Despite the downward trend in crypto that has been with us for a while, the demand for cryptocurrency appears to be the breaking crypto news in some countries. One of them is Uganda, a country where nearly three out of four people don’t have bank accounts – and where Binance recently expanded, signing more than 40,000 users in the first week of its operation.
Binance’s goal was clear – it established Binance Uganda as a local subsidiary in the country this October, making most of the strong appetite among unbanked Ugandans for purchasing Bitcoin or Ethereum, the two coins that the new Binance unit (in Uganda) is currently listing.
The wait is over! Binance Uganda Will Open Trading For BTC/UGX, ETH/UGX on 2018/10/24 https://t.co/KdZ49VoZWx pic.twitter.com/L1ekbsmNhc
— BinanceUG (@BinanceUG) October 22, 2018
According to one paper by Stanford University researchers that was recently published in the American Economic Journal, more than 74% of Ugandan households are now unbanked. As such, the chief financial officer of the company, Wei Zhou, told news outlets:
“They [users] just have to have money within the mobile payment system. They don’t have to have bank accounts.”
Even though Binance only offers trading of cryptocurrencies for other cryptocurrencies, its newly established unit in Uganda is partnering up with a local mobile payments provider that will convert fiat to crypto (or vice versa). Just like its Malta-based parent, Binance Uganda has no bank account.
Previously, Ugandans who wanted to enter the crypto waters were reliant on peer-to-peer exchanges such as LocalBitcoins or services such as the Zimbabwean exchange Golix.
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