BELLE

Bitcoin Education for Lebanon’s Liberty & Empowerment

roject BELLE educates activists, civil society actors and youth in Lebanon on using Bitcoin as a non-governmental, censorship-resistant tool for financial freedom, privacy, and human rights protection. BELLE builds awareness around the use of Bitcoin and offers a credible alternative to the country’s failing financial and monetary system. BELLE includes an introduction to Bitcoin, how it works, why it matters, its role in advancing financial privacy, freedom, and human rights, as well as essential security practices.

The purpose of this project is to promote innovative solutions that empower the people of Lebanon to protect and uphold their human rights. In 2019, Lebanon entered one of the most severe banking and financial crises in modern history. Since then, restrictions on withdrawals and transfers were imposed without transparency, public consultation, or legal justification. The entire population could not access to their own money at the banks, except for influential politicians, politically connected elite, and bankers. When people moved to the cash economy to transact and conduct daily operations without risks of confiscation, the central bank reemphasized in 2021 the need for issuing a digital Lebanese currency (CBDC) to curtail cash. In this environment, private, censorship-resistant tools like Bitcoin become essential as they offer a way to receive money, pay salaries, transact privately, bypassing political and financial surveillance, and preserve value.