Crypto Remittances: Disrupting the International Financial System

The need for a crypto-powered decentralised protocol to facilitate the transfer of monetary value across borders has never been higher. Before I get to my graphical representation of the crypto-remittance ecosystem, I want to provide context through a few pointers.

Source: https://twitter.com/TheAfricaReport/status/1429715797505724418

1. Western Union suspends money transfers to Afghanistan at a time when it needs it the most (Remittances make up 4% of Afghanistan’s GDP)
2. Legacy firms slow to add cryptocurrency optionality, despite rising demand and adoption in the emerging world
3. Blockchain Technology Use Case Pie Chart —Cross Border Remittances at roughly 16%
4. Crypto adoption is witnessing a meteoric rise through P2P platforms and remittances
5. How Common Is Crypto?
6. Financial Times Deep Dive into the Fintech Revolution disrupting Remittances

Source: https://twitter.com/FeZunzunegui/status/1428666541898407936

Additionally, Murtaza in his blog “A Billion Here, a Billion There: Crypto Remittances Are Suddenly Real Money” masterfully highlights the use case for cryptocurrency in cross-border remittances. To further solidify his argument, I want to share the graphical representation of the data I have curated on cryptocurrency remittances from the recent report from Chainalysis on the Crypto Adoption Index 2021.

Source: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2021-global-crypto-adoption-index

In my analysis, I decided to group the countries ranked above by primary geographic cluster (or continent) to get a sense of where the largest cluster on-chain value was received.

Source: Screenshot from Excel

Please find the graphical representation below to give a clear picture on where the on-chain value received is distributed by geographical cluster.

Closing Thoughts

While I understand that the geographical clusters with the higher on-chain value received are more populated, it is clear where the cryptocurrency remittances are proving to be most helpful — the developing world. With countries like Nigeria, Vietnam, and the Philippines leading the charge against the legacy financial institutions, it is only a matter of time before crypto remittances become the default modus operandi of transferring monetary value across borders.