Hong Kong newspaper The Apple Daily recently had a full page advertisement about Bitcoin.
According to translations, the ad reads, “Banks, today you’re not ditching me, I’m ditching you.” After the Bitcoin symbol, the ad continues in English. “Bitcoin will never ditch you.” The ad continued with a text on how Bitcoin can’t be shut down or controlled by a government or company.
The text also alluded to the Genesis Block and the financial crisis of 2008, the time when Bitcoin was created. The financial crisis of 2008 was also alluded to in Bitcoin’s Genesis Block.
The Apply Daily is a Hong Kong-based independent newspaper that also became news itself when its CEO Jimmy Lai got arrested on Aug. 10 for violating the recently passed National Security Law. He was later released. Some people posited that the Bitcoin advertisement that reads it could not be “shut down” could refer to the arrest, which threatened to shut down the newspaper.
Some replies on Twitter questioned how the Hong Kong dollar could be exchanged for cryptocurrency given the nation’s current situation. To which one user inferred that foreign crypto exchanges and p2p exchanges are used to support the ecosystem, in addition to using physical cash.
While U.S.-based users remain the largest Bitcoin hodlers, many countries have experienced increased Bitcoin usage which analysts point to political uncertainty as to the primary motivation of using the benchmark cryptocurrency.
In the news early this year, Argentinians were dumping more pesos for Bitcoin because of inflation concerns. Volume, according to Arcane Research has increased 1,028% in Argentine pesos, 407% in BTC, and 139% in USD since 2018. This represents an immense market opportunity that led Binance to establish P2P platforms in 5 countries in South America to get a piece of the market share.
Still, while Bitcoin could have potential use cases in these countries, some people do not want Bitcoin to become a political tool. One user said that at the end of the day, Bitcoin is belief-agnostic. Just like how technology is neither good nor bad, it doesn’t matter to Bitcoin whether you are pro or anti, because everyone can use it.
