Good morning, Nostr!

This week’s Financial Freedom Report #115 examines how India’s central bank is negotiating to expand its digital rupee CBDC for cross-border institutional and retail transactions.

In freedom tech news, early Bitcoin developer Martti Malmi released Nostr VPN, a tool that allows users to manage their own private networks without centralized accounts, centralized servers, or reliance on any single company.

We include a recent discussion at PubKey in Washington, DC, where human rights advocates Leopoldo López, Berta Valle, and Anaïse Kanimba discuss opposing authoritarian regimes and the role of freedom tech in supporting their efforts.

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Good afternoon, friends!

This month's AI for Individual Rights newsletter #8 is out.

We cover a new report revealing how eleven African countries have collectively spent over $2 billion on Chinese-built “smart city” AI-powered surveillance systems.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA has committed $26 billion to building open AI models and partnered with Mistral AI to co-develop them. Open models can be accessed privately, bringing powerful capabilities to human rights defenders operating under surveillance.

We close with some reflections from HRF’s Alex Gladstein on OpenClaw, an open-source AI assistant. He argued that it represents a Satoshi Nakamoto-like turning point: the moment individuals gained the ability to control their own intelligence.


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Good morning, friends!

This week's Financial Freedom Report #113 examines Venezuela's first official inflation reading in more than a year, after the regime halted public reporting and restricted independent estimates.

On the #Bitcoin side, we cover the Blockstream Jade's Lightning Network integration.

Finally, we include an interview with Fedi CEO, Obi Nwosu, who makes clear the importance of financial privacy in the work of dissidents and civil society.

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Good morning, friends!

Financial Freedom Report #112 has just been released.

We begin this week’s edition in Cuba, where personal stories reveal the human toll of currency collapse under the communist regime.

We also bring word from Iran, where millions remain cut off from the outside world as the clerical regime enforces sweeping internet blackouts amid unrest and continued air strikes.

In #Bitcoin news, Bitwise made a $233,000 donation to support open-source Bitcoin development, fulfilling a pledge to allocate 10% of annual profits from its Bitcoin ETF.

We end with a Bitcoin Policy Institute report examining the monetary preferences of advanced AI models.

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Good morning, Nostr!

This week's Financial Freedom Report is now out and covers a nationwide social media ban in Gabon as well as post-hyperinflation tax hikes in Lebanon.

In Freedom Tech, P2P exchange Mostro added a built-in Lightning wallet, and Bitchat shared plans to introduce device-to-device installs, eliminating the need for an internet connection to download the app.

We include an article in which the global humanitarian organization Save the Children shares the inspiration and rationale behind its newly launched #Bitcoin Fund.

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Good afternoon, friends!

This month’s AI for Individual Rights Newsletter #7 is out.

We cover Russia’s push into AI-enhanced internet filtering, Chinese AI models parroting CCP propaganda, and an AI-powered hacking campaign targeting Iranians who documented the regime’s killing of protesters.

On the tools side, we explore how the explosion of AI agents like OpenClaw and developments in new agentic models are refining workflows and accelerating software development.

We also feature the latest episode of Preston Pysh’s Infinite Tech podcast where HRF’s Alex Gladstein and Justin Moon discuss how open-source AI tools like OpenClaw advance individual freedom.

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Good afternoon, readers!

Financial Freedom Report #109 was just published.

It features pressing developments, including India advancing a CBDC pilot to distribute food rations. This comes in addition to coverage on Hong Kong sentencing media tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison, and a crackdown on informal currency exchange activity by the military junta in Burma.

In #Bitcoin news, we cover the addition of Silent Payment support, a bitcoin privacy upgrade, in Sparrow and Nunchuck wallet.

We include an interview with Iranian Bitcoin educator, Ziya Sadr, who shares his experience during Iran’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement and the broader impact of currency collapse and state financial repression.

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Good morning, friends!

This week’s Financial Freedom Report #107 is out.

We cover record bank branch closures in Russia, rising cash surveillance in Thailand, and Malawi’s renwed push toward a CBDC.

On the #Bitcoin side: a new Bitcoin Core maintainer has been named, BitZed is connecting bitcoin to mobile money in Zambia, and we highlight upcoming Cashu improvements.

We also include an essay by economist Tyler Cowen on why a country’s currency can be one of the clearest signals of its political and economic health.

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Good morning, friends!

Financial Freedom Report #106 is out.

This week, we examine how financial systems are being reshaped under pressure:

• China’s CBDC, where new features blur the line between central bank money and bank deposits.
• Yemen, as a major bank shutdown deepens an already severe humanitarian crisis.
• Iran, where new data shows economic survival topping people’s concerns amid protests and blackouts.

In Bitcoin & freedom tech:

• A new Bitcoin Core privacy upgrade for transaction broadcasting.
• Programming Lightning releases open-source Lightning education.
• Electrum adds submarine payments, bridging on-chain and Lightning.

Plus, a new HRF x Pubkey Freedom Tech Series episode with Harrison Friedes and Block engineer Alex Hancock on vibe coding and building under surveillance.

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Good morning, friends!

This week's Financial Freedom Report #105 is published and features the following in global news:

-Nigeria | Tax Law Ties Digital Asset Transactions to National ID
-Iran | Freedom Tech Surges Amid Historic Protests
-India | Proposes Linking Authoritarian CBDC Infrastructure

In #Bitcoin and Freedom Tech News:

-Hack4Freedom | New Freedom Tech Tools Built
-Bitchat | New Update as App Clone Circulates in Iran
-Fedi | Community Generator Tool Launched

We end with a new episode of The Network State Podcast, where HRF’s Chief Strategy Officer Alex Gladstein sits down with Balaji Srinivasan to explain how Bitcoin serves as a financial escape hatch.

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HRF and the Finney Family award the Finney Freedom Prize for the 2016–2020 era (Block Height 420,000 - 630,00) to Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

For years, Andreas helped the world understand Bitcoin as a tool for individual freedom. Through his writing, talks, and inspirational education, he brought millions of people into the Bitcoin network, inspired a generation of developers, and showed how decentralized money can defend human rights and challenge authoritarian power.

Learn more about Andreas' contributions here:

https://hrf.org/program/financial-freedom/finney-prize/about-andreas-antonopoulos/

Good morning, friends!

This week's Financial Freedom Report #102 is out and features the following in global news:

-Venezuela | María Corina Machado Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
-Russia | Increased Cash Use Amid Internet Outages and Financial Controls
-Cuba | Former Economy Minister Sentenced to Life in Espionage Case

In #Bitcoin and Freedom Tech News:

-Save the Children | Bitcoin Fund Launched
-MetaMask | Bitcoin Support Added
-PlebQR | Pay in Bitcoin in Thailand

We end with the livestreams of the 2025 Africa Bitcoin Conference!

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