Bitcoin ETFs Just Had Their Biggest Day Since May—BlackRock Took 83% of It

Cryptocurrency & Free Speech Finance

In brief U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $606.29 million on August 20, their largest single-day haul since May 1 and a fourth straight day of inflows. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $502.99 million of that—about 83%, up from 55% the day before, while VanEck’s HODL posted an outflow. Ethereum funds added $221 million, XRP $13 million, and Solana $15 million, with every listed asset drawing money. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $606.29 million on Thursday, their biggest single-day haul since May 1, according to SoSoValue. That beats Wednesday’s $517.19 million and extends the inflow streak to four sessions.The four-day…

  Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, co-leaders of the now disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (HKA) were found guilty today (21 August 2026) of incitement to subversion, because they organised vigils attended by tens of thousands in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The vigils were banned in 2020 and both have been detained since 2021. Below is a translation of Chow Hang-tung’s message to the world, published yesterday I’m curious about tomorrow’s verdict. Justice resides in the hearts of the people; there’s no need to look up to such top-down judgments. One verdict is nothing. Thank you all for walking alongside me in different ways. I have received all your support and blessings. ************ Because I don’t want everyone to worry too much, and I don’t want the focus to be lost, I’m sharing these feelings that have been weighing on my mind since the trial: Several years ago, I made a documentary with friends, trying to visualise the issue of torture by inviting Hong Kong friends to experience the various forms of torture suffered by protesters in China, so that it wouldn’t just remain a “tragedy” on paper. The “torture” depicted in the film was designed and researched by me. I thought I had some understanding of the subject, but only in the last couple of days have I realised I was a completely incompetent “torture officer” back then. I knew absolutely nothing about inflicting physical pain. It’s true that some things are impossible to comprehend no matter how much you read about them; you have to experience them firsthand. I say this because since the trial began, the Correctional Services Department [Hong Kong’s prison authority] has changed its method of transport. It’s no longer just simple handcuffs; now they use a full set of handcuffs, leg irons, waist chains, and ankle chains, and then lead the prisoners like dogs on a chain. From the written description alone, it seems like it’s just more inconvenient and somewhat humiliating, nothing like torture. But it’s only when you actually put on those shackles that you realise the devil is in the details. Ordinary handcuffs have buckles on both sides that connect with slipknots, allowing for limited movement between the hands. However, this set of specially made handcuffs has an outer layer of hard plastic covering the outer layer, locking the hands tightly together. This alone wouldn’t be so bad, but the “rings” on the handcuffs aren’t the round kind you usually see in adult stores (uh, I’ve been there, but only to buy props for filming!). Instead, there’s an additional hard material inside, shrinking into a flat, crescent shape that fits snugly at the thickest part of the wrist. So, when the wrist is inside, there’s absolutely no possibility of rotation; you can only constantly twist your arm to accommodate the angle designed by the handcuffs. That already restricts movement to two dimensions. Then comes the small buckle on the waist chain, which locks the handcuffs above the abdomen. If you dare to relax and let your hands hang down, the buckle will move up and lock into the thicker part of the wrist. Moreover, the locking angle is an extremely unnatural twisted pretzel, forcing one to constantly hunch their shoulders, hunch their back, bend their wrists, and twist their arms to try and avoid the handcuffs getting stuck in their wrist bones. However, complete avoidance is impossible; after all, constantly hunching one’s shoulders for the entire journey from Tai Lam [the prison where Hang-tung is incarcerated] to West Kowloon [the courthouse where the trial is taking place] would likely lead to muscle cramps. So, one can only “choose” which part of the body shall suffer in turn—when the shoulders are too tired, let the bones ache; when the hands are numb with pain, tighten the shoulders further. Then, throughout the entire journey, although most of the time is spent “still,” one is already exhausted from the unseen “muscle battle.” Not to mention, no matter how you are locked, you have to carry your belongings; for me, that means court documents. With that added weight, it is inevitable that the handcuffs will cut into the flesh. The deep marks carved into the wrists don’t fade even after a whole day in court. It turns out that locking a person’s joints in certain relative positions can create a kind of “interlocking” effect between body parts. But to the untrained eye, it’s invisible—”It’s just putting your hands in front of your stomach, child’s play.” Sigh, just looking at that statement, I feel I have no reason to complain; but I never imagined the combined effect of locking all the joints would be so powerful. Thinking back to when I was researching for the documentary, I only focused on finding the most exaggerated physical movements, the torture methods most easily identifiable by the naked eye. I was indeed viewing the victims’ experiences through the eyes of a layman. When I “tortured” my friend, the handcuffs were loosely fastened. I was completely unaware that locking the joints was the key—it really was just a childish experiment. Sophisticated torture, much like mature totalitarianism, avoids the visible, “violent” acts of violence. Its power lies in exploiting and creating internal conflicts among the people, fostering constant mutual surveillance, control, and reporting. This diffuses the perpetrators, making it impossible to identify or apprehend any single “evildoer.” People appear to have “choices,” but they are ultimately forced to choose between harming one party and abandoning another. Power, however, seems detached, never directly intervening. Visible, publicly observable conflicts vanish, leaving only unseen internal strife. The damage to society can be far more lasting and profound than occasional violence. On a more personal level, I find my resistance to physical torture is quite low. When my body aches, my mind becomes blank, overwhelmed by aches and pains, making it impossible to enjoy the scenery as usual. If I were subjected to some of the Ten Great Tortures of the Qing Dynasty, I might confess quickly. The ability to endure torture truly requires dedicated training. So, on the bright side, these 75 days of transport can be seen as initial training in physical endurance—as long as my hands aren’t ruined? To say that this correctional system is intentionally designed to torture prisoners wouldn’t be accurate; it’s just that the prisoners’ comfort or pain isn’t a consideration in its design. So, frankly, what I have endured is far from real torture; at best, it was just a preliminary glimpse. The designers’ primary consideration was probably “safety first,” ensuring prisoners have no possibility of movement. Ultimately, prisoners are at the bottom of the food chain—voiceless, powerless. Our opinions, even after suffering, are meaningless in the face of “safety.” Not to mention asking what security needs there were – frankly, even without handcuffs, a weak scholar like me couldn’t escape. Using so many tricks is overkill, but where can I reason with that? In cases where national security is invoked, even if a lawsuit is filed, it will have to be dropped and legal fees paid. But it’s precisely because I don’t want to never have anywhere to voice my grievances, and I don’t want people to remain silent and at the mercy of others, that I must persist in fighting for democracy and human rights, and for systemic change. In this sense, this new experience offered by Correctional Services is actually helping to strengthen my resolve to fight. Well then, thank you for this generous gift. I will certainly not let you down and will fight this ongoing battle well. I also hope that everyone can gain something from this long trial, perhaps just a little bit of strength, a little bit of encouragement, and that would be enough to fulfill my wish! This message was first posted on Chow Hang-tung’s Patreon account yesterday. We are publishing this with the permission of Brian Kern who translated her message on his Substack account     READ MORE

