Russia/Ukraine, how Bitcoin is taking part of the battle?

Crypto Currencies and Ukrainian War

Did the #bitcoin finally found a real and practical use case? It is sad to accept this but the reality in that Bitcoin was well designed to skip central controls and to protect from inflation, both conditions are present in any war context.

An easy way to make donations, transfer money…

As the situation become to worsen in Ukraine, the humanitarian efforts required support, sending donations at low fees was never easy than today, crypto allows a such mechanism and remove the complexity of traditional channels.

An easy way to skip the sanctions

On the other side of the war, Russia has been quickly subject to several financial sanctions from all European countries, the last one was a very severe one and touched the backbone of the russian banks by banning few banks from SWIFT protocol. As stated in the European council announcement:

On 2 March 2022, the EU decided to suspend the broadcasting activities in the EU of the Russian state-owned outlets Sputnik and Russia Today until the aggression against Ukraine is brought to an end and until the Russian Federation and its associated outlets cease conducting disinformation and information manipulation actions. It also introduced a SWIFT ban for seven Russian banks. 

It is not a secret that on top of the Chinese CIPS protocol, Cryptocurrencies will be used to bypass those sanctions.

A refuge from the ongoing inflation…

With or without sanctions, this was would have a big impact on both sides economies and inflation and even beyond their limits, the inflation rates of 2022 are already forecasted to be historical. Cryptocurrencies are seen in those conditions as a refuge from the inflation…

What’s next? Will cryptocurrencies be banned?

The current condition may create a short term positive effect but it may bring eyes on the matter, this may lead to a few countries banning cryptocurrencies and mining… but if the cryptocurrencies resisted those limitations, it may be the biggest winner of this sad tragedy.

Are African countries adopting crypto faster?

An article from theafricaReport stated that african countries are adoption crypto faster than counterparts. Let’s go through data to review this statement.

Referring to the same article.

Africa amassed $105.6bn worth of cryptocurrencies in forecasts for the year ending June 2021, driven by peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions in key growth markets.

Markets like Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania had some of the highest grass-roots adoptions in the world and ranked in the top 20 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

Digital analytics firm Chainalysis’ latest figures show transactions volume made up of retail-sized transfers in Africa was seven per cent, against the global average of 5.5%.

This move is mainly driven by Kenya and Nigeria as we can see in the Chainalysis ranking of Crypto Adoption by Country, where consumers use them to sidestep stringent financial regulations that curtail cash transfers from banks to cryptocurrency businesses.

“No region uses P2P platforms at a higher rate than African cryptocurrency users, as they account for 1.2% of all African transaction volume and 2.6% of all volume for Bitcoin specifically,” reads the report in part.

When looking at the monthly share of all P2P Crypto platforms, we can see that African share is constantly growing but remain far behind Asia and America (both NORAM and LATAM)

Africa’s interest in digital currencies comes as the use of fiat cash declines in major economies in Africa, with consumers adopting electronic payment methods such as Lipa Na M-PESA, credit cards and payment gateways. But remain suffering from a regulation issue and very fragile due to the political changes in several countries.

The case of Patricia platform is just one of the example stability is not yet available in africa to have a consistent and sustainable cryptocurrencies environment.

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