Newsletter Apr 8, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #18 This week’s news is led by the headline that SWIFT — the global messaging system for banks — is developing a central bank digital currency platform to facilitate the interoperability of CBDCs across the globe, most of which are being issued by authoritarian governments.
Newsletter Mar 28, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #17 In Hong Kong, lawmakers have passed a new national security law aimed at suppressing dissent among citizens. Meanwhile, the ruling Indian government has frozen the bank accounts of the Indian National Congress, the largest political opposition group in the country, further raising concerns over the erosion of freedom and democracy.
Newsletter Mar 21, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #16 We’re thrilled to announce that this week HRF granted $500,000 to 14 projects worldwide as part of its Bitcoin Development Fund.
Newsletter Mar 14, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #15 This past week, BRICS — an intergovernmental organization led by the Russian and Chinese dictatorships — explored the development of an independent payment system that aims to use digital currencies and potentially central bank digital currencies.
Blog Post Mar 12, 2024 Early Presidential Elections in Azerbaijan: Elections Without a Choice On Feb. 17, Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Blog Post Mar 8, 2024 Election Watch: Pakistan’s Contentious Elections On Thursday, Feb. 8, Pakistan, a country of 250 million people — the fifth most populous globally — hit the polls for its 12th general election. It came amid growing political and economic instability and a security crisis.
Newsletter Mar 7, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #14 This week’s news focuses on the growing interest in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) from governments. Turkey concluded its initial research phase, while Ghana revealed ambitious plans to launch its own CBDC.
Newsletter Feb 29, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #13 This week, we witnessed a rise in state-level censorship in finance and communications. Honduran regulators banned the country’s financial institutions from trading in cryptocurrency; Nigerian officials restricted access to global cryptocurrency exchanges in a desperate attempt to stabilize its currency, the Naira; and Pakistan blocked access to the X platform for eight days straight amid political unrest.
Newsletter Feb 23, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #12 Over the last week, we mourned the murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Newsletter Feb 16, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #11 In the past week, we’ve seen Kosovo’s ban on the Serbian currency, a cross-border CBDC transaction between regimes in the United Arab Emirates and China, Bitcoin claim all-time highs against a variety of different fiat currencies, and a long-awaited breakthrough in the Lightning Network that promises to significantly boost user privacy.
Blog Post Feb 9, 2024 A History of Sports and Dictators, Part 1: From Ramses II to Rome’s Bread & Circuses In the Olympic Games of 416, Athenian statesman and military general Alcibiades fielded seven teams in one of the most prestigious Olympic events, the four-horse chariot race known as the quadriga.
Newsletter Feb 8, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #10 This week we continue to witness Chinese citizens using creative new methods to use bitcoin, Burmese citizens suffering from a post-coup economic crisis, and severe currency devaluation in Nigeria and Egypt, the largest countries in Africa and in the Arab world.
Blog Post Feb 1, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #9 This past week, Egyptians were told to put up with soaring inflation, while we saw Kazakhstan’s financial suppression of journalists and Pakistan’s continued rise in Bitcoin adoption.
Newsletter Jan 25, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #8 Today we bring you news of Chinese citizens trading cryptocurrency despite a state-imposed ban, Russia’s recent blockage of VPN services and privacy protocols ahead of next month’s presidential elections, and Venezuela’s attempt to pass legislation that takes aim at the funding of civil society organizations and human rights defenders.
Newsletter Jan 18, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #7 This week, we delve into censorship on the Indian app stores, protests in Papua New Guinea triggered by pay cuts to the police, Ghana borrowing another $600 million from the IMF, and a new Bitcoin circular economy in Zambia.
Blog Post Jan 12, 2024 Fueling Ambition: Aramco’s pivotal role in Saudi Arabia’s sports expansion In November 2023, news broke that Aramco—Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil and energy giant—was set to complete a “significant sponsorship” deal with FIFA that would make it the football governing body’s biggest sponsor over the coming decade.
Newsletter Jan 11, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #6 This week, we brief you on China’s censorship of economic indicators, the freezing of bank accounts of indigenous activists in the Philippines, and the record inflation rate in Pakistan.
Newsletter Jan 4, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #5 We start 2024 with an exciting announcement: HRF granted $500,000 to 18 projects worldwide. Our Q4 gifts focused on global education, Bitcoin Core, mining decentralization, and projects that support freedom tech developers in closed societies.
Newsletter Dec 21, 2023 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #4 For this week’s Financial Freedom report, we cover currency devaluation in Argentina, Hong Kong’s National Police arresting individuals for donating to pro-democracy activists, and recent product launches helping make Bitcoin easy to send worldwide.
Blog Post Dec 14, 2023 The 2023 Dictators’ Playbook: Stripping Dissidents of Citizenship In 2023, emboldened tyrants from Central America to Eastern Europe engaged in more drastic and crueler forms of repression in order to stamp out any possible challenges to their rule. The dictatorial regimes of Belarus and Nicaragua, for example, have taken their repression across their own borders, stripping exiled dissidents of their citizenship.
