Now, exiled opposition leader Mark Feygin is pushing for an anonymous, blockchain-powered system for Russians to cast a “protest vote” against Putin.

The results of this effort, of course, will not carry legal weight in Russia and will not directly end Putin’s presidency, but efforts to oust him could provide a public image boost. And it gives Russians the opportunity to criticize in a country where objections can have high consequences; Opposition leader Alexei Navalny recently died while incarcerated in an Arctic penal colony.

Voting will take place through an application called Rarimo’s Freedom Tool and will use the Arbitrum blockchain and zero-knowledge cryptography, making voters’ identities untraceable.

“The opposition in Russia is now becoming more risky and it is becoming more difficult to follow public opinion,” Feygin said. Feygin was exiled from Russia years ago, named a foreign agent in 2022, and is still wanted in Russia. Feygin is the former lawyer of the founders of the Pussy Riot protest collective. “It is vital that we provide reliable, unmonitored facilities for objections and surveys. “Russia2024 and the technology behind it enabled this,” he added.

Only people with Russian passports will be able to vote. Approximately 34.6 million Russians have a valid passport.

Users must download the Russia2024 app and prove their citizenship by scanning their passport with their phone. Passports have a biometric chip used to verify the voter’s identity and facilitate an anonymous vote. If a person does not have a smartphone, a single phone can be used to vote.

Voting will take place over about two weeks, and supporters behind the tool are confident that it is a safe way to vote and voters need not fear the consequences.

“Even after Navalny’s death, people came out and protested, so they will vote as a counter to the outcome,” said Lasha Antadze, a co-founder of the Freedom Vehicle. It had previously cooperated with the Ukrainian government on the digitization of state property. “Decentralized voting and the Freedom Tool are designed so that there is no single entity to attack, block or evade. You can’t hack this just like you can’t hack Bitcoin.”

Antadze also has Ukrainian and Georgian passports. Putin’s victory is expected to leave him with the tools to continue his war against Ukraine.

“We’re distributing open source technology for everyone to use. That doesn’t mean only Ukrainians or Georgians are doing it,” he said, when talking about the perception that it was backed by Ukraine. “We’ve received a lot of support from Russia’s cryptography professors through anonymous letters. It’s a kind of defense technology for wartime.” said.

Antadze said the Russia2024 app was initially removed from the Apple app store, but they expect it to come back online this Friday. The application is available in Google’s app store.

Referendums have been used around the world for different reasons: in Canada to express opposition, in Switzerland to pass certain policies, and in the United Kingdom to choose whether a territory wants to remain united with a nation.

The main global “real-world use case” could guarantee authenticity, reduce the cost of any election-related voting activity by a factor of 10, and the technology could also be used by other nations, he said.