Levant Experiments

State weakness is endemic within the Levant and the wider Middle East.

The worst example is, ofcourse, Syria.

Recent reports found that searches for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have increased in one of the world’s worst war zones. Again, there are several things that would make it attractive to people living in the country.

The Syrian regime is notoriously predatory and regularly seizes the assets of people they suspect of being sympathetic to the various rebel groups in the country.

The country is split between a complex patchwork of fiefdoms, all of them appear to be experimenting with the use of bitcoin to generate funds for survival. We know that several Islamist groups in the province of Idlib have turned to it to escape Western sanctions and government looting.

The country’s north (often referred to as Rojave) is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syran Democratic Forces, and has slowly become a hub of experimentation for the burgeoning industry.

The Syrian Kurds are ideologically influenced by the writings of Abdullah “Apo’’ Ocalan, a Kurdish intellectual and anarchist theorist who led Turkey’s Kurds in a long-running guerilla war against the Turkish state.

Ocalan has spent the best part of two decades in a Turkish dungeon yet his anarchist worldview, “Democratic confederalism,” holds sway throughout the Syrian Kurdish movement.

The idea is inherently hostile to nation-​states, central banks and bureaucracy. It argues that the Kurds must create a decentralised multinational commune in which power is placed at the lowest level. Taking this into account, it isn’t surprising that bitcoin would appear attractive to such groups.

When the Syrian war erupted, Syrian President Assad withdrew his army from the north to fight against rebels closer to the capital. When he did that, the Kurds took their chance and seized control of Rojave, governing it largely according to the philosophy of Ocalan.

By all metrics, the project has been a success. The north of Syria is a relative haven in the surrounding chaos, even managing to survive and fight off the ISIS invasion of 2014.

In 2018, Turkey invaded a small portion of Kurdish held territory called Afrin, situated in Syria’s north west. After the invasion, there were reports of atrocities being committed against the Kurdish citizens in the area, as the Turkish army and their proxies ravaged the population.

Much of this took the form of theft of property and assets, and holding people hostage to extort ransom. These tales of financial extortion by an invading army have given new energy to the drive to secure Kurdish financial independence.

This experience (common in Kurdish history), plus the fact that they are surrounded by hostile states who have heavily sanctioned them and would love nothing more than to see the upstart Kurds crushed has driven the region to seek finance from alternative sources.

The continuous threat of state violence would make bitcoin attractive to many people. The currency benefits from superior ease of transport compared to conventional money.

It can be sent across the world in mere minutes, or be downloaded onto a hardware ‘wallet’ the size of a USB stick. The fact that it relies upon blockchain means that it doesn’t need to go through banks or clearing houses and, therefore, cannot be sanctioned.

Previously, if someone wanted to flee tyranny or conflict, they would often have to leave their assets behind or smuggle it on their person, making them open to exploitation at borders or robbery by corrupt or vengeful security forces. Now, a person’s entire net worth can be held completely in the digital realm if they choose.

And neighbouring Lebanon is adopting the same solution.

The 2020 Beirut explosion came on top of a large refugee influx from the Syrian war and constant political instability.

Continuous corruption within the country’s banking sector and a depreciating local currency has meant that many Lebanese banks have opted to lock the accounts and limit the amount being withdrawn. Fearing a plummet in the rate of their wealth, many are opting to circumvent the banks altogether by storing their wealth or getting paid in crypto.

Further to the south-west, growing numbers of Palestinians have been using bitcoin for years as a means of evading the heavy borders and internet security which divides their population.

The Palestinian Territories are split between the densely packed Gaza Strip ruled by the brutal regime of Hamaz and the West Bank which is occupied by a heavy Israeli military presence. The Israelis are suspicious of any one who seeks to send money from the richer West Bank to Gaza so have implemented blocks on transactions and the shutting down of bank accounts which send to the Strip.

Likewise, Hamaz are known to experiment with cryptocurrency to evade Israel’s security measures. However, evidence mostly shows that currency is used by civilians for remittances and international transactions and to prevent the seizure of family wealth.

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Source: https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/the-worlds-poor-are-turning-to-bitcoin-221b2957a175?source=rss——-8—————–cryptocurrency