Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, US sanctions, collapsing banks, and the cessation of international aid and financial transfers have left the country’s economy in shambles. Crypto is a savior for the Afghans.
Farhan Hotak, a 22-year-old from the southern Afghan province of Zabul, was left bankrupt after the Taliban took control in August of last year.
Crypto is a savior for the Afghans
“After the Taliban takeover, crypto spread like wildfire over Afghanistan,” he said. “There is almost no other way to receive money”.
Mr. Hotak and his buddies utilize Binance’s peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange, which allows them to purchase and sell coins directly with other Binance users. Mr. Hotak has taken up temporary residence in Pakistan, where he is trading Bitcoin and Ethereum once more. He is now back in Afghanistan, vlogging and teaching people about cryptocurrencies, which are digital currencies with no physical form that can have value.
Cryptocurrency supporters claim that they represent the future of money and that they will eliminate the need for individuals to rely on banks. Banks have closed in Afghanistan, forcing people to rely on cryptocurrency not only for trading but also for survival.
Since the Taliban took control in August 2021, cryptocurrency usage has increased dramatically. The research firm Chainalysis ranked Afghanistan 20th out of 154 nations in terms of cryptocurrency usage last year.
Only a year prior, in 2020, the corporation deemed Afghanistan’s crypto presence to be so minor that it was left off the list entirely.
According to Sanzar Kakar, an Afghan-American who founded HesabPay, an app that lets Afghans transfer money using cryptocurrency in 2019, Afghanistan’s “crypto revolution” stems from US sanctions against the Taliban and Haqqani network.
Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which underlies international financial transactions, has halted all operations in Afghanistan.
Commercial banks were unable to lend money during the liquidity crisis, and retail clients were unable to withdraw their funds from banks.
Afghanistan’s economy, already ravaged by war and reliant on foreign help and donors for 80% of its GDP, was on the edge of collapsing.
Roya Mahboob launched Digital Citizen Fund, an NGO that teaches young Afghan women computer programming and financial literacy, in 2013. In Herat and Kabul, the organization maintained 11 women-only IT centers, where 16,000 women were taught everything from Windows software to robotics.
Following the Taliban’s takeover, the organization refocused its efforts to teach bitcoin training to young women via Zoom video calls.
The Digital Citizen Fund has already begun delivering cryptocurrencies to Afghan families to assist them in providing food and shelter, as well as, in certain cases, assisting people in fleeing the country.
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