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Global Free Speech

CPJ joins call to extend UN fact-finding mission on Sudan

New York, August 21, 2026 – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) joined 67 other civil society organizations in calling on the UN Human Rights Council to extend the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan (FFM) for two years and provide it with adequate resources to investigate grave violations and support accountability. Ahead of the Council’s 63rd session, the groups urged states to strengthen the FFM’s ability to investigate abuses, identify perpetrators, and preserve evidence. Its continued work is critical to ensuring that attacks on journalists in Sudan are documented and those responsible can be held…

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The University of Cambridge. Photo: llee_wu / ICC BY-ND 2.0 Last month Index ran a story about a filmmaker and activist from Pakistan. His name was Roshaan Khattak and he was exploring human rights violations in Balochistan. Cambridge University had accepted him on a research pathway, with the understanding that completing this successfully would lead to him being accepted on the PhD programme. But then Khattak received a death threat and there was an unidentified explosion outside his college which scared him. He expected Cambridge to protect him but instead, as Khattak told Index, he was first locked out of his college then, despite achieving a distinction for his work, was told that he could not progress to doing a PhD and his enrolment was terminated. He saw this, and his supervisors agreed with him, as the university caving in to transnational repression. There has been little national newspaper coverage of his case. On the contrary, there was excessive and sometimes unjustifiable coverage of the allegations of plagiarism made against Professor Jason Arday. He was once hailed by Cambridge as their newest Black recruit and at 37, the youngest professor at the university. As Stephen Bush in the FT observes the question of race then became the focus of the media’s coverage, rather than Arday’s academic integrity. As the university came under increasing pressure, it announced an investigation into Arday. Since Arday’s death, there have been calls to impose curbs on the media. As you might expect, Index strongly opposes any regulation as an impingement of the right – indeed the duty – of the press to report on matters of genuine public interest. What purpose would regulation have served here? It might have shut down legitimate questions about Cambridge and its reputation for academic excellence; about the appointment of academics at the university; and about plagiarism, itself a growing issue across academia. Indeed, public focus on the role of the media in the events of the last few weeks has allowed Cambridge, arguably a more powerful institution than the press today, to evade scrutiny of its role in elevating Arday. Cambridge is supposed to be a world leader in research and teaching, yet when Arday was appointed three years ago, according to the BBC, there were only five other Black professors at Cambridge out of a total of more than 970. The numbers nationally are appalling too: 270 Black university professors in the whole of the country. There are so few Black professors today in British academia that they fear that they too will become the targets of impossible levels of public scrutiny – into their research, into their lives, into their very right to occupy a place in the public sphere on the basis of what they do for a living: in short that their freedom of expression will be curtailed. Also, research at Cambridge seems to be concentrated around subjects that are politically and financially advantageous to the institution – as opposed to research that has clear merit, but is less relevant with respect to commercial interests and priorities. Research income from China topped £23 million in 2024/25. The Judge Business School has formed a partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry. I started with Khattak, a scholar from Pakistan whom Cambridge first welcomed and then cast aside. I end with the tragedy of Arday, who became the focus of arguments that extended far beyond the question of the rigour of his academic practice. The link between the two is that Cambridge adopted both as instruments that served its own purposes; then abandoned them when that purpose no longer suited them. Both cases have implications, direct and indirect, for the right to free expression in universities. READ MORE

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