Bitcoin has grown leaps and bounds in the last ten years and it has come to such a point that even mainstream news portals have picked it up.
The usage of cryptocurrencies to circumvent stringent governmental policies has been seen as a major win for the decentralized community as well as the voice of the masses. Protests against the government in several parts of the world have taken dark turns which forced people to look for alternate methods to conduct transactions without an overwatch body.
In a new Twitter post, Soonaorlater, the co-founder of TokenDaily spotted that mainstream Arabic news was talking about how Bitcoin can enable protesters to get around capital controls. The coverage was made in connection to the protests in Lebanon where thousands took to the streets to lash out at their new Prime Minister Hassan Diab. A large chunk of people demonstrated in central Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon claiming that Diab should resign from his post because he belonged to the ruling elite.
Bitcoin has not been used just in Lebanon but also in several other regions of unrest. Venezuela stands out as a major example, a country where the government launched its native token called the Petro. In the latest twist to the Petro story, the government announced that employees will receive their Christmas bonus’ in Petro. Venezuelan news outlet Venepress stated:
“It is expected that next week the payment to pensioners, retirees and public employees will begin. If the amount of the Petro medium used to grant the bond is the same calculated for the minimum wage, it will be 150,000 Bolívares, while if the value of the cryptocurrency established by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) is used, it would be Bs. 1,380,025 due at the price of the token found in Bs. 2,760,050.”
In 2018 however, employees were paid in Petro with no prior notice. This forced many of the country’s citizens to scurry and learn the nitti-gritties of the state-backed cryptocurrency. The Arabic news channel also contemplated on the fact that digital money is illegal in Lebanon which in turn meant that the central bank would not allow any such transactions. Despite the push in terms of adoption, Bitcoin has not had much of a success when it came to its price increase.
At press time, Bitcoin was trading for $7444.02 with a total market cap of $134.881 billion. The cryptocurrency held a 24-hour market volume of $25.836 billion after a 1.45 percent decrease in value.