Bitcoin Proves Useful in Economies Where Banks Fail

A new report from Cornell University's Bitcoin Adoption Index reveals that the cryptocurrency is being used as a practical workaround for people living in economies where national currencies have been unstable and access to reliable banking is hard.

The top three countries with the highest number of people who have ever owned bitcoin are El Salvador, Venezuela, and Nigeria. In each of these countries, bitcoin functions less as a speculative bet and more as a practical tool for getting around failing banking rails or inflation.

While knowledge about the fundamentals of Bitcoin is shallow among its holders, the cryptocurrency has still proved helpful to people who want to use it. A Venezuelan interviewee told Cornell researchers that Bitcoin was 'faster, cleaner, and much less risky' than other methods of getting dollars in the country.