In Russia, physical bank branches are closing down at a record pace. The closures are placing renewed pressure on Russians living in rural areas and those contending with frequent Internet disruptions as a result of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. For many Russians, in-person branches remain a vital means of resolving account issues and accessing cash that digital services cannot easily address.

A new Bitcoin tool called BitZed enables Zambians to buy and spend bitcoin using mobile money services. BitZed’s goal is to increase Bitcoin’s accessibility and viability as day-to-day money in a country contending with a weak currency and financial controls.

We include a recent essay by economist Tyler Cowen, which argues that a country’s currency can serve as a real-time signal of political and economic health, pointing to Iran’s collapsing rial as a market verdict on regime credibility.

Now, onto this week’s news.

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GLOBAL NEWS

Russia | Physical Bank Branches Close at Record Pace

Physical bank branches are shutting down at a record pace in Russia. In 2025, 1,700 branches closed across the country — a more than threefold increase from the previous year. The total number of bank branches in the country now stands at 22,300, down from about 30,000 in the last seven years. According to the central bank, the closures aim to shift Russians to online services while improving bank profitability. However, this shift may pose challenges for some communities, particularly residents of small towns or rural areas, where the regime’s connectivity restrictions, enacted as security measures amid its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, hamper people’s access to online banking services.

In context: Physical bank branches have become especially important for accessing cash, receiving physical bank cards, and restoring access to mobile banking apps, as many in Russia increasingly face account restrictions that can only be resolved through in-person visits. Some analysts expect the number of physical banks could decline even further in the coming years as Russian officials push their digital ruble central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Malawi | Central Bank Digital Currency Under Development

Malawi’s central bank selected eCurrency, a private technology provider that enables central banks to issue, distribute, and manage CBDCs, to develop the country’s sovereign digital currency. While officials frame the project as an exploration of modern digital payment infrastructure, Malawi’s governance record raises red flags. Human rights organizations have documented corruption, intimidation of civil society figures, and unlawful state surveillance, including arrests tied to private communications. In such environments, a CBDC risks becoming a tool of financial control by placing citizens’ money directly within state-controlled systems. This would, in turn, expand the capacity for both surveillance and financial repression. eCurrency is a global player in the expansion of CBDCs that is also helping develop and deploy similar initiatives in Jamaica and Madagascar.

Thailand | Surveillance of Cash Transactions Increases

Thailand’s central bank is increasing surveillance and control over cash transactions after flagging two large cash withdrawals of more than $6 million each. The transactions came days before national elections on Feb. 8, as the country’s electoral commission examines allegations of vote buying. The central bank plans to introduce new rules requiring banks to conduct enhanced due diligence and report cash withdrawals above a proposed threshold of three to five million baht (roughly $100,000). Officials also commented that large purchases should be handled via electronic transfers or checks, not cash, as transactions in the banking system make it easier for them to track monetary flows. The central bank is also tightening oversight of gold trading, including caps on online gold transactions and new reporting requirements.

China | Push for Yuan as Global Reserve Currency

China has reiterated its ambition for the yuan to attain global reserve currency status. In remarks recently published by Qiushi, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship journal used to convey policy intentions, Xi Jinping called for a “powerful currency” widely used in international trade, investment, and foreign-exchange markets. What's new about these remarks is not their intended ambition, but rather how clearly those ambitions are stated to the public. Xi paired this plan with calls for a stronger central bank, globally competitive financial institutions, and tighter control of systemic financial risks.

In context: The prospect of an authoritarian state issuing a global reserve currency carries serious implications for financial freedom and human rights, as monetary dominance could enable repressive regimes to more easily scale capital controls, financial surveillance, and political enforcement.

North Korea | Digital Asset Phishing on the Rise

North Korean actors are increasingly carrying out sophisticated phishing operations and have stolen more than $300 million in digital assets using a recent exploit. Hackers first compromise the Telegram accounts of a target's contacts, then impersonate those trusted contacts to invite targets to fake video calls. The links appear legitimate and often feature real video footage sourced from prior hacks or public appearances. If victims engage, hackers steal their credentials, wallets, or accounts, which are then used to target additional contacts, allowing the scheme to propagate through professional and social networks.

RECOMMENDED CONTENT

“Is a Country Rising or Falling? Watch Its Currency.” By Tyler Cowen

In this piece, economist Tyler Cowen claims that a country’s currency is one of the fastest, clearest signals of its underlying political and economic health. Exchange rates aggregate expectations about a country’s future, including regime stability, fiscal solvency, and governance. Cowen focuses on Iran, where the rial collapsed amid historic protests. He notes that while the rial still circulates domestically, it is increasingly treated as unusable internationally, which reflects not just high inflation but deep uncertainty about Iran’s political future, state finances, and the likelihood of further monetary debasement. Under Cowen’s framing, the rial’s collapse is a market verdict on regime credibility.

BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS

Bitcoin Core | New Maintainer Announced

Bitcoin Core has appointed a new maintainer, sedited. Bitcoin Core maintainers are responsible for managing the project’s codebase, including merging reviewed contributions, maintaining the repository, and supporting the project’s ongoing development processes. With this addition, Bitcoin Core now has six maintainers. sedited has contributed extensively to libbitcoinkernel, an ongoing effort to separate Bitcoin’s consensus rules — the logic used to validate transactions and blocks — from the rest of the Bitcoin Core software.

Why this matters: Efforts to modularize and isolate consensus code may make it easier for developers to build alternative Bitcoin clients (software that connects to the Bitcoin network) while maintaining compatibility with the broader network. This could reduce reliance on any one implementation and support a more diverse development ecosystem, which is relevant for users who rely on Bitcoin in restrictive or unstable financial environments.

BitZed | Bitcoin Connects to Mobile Money in Zambia

BitZed is a new Bitcoin app in Zambia that connects Bitcoin to mobile money services like Airtel, MTN, and Zamtel. The app allows users to buy bitcoin with mobile money and convert bitcoin back into mobile money using the Lightning Network, an application layer for fast and low-cost bitcoin payments. BitZed makes Bitcoin practical for small, day-to-day transactions in a country where mobile money is more accessible and common than bank accounts and where the use of foreign currency is severely restricted amid double-digit inflation rates. Machankura, an offline Lightning wallet accessible in ten African countries and a BDF grantee, recently added support for BitZed, making offline Bitcoin more accessible to Zambians.

Cashu | BOLT 12 Integration Planned

Cashu, an open-source ecash protocol, is planning to integrate BOLT 12 into its infrastructure. BOLT 12 is an upgrade to the Lightning Network that will allow Cashu users to send and receive payments with a static and reusable QR code instead of individual invoices. It improves the privacy and censorship-resistance of payments. With BOLT 12, dissidents will soon be able to accept discreet ecash donations beyond the surveillance of autocratic regimes.

Cove Wallet | Now Available on Android

Cove, an open-source and self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, is now available on Android. Cove users can connect their own hardware wallet to manage Bitcoin offline or use Cove as a hot wallet to manage Bitcoin online. Cove also allows users to create multiple wallets from the app itself and includes coin control, which allows users to pick which coins to spend in a transaction for better payment privacy. While still in beta and only suitable for test funds, Cove has potential as a tool for dissidents who need privacy features and self-custody of their funds. As a first step, expanding to Android will create greater accessibility for activists who may benefit from early tools like this.

bitcoin++ | Exploited Edition in Brazil Announced

bitcoin++, a Bitcoin developer conference series, is heading back to South America for its next conference in Florianópolis, Brazil, from Feb. 26–28, 2026. The event focuses on Bitcoin’s real-world security history. Developers and attendees can discuss past failures, known vulnerabilities, lost coins, and protocol edge cases, alongside research and engineering work designed to prevent future exploits. It's a chance to think adversarially to keep the Bitcoin system robust and open for civil society and freedom fighters and a great chance to include more participants from authoritarian states in Latin America in the Bitcoin development conversation.

OpenSats | $32 Million Granted to Open-Source Projects and Software in 2025

OpenSats, a nonprofit supporting open-source software and projects, granted $32,434,939 in bitcoin to 371 contributors and projects across 40 countries (including many autocracies) in 2025. This amounts to more than $1 million in monthly grant payouts to freedom tech projects. Grantees include initiatives that can benefit the efforts of civil society, like the Bitcoin-native payment processor BTCPay Server for donations, as well as new mining protocols like Stratum V2 that help keep Bitcoin transactions free from censorship. OpenSats has led the broader ecosystem in ensuring that freedom technologies remain transparent, resilient, and accessible for people living under authoritarian regimes.

BITCOIN RECOMMENDED CONTENT

The Tyranny of Permissionlessness in Bitcoin with Amiti Uttarwar

In this episode of What Bitcoin Did, Amiti Uttarwar, a former Bitcoin Core developer, explores a tension at the heart of Bitcoin’s development: while Bitcoin is permissionless at the protocol level, meaningful participation in its long-term development is often constrained by social and financial realities. Uttarwar argues that “permissionless” does not mean frictionless and that contributing to Bitcoin at a high level requires time, mentorship, reputation, and financial stability — resources that are unevenly distributed.

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This week, we investigate new developments surrounding China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), as recent design changes show that the Chinese Communist Party is experimenting with new incentives to onboard people to this more tightly controlled kind of money.

In Bitcoin news, a new private transaction broadcast feature in Bitcoin Core lets a node announce transactions using Tor connections, making network-level privacy better by default, to the benefit of dissidents and nonprofits.

