To fully understand the crypto market, we need to appreciate that people around the planet view it differently. By looking at recent news stories from two examples of emerging markets, we can start to get a feel for how crypto means different things to everyone who uses it, and why that’s a good thing. There’s a lot going on here, so let’s make a start!
How Is Crypto Linked to Happiness in Bhutan?
Bhutan has provided one of the most remarkable crypto stories of the last few years. This landlocked South Asian country has become known for several things, starting with its unique focus on Gross National Happiness (GNH) rather than Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It’s also gained a reputation for forward-looking environmental policies that have seen it called one of the world’s most eco-friendly countries. Could Bitcoin be the key to aligning these goals of happiness and eco-friendliness?
Known as the Thunder Dragon Kingdom, Bhutan only allowed its residents to watch television from 1999 onward, which makes it astonishing to consider that it’s in the top five countries with the most BTC. Impressively, they’ve stacked more than $1 billion worth of Bitcoin at a relatively low cost and without damaging the planet. Bhutan’s cunning plan was to use natural hydroelectric resources, which abound here, to mine these tokens from 2019 onward. So far, their plans include increasing the mining capacity to 600 megawatts.
What does this have to do with happiness? Binance CEO Richard Teng recently visited the country, which sits high in the Himalayas. He said that he believes that cryptocurrency culture fits perfectly with the nation’s approach of measuring its output in terms of happiness and well-being rather than purely economic numbers. Teng pointed out that “crypto is about financial freedom and financial inclusion” and went on to say that it solves many problems to help boost our well-being.
Kazakhstan Plans CryptoCity and a National Reserve
While Bhutan mines Bitcoin and adds it to a fast-growing national reserve, there is little sign of digital assets being used in the Thunder Dragon Kingdom as an everyday currency. This approach has already been tried in El Salvador – with limited success – but Kazakhstan is set to be the next country to introduce Bitcoin for daily use as a currency.
This comes hot on the heels of the news that the National Bank of Kazakhstan is looking to establish a national cryptocurrency reserve, although it isn’t clear if it will only include Bitcoin or other coins too. In addition to this move, the Central Asian country is planning to create a zone known as CryptoCity. This is part of Kazakhstan´s moves to become a crypto hub in the region. While details are scarce, it seems that CryptoCity will be a pilot zone where we find out whether it’s viable for cryptos to achieve mainstream use as a payment method for goods and services.
Not everyone is aware that digital assets can already be used to pay for a variety of things online. The emergence of Bitcoin slots on casino sites is a good example. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other leading tokens can be used to add funds that are then used to play any of the site’s themed slots. Withdrawals can then be carried out in the same manner, sending winnings back to the player’s crypto wallet.
This helps to explain why crypto slots have become so popular, as they use the enhanced security and privacy of digital assets to make a highly popular activity even easier to carry out. There’s no need to link the casino account to a credit card or bank account, making it a simple process that inspires confidence. It’s easy to see how this payment process could be used to improve other industries.
The SlotsLV YouTube channel reveals some of the most popular Bitcoin slots people are playing with their cryptos, with Leprechaun’s Golden Trail one of the titles that reveals the gameplay and how people can start spinning the reels easily. With Tether now available for purchase through Visa and MasterCard, the way we buy digital currencies to play games like these is set to get a lot easier.
What Will the Future Bring?
As digital assets become more and more mainstream across the planet, we can expect to see them used in different ways, as we’ve seen from the examples of Bhutan and Kazakhstan. This demonstrates the flexibility of digital cash and suggests that it could open up new possibilities that haven’t yet been discussed.
While these tokens should continue to offer a fast, secure payment method, we should be open to the idea of using them in different ways, possibly even as a way of increasing financial freedom and overall happiness, as we’ve seen in Bhutan!