Egypt is yet another country that currently copes with severe financial difficulties and galloping inflation, which have harmed the local currency. As such, the price of bitcoin against EGP has surged notably lately, exceeding 1,200,000 EGP on Binance, which is a record high.
It is worth mentioning that the valuation is not that high on other cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Coinbase.
The Outcome of the Monetary Disruption
Despite Egypt’s GDP gradually growing in the past years, the standard of living in the country has been on a downtrend, with high inflation decreasing the purchasing power of the national currency.
Some experts claim the financial problems started after the bloody 2011 revolution when approximately two million people flooded the streets protesting against the reign of President Hosni Mubarak. Egypt entered a turbulent political period in the following years, unable to sustain a stable government until 2014.
The COVID-19 global pandemic and the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine are other factors that worsened the issues. Egypt depends on imported wheat and grain from the Black Sea region, and logically, those deliveries have been interrupted.
The condition of the Egyptian pound is quite worrying since it has depreciated by nearly 40% against the US dollar in the last year. The decline has prompted locals to convert their savings into foreign currency or seek alternative investment options like cryptocurrencies.
The domestic currency has shrunk so much that the price of bitcoin measured in EGP has reached an all-time high on some cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Binance and Changelly.
The previous record was in mid-November 2021, when the primary cryptocurrency reached its highest valuation against all fiat currencies, including the greenback, at $69,000.
It is worth mentioning that other crypto platforms display different prices. Coinbase, for one, shows that one BTC is currently worth around 950,336 EGP.
Similar Situation in Other Countries
The trends are similar in Turkey and Argentina, where residents also have to cope with record inflation and monetary chaos. Bitcoin is currently worth around 806,000 TRY on Binance, close to the ATH measured a few days ago.
Turkish residents have shown an increasing interest in digital assets over the years. Some have converted their funds to the stablecoin USDT as a protection against the never-ending depreciation of the lira. Ebru Güven – university lecturer and former banker – explained in detail:
“Investing in stablecoins allows people to keep the value of their wealth; it’s one of the ways to hold on to some value when inflation is this high. This is the only motivation for people to buy stablecoins right now.”
Some Argentines have also lost their trust in the peso. The political calamity that has reigned in the South American nation for decades, the three-digit inflation rate marked earlier this year, and many more problems have triggered a huge appetite for crypto. Similar to the Turks, Argentines have shifted their focus to the world’s largest stablecoin – USDT.
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