El Salvador was the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar. The Bitcoin law made taxes payable in cryptocurrency and obliged businesses to accept it. After that, several countries followed the trend to ensure transparency and security of transactions. Nigeria, Vietnam, the Philippines, Turkey, India, China, and Japan are considering adopting crypto.
Afghanistan, amidst the political upheaval and closed borders, offers a perfect test case of the efficiency of cryptocurrency. Taliban has taken the country over after twenty years of U.S. and NATO presence. The military actions and continuous war has established political disruption and economic unrest in the region. The political upheaval welcomed the cryptocurrency market.
As Afghans struggled to flee the country in fear of Taliban rule, crypto owners felt safe: digital assets are global, with no intermediaries to interfere with the process. The refugees found themselves lucky as they had crypto coins in their wallets, and they weren’t thinking about converting it into fiat money to leave the country.
The trending crypto market in Afghanistan is also because of the global and computer-based wallets. Any amount of cryptocurrency fits into the flash drive and works for people on the run. The user can access the wealth from any computer wallet through a secure password.
Additionally, cryptos are a libertarian form of money which means that it takes control from the government and give it to individuals. It makes them apolitical, which is exceptional in the case of Afghanistan. Acting as a stable alternative for refugees, cryptocurrency is getting powerful in the country.
It is important to note that cryptocurrency is not used in routine transactions in Afghanistan, but people are sure that investing in the coins would enhance their security. The investors access the global economy by being inside Afghanistan, and they are protected against spiraling inflation.
Furthermore, people thought of investing in crypto due to the long lines of the general public outside ATMs to withdraw money. With crypto under digital wallets, people exchanged their assets in other currencies to find a way out of this mess. The masses believe that, despite the volatility, cryptocurrency is the safest hedge against political uncertainty and unrest.
However, there are multiple flaws with the mentioned arguments. It is because not all Afghans have internet access. It means that without the internet, the usage of cryptocurrency is as futile as it can get. Moreover, in a poor and underdeveloped country, the usage of Bitcoin is limited. It is a well-established fact that crypto relies on good exchanges that are based on mobile applications.
However, the Taliban are not afraid of abusing the right of people to use smartphones. It has limited the workability of crypto in the market.
Currently, the residents of Afghanistan have to look for exceptional crypto exchanges to invest in cryptocurrency. But very few people in underdeveloped countries have access to sophisticated digital wallets like Crypterium that could secure crypto assets effortlessly.