The Oslo Freedom Forum is a transformative annual conference where “the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders meet to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe.”

This year’s event brought together more than 300 speakers, artists, community members, technologists, and performers to share their stories to the media in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.

The Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual human rights conference held in Norway, talks cryptocurrency and the Blockchain at the event’s opening panel.

The Oslo Freedom Forum

The opening panel consisted of:

Srđa Popović, a Serbian activist who helped topple his country’s dictatorship under Slobodan Milošević

Hyeonseo Lee, who escaped North Korea twice, once on her own, and once again to save her family

Bjørn Ihler, who survived the terrorist attack of July 22nd in Norway

Kimberley Motley, an American lawyer who donates her time to those who cannot afford legal representation

Roya Mahboob, a female tech entrepreneur from Afghanistan who has faced death threats from the Taliban and other religious extremists

John Peder Egenæs, the secretary-general of Amnesty International in Norway

Manal al-Sharif, a Saudi activist who helped to start the Women2Drive movement in Saudi Arabia

Rosa María Payá, a Cuban democracy activist whose father was murdered by the dictatorship of Cuba

Abdalaziz Alhamza, who is smuggling video evidence of atrocities being committed in ISIS-controlled territory and countering ISIS propaganda as part of an activist collective, ‘Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently’

Iyad el-Baghdadi, a blogger expelled from the United Arab Emirates for posts he made on his blog, forcing him to live in a Malaysian airport

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian democracy activist whom the FSB, under the Putin regime, tried to poison, and survived, despite a very low chance of survival

Blockchain and mesh networks

Toni Lane Casserly, a prominent member of the Bitcoin community and former CEO of Cointelegraph, put this question to the panel:

“Based on the fact that so many of you are living under these extraordinarily oppressive regimes, I wonder how many of you have looked into digital currency and emerging technologies like the Blockchain and mesh networks to effectively build your own economy, government, or communications network?”

Srđa Popović responded by saying:

“This is not the exhibition of the world’s greatest dissidents, although some of the world’s greatest dissidents are here, this is a place where people network and learn from each other. People like Thor [Halvorssen - OFF Founder] and me, and some others in this room, who have even lived under dictatorship or spent 10s of years investing into helping people who are living under dictatorship, this is where we learn your needs. I think one of the things that we are going to do this time, especially during the Tech Lab is to hear from the activists what type of technology they may need or they may find useful (in their respective countries and working under dictatorships) or find a use.



One of the ideas we have here with the Wickr Foundation is to design an application which will be specifically designed for the people living under dictatorship.This is in response to the need that we hear from activists themselves - that means safe and secure browsing, fast and accurate documentation of human rights when you need it on click or your phone. So there are so many aspects of this conference and one thing is to connect people like you, people who have an idea how you can use a technology with people like those who are sitting on this panel. What we can do to help these people accurately, and what we can learn from these people - it’s a great place to do it, the best place to do it, is the Oslo Freedom Forum.”

Anyone familiar with the Blockchain will know that a great deal of the problems presented by Srđa Popović could be addressed by the innovative technology. Evidently, Blockchain usage in the realm of activism is somewhat lacking, despite the technology, and the cryptocurrencies it underpins, undoubtedly being able to have a meaningful impact.

Activism, “the greatest use case Bitcoin has even seen”

Toni Lane Cassery, co-founder of Cointelegraph shares her beliefs concerning Bitcoin usage in the activism space, saying:​