The Local Bitcoin Market and the Crisis

The Local Bitcoin Market and the Crisis

Businessman standing in front of giant bitcoin token, investing on cryptocurrency risk, volatility. isometric vector illustration.



Lebanon’s banking crisis is yet to offer depositors any cushion to soften the blow of capital control restrictions, a crumbling currency, and an uncertain future. As depositors become well versed at queuing outside banks and fighting for their money, some have begun looking for alternative methods to storing their money – not under the mattress, but digitally, through cryptocurrency. “My clients who buy cryptocurrencies or exchange them for fiat, are the ones who do not feel that it is safe to deal with banks anymore, not now, not ever. The banking crisis alone has created ample conditions for the interest in cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin,” Nader Dirany, a cryptocurrency consultant and founder of one of the first cryptocurrency exchange counters in Lebanon, tells Executive.

Linkages between cryptocurrencies and financial crises seem to be anchored in recent history. To many, the appearance of Bitcoin during the Great Recession was not a coincidence. Although the rationale of Bitcoin in the original white paper published by a person or group of persons under the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym, did not refer to banking crises in general or the period’s