Will Africa and South America be Bitcoin's flashpoint?
Editor's Note: This article comes fromRossa Private Thoughts Exchange (ID: rossa_1581), Author: Rossa, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
, Author: Rossa, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
Two days ago, I saw a piece of news: According to Cointelegraph, an interactive map showing the level of global interest in cryptocurrencies shows that Bitcoin searches are mainly concentrated in African and South American countries. Bitcoin dominates the search engine market in Africa, according to a map published by blockchaincenter.net. Among them, Bitcoin accounted for 94.7% of cryptocurrency-related searches in Kenya, 89.4% in Nigeria and 89% in South Africa. This search trend suggests that African countries could become key crypto players in the future. Previous reports indicated that the speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives called for a substantive legal framework for cryptocurrencies in July 2019.
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1. Population structure: From the perspective of population structure, Africa and South America are relatively young countries
The median age in Africa is only 18 years old due to its exploding population. Young people are more likely to accept new things. Judging from the situation in China, most of the current currency circles are young people born in the 90s. Therefore, it is not surprising that relatively young countries in Africa and South America, including Asia, have high acceptance of Bitcoin.
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2. Economically, both South America and Africa are developing countries
There is no industry in Africa. Except for places with mineral resources, which are slightly better, other countries are basically very backward. Nigeria is the largest economy on the African continent, but it still faces numerous economic and social challenges. In 2019, Nigeria had nearly 87 million people living in extreme poverty out of 200 million people, making it the country with the largest proportion of people living in extreme poverty. The Nigerian economy has returned to growth over the past two years, but inflation has also been on the rise since last summer, reaching an annual rate of almost 12 percent in December 2019.
Because of its rich mineral resources, South Africa has always been known as Europe in Africa and the Light of Africa. In the 1960s and 1970s, South Africa’s economy was once among the top spears in the world. After the 1980s, South Africa’s economy has continued to grow. decline. South Africa is now the least safe country in Africa, with high unemployment rate as high as 27%, and negative economic growth.
South America is a country developed by relying on resource advantages, including its minerals, crops and other natural resources, but South American countries have not made good use of resources to upgrade the industrial chain. When various resources have fallen sharply, South America has emerged collective decline.
3. From the perspective of the political situation, Africa and South America continue to experience political turmoil
Africa is not only poor and backward, but also has a low employment rate. Due to party, clan, religious disputes, regional and border issues, and competition for natural resources, wars and coups are frequent in Africa. The situation in South Sudan, the situation in Mali, the situation in Libya, the situation in Somalia.
Riots broke out in many countries in South America, and the political situation was turbulent. Riots of varying degrees occurred in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia, causing casualties and huge property losses, and the country was in turmoil.
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4. The devaluation of the legal currency, in many countries in Africa and South America, due to the high inflation rate, the legal currency has collapsed
Venezuela is one of the most inflationary countries in the world today. In 2010, the Venezuelan currency Bolivar was 8:1 to the U.S. dollar. In 2013, the Bolivar to the U.S. dollar was 30:1. Now it is Close to 10000:1.
The Argentine peso has lost 85% of its original face value since the first edition of the 1,000-peso denomination was used. "Since the first edition was put into circulation in December 2017, its purchasing power value has dropped from $57.37 to just $8.44 in May 2020. "It only took two and a half years.
In 2020, the Brazilian real has depreciated by 15.5% against the US dollar, making it the most depreciated currency in the world this year.
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Due to the economic backwardness of these two continents, political turmoil, and severe inflation, holding national currency means a significant depreciation of purchasing power, while other investment methods, such as foreign exchange, gold and other hedging methods, have high entry barriers and are difficult to pass through traditional financial channels. get. These countries have also shown growing interest in digital currencies. They not only use virtual currency as an investment tool, but at the same time, more and more people use cryptocurrency to solve financial needs, such as using cryptocurrency to transfer goods, services and funds.
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According to the Global Digital Yearbook 2019 by social media management company Hootsuite and global agency Wearesocial, sub-Saharan African countries such as Ghana and Kenya are among the top 45 in the world for the number of cryptocurrency users, with large populations in these countries holding Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
