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.

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.