We include the latest edition of the HRF x Pubkey Freedom Tech Series, where HRF’s Freedom Tech Grants Lead Harrison Friedes discusses the power of vibe coding with Senior Software Engineer at Block, Alex Hancock. We end with an explainer of Silent Payments, which make Bitcoin safer to use for human rights defenders.

Now, on to the stories.

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GLOBAL NEWS

China | New CBDC Features Raise Questions

China’s decision to make its digital yuan CBDC interest-bearing has introduced ambiguity in its design. In particular, whose liability the CBDC represents appears unclear. Wholesale CBDC balances used by financial institutions remain a direct liability of the central bank, while retail balances used by the public held in bank-operated wallets appear to be commercial bank liabilities, akin to bank deposits. This departs from the standard definition of a CBDC as a direct liability of the central bank. What’s not uncertain, however, is that in China the state has extensive control over the corporate sector. While perhaps appearing to empower users, this move is the latest push by the state to onboard people to a more tightly-controlled currency mechanism.

Yemen | Major Bank Suspends Operations Amid Humanitarian Crisis

The International Bank of Yemen suspended all operations following recent sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department. The shutdown puts pressure on Yemen’s fractured financial system, where two rival monetary systems and currencies operate in parallel: one under the internationally recognized government in Aden and the other controlled by the Houthis in Sanaa. Across both regions, prices continue to rise, salaries go unpaid, and public services are deteriorating. As confidence in formal banking erodes, some Yemenis have found safety in Bitcoin and stablecoins to store and move value outside the country’s fragmented banking infrastructure.

In context: These financial woes are deepening an already severe humanitarian crisis. More than 18 million Yemenis, roughly half the population, are expected to face acute food insecurity next month. Central bank officials in Aden were also recently forced to deny rumors of a new currency issuance, stemming from fake currency images promoted on social media by the Houthis.

Iran | New Data Weighs What is Top of Iranians' Minds During Protests

Research lab Gazetta gathered responses from Iranians during a nationwide internet blackout that severely restricted the flow of information in and out of the country. Nearly one-third of respondents cited money, livelihoods, or the cost of living as a primary concern. The findings illustrate the economic hardships many Iranians face, as the Iranian rial hits a new low of 1.5 million per dollar, major banks reportedly suspend cash withdrawals, and the dictatorship continues to mismanage public services.

In context: On Dec. 28, the largest protests since the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement unfolded across Iran in response to the rial reaching a record low. The regime imposed an internet blackout as it violently repressed demonstrators demanding human rights and dignity. An estimated 30,000 people have been killed, and more than 42,000 have been arrested.

Nicaragua | Economic Control Sustains the Ortega-Murillo Regime

In an investigative series published by Confidencial, reporters identify economic control as one of the four central pillars sustaining the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. The regime increasingly relies on restrictive controls over civil society’s monetary flows to punish dissent. In 2023, the regime froze the bank accounts of institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church, which led a Nicaraguan seminary to cease operations. Since 2018, thousands of NGOs have been forced to close or had their assets seized for alleged financial violations. In Nicaragua, authoritarian financial control is a primary way to stifle civil society.

South Africa | Digital Asset Platform’s Bank Account Frozen

The Financial Surveillance Department of South Africa’s central bank issued a blocking order and frozea bank account belonging to Kastelo, a South African fintech platform, over alleged capital control violations. The account supported a digital asset arbitrage product that helped users employ offshore investment allowances to trade across local and foreign digital asset markets. A Johannesburg High Court dismissed Kastelo’s urgent request to lift the freeze on procedural grounds, leaving customer funds inaccessible while the legal merits remain unresolved. The case highlights how capital controls empower governments with broad power over financial intermediaries and, by extension, over the financial activities of individuals.

RECOMMENDED CONTENT

The Fight for Open Source AI with Alex Hancock

In this episode of the HRF x Pubkey Freedom Tech Series, Harrison Friedes, Freedom Tech grants lead at HRF, sits down with Alex Hancock, senior software engineer at Block. They discuss how Block’s open-source agentic architecture, Goose, empowers users to vibe code applications on their own computers. During a live demonstration, Hancock shows how Goose enables dissidents in high-risk environments to build their own freedom technologies that bypass the surveillance and censorship often found in centralized AI services under authoritarian regimes.

BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS

Bitcoin Core | New Private Transaction Broadcast Feature

A new private transaction broadcast feature in Bitcoin Core, created by developer and HRF grantee Vasil Dimov, enables a node (a computer running the Bitcoin software) to announce transactions using short-lived encrypted Tor or I2P connections. Typically, transactions are broadcast directly to a node’s peers over the public internet, allowing network observers to infer the IP address that likely originated the transaction. The new feature makes metadata (information on who transacted with whom) harder to leak by using encrypted channels to broadcast transactions.

