Blog Post Jul 3, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #79 This week, we begin in Kenya, where police and pro-government goons attacked peaceful demonstrators and violently suppressed June 25 marches, which marked the anniversary of last year’s anti-tax bill protests and honored the memory of at least 60 people killed then.
Blog Post Jun 26, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #78 Iran’s largest digital asset exchange, Nobitex, was hit by a cyberattack in which $90 million in digital assets were intentionally drained and destroyed.
Blog Post Jun 25, 2025 Connections What does financial repression in autocracies have to do with financial freedom in democracies? Justin Callais on human flourishing in the modern world.
Blog Post Jun 23, 2025 House money Why are countries around the world developing virtual legal tenders? Roger Huang on the origins, implementation, and implications of central bank digital currencies.
Blog Post Jun 19, 2025 Untouchable Why has Bitcoin become so popular with dissidents living in dictatorships? Farida Nabourema on what the emerging technology has in common with an old suitcase stuffed with cash.
Blog Post Jun 19, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #77 We begin this week in El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele’s ruling party officially passed a sweeping “foreign agents” law.
Blog Post Jun 18, 2025 Cash Grab What is financial repression? Félix Maradiaga on how autocratic regimes are using the global banking system, international law, and new technologies in an old struggle to suppress dissent and hold power.
Blog Post Jun 12, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #76 This week, we begin in Kenya, where police detained Rose Njeri, a software developer and mother of two, for building a website that enables Kenyans to flag causes and email parliament concerning an unpopular tax bill that threatens to raise the cost of living in an already inflation-sticky economy.
Blog Post Jun 6, 2025 Bitcoin Development Fund 5 year Report The Bitcoin Development Fund 5 Year Report marks five years of impact through the Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF), which has awarded over $8.5 million in BTC to nearly 300 projects across 62 countries.
Blog Post May 22, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #75 Today, we begin in China, where the central bank injected $138 billion into the economy and expanded the money supply by 12.5% year-over-year.
Blog Post May 15, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #74 We bring news from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group is imposing immense taxes on the local economy, merchants, and aid groups to fund its insurgency as it seeks to govern seized regions of the Eastern Congo.
Blog Post May 8, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #73 This week, we bring reports from Bangladesh, where the interim government instructed the central bank to halt the printing of old banknotes featuring Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh.
Blog Post May 6, 2025 My Reflections on Bitcoin as Freedom Money in Thailand & Burma My name is Win Ko Ko Aung, and I am a global bitcoin adoption fellow at HRF. I help nonprofits operating under authoritarian regimes explore Bitcoin as a tool for financial freedom.
Blog Post May 2, 2025 Responsible Finance: Why Political Systems Should Matter to Investors International trade and investment reshaped the world for the better. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, economic openness has reduced poverty on a global scale, brought prosperity to nations from Poland to South Korea, and improved quality of life for hundreds of millions.
Blog Post May 1, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #72 This week, we bring pressing news from Belarus, where the regime’s central bank is preparing to launch its central bank digital currency in close collaboration with Russia by the end of 2026.
Blog Post Apr 24, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #71 In Georgia, mere weeks after freezing the bank accounts of five NGOs supporting pro-democracy movements, the ruling Georgian Dream party passed a new law banning foreign organizations from providing grants to local groups without regime approval.
Blog Post Apr 17, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #70 This week’s headlines expose the lengths authoritarian regimes go to perpetuate the financial power that preserves their rule, often going so far as to bend, break, and rewrite the rules of money itself.
Blog Post Apr 14, 2025 How China Uses Financial Repression to Erase the Uyghur People Rushan Abbas has spent years fighting for the freedom of her people, the Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group in the Uyghur Region, located in northwest China.
Blog Post Apr 10, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #69 Today, HRF takes part in the launch of the Bitcoin Humanitarian Alliance in London, where a dozen human rights and aid groups will convene with policymakers, media, finance professionals, and technologists at the Frontline Club to explain how they are using Bitcoin in their work in the field.
Blog Post Apr 2, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom #68 Georgian officials froze the bank accounts of five nonprofit organizations that provide financial and legal support to detained protesters.
