The adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) in emerging markets was one of the focal points of the first day of the Blockchain Economy Istanbul event, with calls to focus on the case-by-case use of Bitcoin to maximize its reach.
The two-day summit brings together prominent speakers from the cryptocurrency ecosystem, including Michael Saylor, Bitcoin advocate at MicroStrategy, on this year’s panel lineup.
Cointelegraph caught up with Ben Caselin, vice president of global market and communications at cryptocurrency exchange AAX, to explore some of the concepts after his keynote address on the Satoshi Standard and emerging markets.
Caselin believes that it is crucial to focus on emerging markets, considering that they are made up of some six billion people representing 85% of the world’s population. He also questioned the notion of mass adoption, mainly because different countries face drastically different realities:
“Nigerians are dealing with a very complicated banking system that doesn’t really help them. The government may have launched a CBDC project, but it’s not interesting. People care about Bitcoin, they care about non-government money.”
Caselin also highlighted another anecdotal example from Afghanistan, where Roya Mahboob made headlines for paying her employees at Afghan Citadel Software Company in Bitcoin as a solution to women’s difficulty accessing bank accounts in the country.
Emerging markets also offer a unique challenge, as crypto firms and service providers face onboarding people unfamiliar with Bitcoin, stablecoins, or decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Focusing on the unique challenges of a country or group of people is usually the main driver of adoption:
“Are you afraid of your government? Okay, maybe Bitcoin is good for you. If your challenge is that your local currency is bad because it’s low quality, maybe there’s a different Bitcoin conversation we can have.”
Caselin believes that the cryptocurrency space has come out of the emerging stage of its life cycle, which lasted a decade, between 2009 and 2019. He drew a parallel to the early days of the internet, in which Jeff Bezos was initially mocked. for its online book store that became the ubiquitous Amazon of today.
Caselin believes that moving into an adoption phase requires the cryptocurrency industry to get in shape. The recent market turmoil, exacerbated by the collapse of the Luna ecosystem and the bankruptcy of some cryptocurrency lenders and hedge funds, detracts from the importance and usefulness of the space:
“If Bitcoin isn’t helping women in Afghanistan, or people in Cuba, or unbanked communities in Nigeria, then Bitcoin isn’t that interesting.”
Data from Chainalysis supports Caselin’s claim that emerging markets are more focused on “legacy” cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, while institutional investors from major economies have driven recent investments in more complex DeFi-powered assets and products.
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