Why this matters: This is a strong step toward default, network-layer privacy in Bitcoin. It doesn’t change consensus, doesn’t require new cryptography, and doesn’t depend on everyone upgrading at once, yet it meaningfully raises the cost of transaction surveillance for dictators and authoritarian governments.

Programming Lightning | Open-Source Lightning Network Education Released

Programming Lightning, a free and open-source guide to building on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, recently released its first module, Intro to Payment Channels. The course, created by HRF grantee and developer Beige-Coffee, teaches students to build an off-chain wallet and a Lightning payment channel from scratch. Students get to create and broadcast transactions, open channels, and send payments while implementing the rules that govern how Lightning channels update and settle on the main Bitcoin network.

Why this matters: Free and open-source education provides developers under authoritarian rule with resources to build high-speed, censorship-resistant payment infrastructure that operates outside of state-controlled banking systems.

Electrum Wallet | Submarine Payments Integrated

Electrum, an open-source and self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, added support for submarine payments on desktop. The feature allows users to pay a Lightning invoice (a payment request used on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network) using on-chain Bitcoin. This connects on-chain and Lightning balances in Electrum without defaulting to custodial swap services, which introduce counterparty risk.

Why this matters: Submarine payments mean lower fees, increased privacy, and greater flexibility for dissidents and nonprofits using Electrum for Bitcoin payments.

Argo MAC | Private Computation for Bitcoin Launched

A group of Bitcoin researchers, best known for creating BitVM, recently launched a new project called Ideal. Their goal is to make Bitcoin more private and scalable without changing Bitcoin’s core rules. Their first breakthrough is called Argo, a faster way to compress and verify computations on Bitcoin. According to the developers, it makes systems like Bitcoin bridges (which use Bitcoin to move assets or data across systems without trusting a central party), significantly more efficient by reducing data usage and lag.

Why this matters: Bitcoin prioritizes security and simplicity over complex computation. Argo pushes the boundary of what can be built on Bitcoin without changing its rules, building more private, censorship-resistant, and permissionless tools to the benefit of those in closed societies.

Nostr Stats | Open-Source Nostr Analytics Launched

Pensieve and Nostr Stats are a new open-source attempt to answer a hard question: how do you measure a decentralized social network that has no central server, no logins, and no global view? On Nostr, every relay (a server that stores and forwards Nostr messages) only sees a fragment of activity, making basic metrics difficult to calculate. Pensieve addresses this by serving as a Nostr indexer. It pulls information from across hundreds of relays and stores it in compressed archives. Nostr Stats sits on top of that data, providing a public dashboard that visualizes publishing users over time, event types, zap and Lightning activity, relay usage, and growth trends. It measures users creating content, not passively browsing, an important distinction.

Why it matters: Transparent analytics help decentralized networks grow without recreating surveillance platforms. For activists, journalists, and builders using Nostr, this kind of public infrastructure supports accountability, resilience, and informed decision-making.

Btrust | BitDevs Playbook Released

Btrust, a nonprofit supporting Bitcoin development across Africa, released the BitDevs Playbook. The Playbook is an open-source guide for starting, running, and sustaining Bitcoin-only developer communities across the global majority, beginning in Africa. The playbook outlines standards for meetup operations, technical quality, funding accountability, and organizer development that can serve as a template and best practices guide for any Bitcoin-only developer community, anywhere in the world. It can serve as a valuable resource for Bitcoin communities around the world operating under authoritarian regimes.

BITCOIN RECOMMENDED CONTENT

Silent Payments: A New Era of Privacy in Bitcoin by Area Bitcoin

In this article, Area Bitcoin, an HRF grantee and South American Bitcoin education initiative, breaks down Silent Payments, a tool that significantly improves Bitcoin privacy for donations. Silent Payments allow nonprofits to share a single reusable public address while receiving each payment to a unique address on the blockchain. This negates address reuse and repeated payment coordination, reducing the ability of third parties like dictators or chain analysis firms to trace balances, donors, or transaction histories. For civil society, Silent Payments make Bitcoin safer to use without changing how it works.

If this email was forwarded to you and you enjoyed reading it, please consider subscribing to the Financial Freedom Report here. 

Support the newsletter by donating bitcoin to HRF’s Financial Freedom program via BTCPay.

Want to contribute to the newsletter? Submit tips, stories, news, and ideas by emailing ffreport @ hrf.org.

The Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF) is accepting grant proposals on an ongoing basis. The Bitcoin Development Fund is looking to support Bitcoin developers, community builders, and educators. Submit proposals here.

Subscribe to newsletter

Apply for a grant

Support our work

Visit our website