Economic ambiguity spurs Google searches for Bitcoin in South Africa

South Africa is experiencing significant financial uncertainty as President Jacob Zuma resigned from the post amid corruption charges. Now as the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa is trying to fix from his ends, South African citizens are trying to help themselves out from the veracity of economic crisis. The reports say that there is a significant spur in the number of citizens engaging with Bitcoin and alikes.

The Google search result in South Africa shows that as of writing the searches for Bitcoin on the leading search engine platform constitutes the highest in comparison to other countries (among the top 66 nations by search traffic).

Search in the number of Searches

The notoriety of Bitcoin appears to be proceeding to surge in South Africa despite the recent declining price value of the leading cryptocurrency. When the data was last checked it accounted for the highest number of Google searches for Bitcoin in proportion to the size of searches generated by top trade search-volume nations. The report revealed that in the past 12 months the average number of monthly searched for "bitcoin" in South Africa is estimated between 100,000 and 1,000,000.

South African peer-to-peer bitcoin trade volume also seems to be expanding, as for the first time since January this past week the weekly rand-value of localbitcoins trading exceeded 20,000,000 (approximately USD 1.7 million). Mati Greenspan, a market analyst for notable social trading and asset brokerage, Etoro, recently professed that the platform is experiencing an intense rush in the number of South African bitcoin traders. He further stated that “In South Africa, the number of new users trading bitcoin through eToro rose by 671% from January to the end of November last year over the same period in 2016, more than the 574% overall growth.”

Worries about Economic Disruption

Despite Cyril Ramaphosa's efforts to reinstitute new life in the South African economy, the people seemed to be concerned about instability it can cause. The radical land reforms opted by Ramaphosa are working as a catalyst to trigger new interest in cryptocurrencies, as the citizens feel that it may provide them with some financial relief.

President Ramaphosa recently accelerated the implementation of his policy which asked for forceful redistribution of white-owned property to black citizens. Admittedly, this is for those black citizens who do not own farmland, but this extreme move has aroused anxieties from leading global rating agency, Moody’s. Notwithstanding the solicitudes, many are assuming that South Africa may be able to carefully avoid gaining a fourth credit rating decline in less than a calendar year because of the depression in the cost of securing the nation’s sovereign debt against default accepting credit-default swaps.

Mr. Ramaphosa lately published a statement attempting to convince Moody’s that the “accelerated land reform will unfold within a clear legal framework and without negatively affecting economic growth, agricultural production, and food security.”

Source: Applancer