paying for a more expensive transaction. PISA could help make privacy a default feature of Bitcoin wallets rather than an expensive choice, improving privacy for everyone who uses the network.
Mostro | Launches Version 2 of Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin Trading App
After more than three years of development, Mostro has launched version 2 of its open-source, peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading app. Built on the Lightning Network and Nostr, Mostro lets individuals buy and sell bitcoin with one another without relying on centralized exchanges, handing over personal information, or surrendering custody of their funds. The network now has 11 Mostro nodes operating around the world, with trading information distributed through Nostr relays rather than a single centralized server. The update lets users pay any Lightning invoice with ecash (centralized digital cash backed by Bitcoin), adds Brazilian Portuguese language support, and includes a new trusted node in Mexico.
Why this matters: Mostro’s growing network of independent nodes makes peer-to-peer Bitcoin markets harder to censor or shut down, giving human rights defenders and nonprofits more unstoppable on- and off-ramps to Bitcoin, and therefore greater financial freedom.
Electrum | Patches Critical Bitcoin Wallet Vulnerability
Electrum, a popular open-source Bitcoin wallet, has disclosed a high-severity security vulnerability that attackers have already exploited to steal funds. The flaw allowed malicious Electrum servers to replace a user’s pending Bitcoin transaction with a fake one, directing funds to an attacker-controlled address. The vulnerability affects versions before 4.8.3, which has now been released with a fix. Users are urged to update immediately and verify recipient addresses and amounts before signing transactions.
Why this matters: Electrum joins a growing list of Bitcoin wallets and supporting services that have suffered security incidents this year, including Coldcard, Boltz, and Liquid. They also come at a time when AI is making it easier to find and exploit software vulnerabilities. Reflecting this changing security landscape, Bitcoin Core, one of the main implementations of Bitcoin, updated its vulnerability disclosure policy this month in response to the growing accessibility of AI-assisted bug discovery. These same tools can help open-source developers identify weaknesses and harden their code before attackers exploit them.
Heatbit | Bitcoin Miner Installed in Hot Water Tanks
Heatbit, the maker of Bitcoin-mining home heaters, has announced Bitwater, a replacement electric water-heater element that mines bitcoin while it heats water. The device swaps into the standard 1-inch port of regular 30–80 gallon electric hot water tanks, using 20 Bitcoin mining chips instead of a resistance wire. It produces the same heat and uses the same electricity, but users keep whatever bitcoin the chips earn.
Why this matters: Authoritarian states are cracking down on Bitcoin miners. Iran has seized more than 240,000 mining machines, while Russia has banned mining across entire regions. Meanwhile, publicly traded mining companies account for more than 40% of the network’s hashrate (the total computing power dedicated to securing Bitcoin). Bitwater offers a different approach, bringing Bitcoin mining into an appliance that households already use. Although the economics depend on equipment costs, electricity use, and mining revenue, using energy for both heating and mining could make home mining more practical. More individuals participating in mining means less dependence on large industrial operators and a more decentralized Bitcoin network for global users.
BULL Wallet | Lightning Returns
BULL Wallet, the self-custodial wallet from Bull Bitcoin, has restored Lightning payments and Liquid to bitcoin transfers in version 6.14, weeks after the suspension of swap provider Boltz disabled both. The wallet’s Lightning payments now run through a replacement in-house swap service built by Bull Bitcoin, which can convert LBTC (the native token of the Liquid Network) to bitcoin directly as a member of the Liquid federation. However, transfers are capped at 0.25 BTC each, while Liquid’s federation peg-outs remain suspended until the network’s one-to-one backing is restored.
BITCOIN RECOMMENDED CONTENT
MARA Foundation | Exploring Bitcoin’s Defenses Against Quantum Computing
In an episode of MARA Foundation TV, Lightning Network co-inventor Tadge Dryja joins host Isabel Foxen Duke to discuss how Bitcoin could protect users if advances in quantum computing threaten its underlying cryptography. Though skeptical that quantum computers will pose an imminent threat, Dryja argues that Bitcoin should prepare for potential breakthroughs and examines the difficult question of what should happen to abandoned coins if Bitcoin’s cryptography is ever broken. Watch it here.
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