As countries move away from cash towards digital payments and experiment with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), fears of increased state surveillance and financial control in totalitarian regimes are mounting. Expanding digital surveillance and financial controls can be used to monitor, silence, and punish dissent. By tracking transactions and freezing accounts, authorities can suppress activists and human rights defenders without overt violence, tightening political control through economic means.

LIMS noted the fundamental distinction between CBDCs and Bitcoin. While CBDCs raise concerns about censorship, financial repression and the emergence of a command-style monetary system in which individuals lose control over their own funds, Bitcoin represents the opposite model — a decentralised, non-governmental and censorship-resistant instrument designed to preserve financial freedom, privacy and human rights.

Lebanon’s recent experience illustrates these concerns vividly. The government and banking authorities imposed opaque capital controls, restricted withdrawals and transfers, and allowed the currency to collapse, effectively confiscating depositors’ savings. People, however, avoided complete paralysis thanks to a cash-based system that continued to function. According to LIMS, Bitcoin offers a similar buffer — allowing citizens to preserve autonomy over their finances and bypass arbitrary crackdowns and restrictions.

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