Lebanon's Economic Rebirth Through Bitcoin

The World Bank described Lebanon’s economic collapse as one of the “most severe global crises since the mid-nineteenth century.” After protests in 2019, banks closed and most people lost access to savings, while US dollar deposits became “Lollars” worth a fraction of face value. The Lebanese pound fell from 1,500 to the dollar in October 2019 to around 89,000 at the time of the article, and the country defaulted on its debt for the first time in March 2020.

The article hears from Samar Hawa of Rebirth Beirut, which had begun accepting bitcoin donations for projects such as street lighting, and Georges Haddad, who returned home to found VaultKi, a seed phrase storage company. Haddad presents bitcoin as a response to fragile fiat money and points to the roughly $6 billion a year sent home by Lebanese expatriates. The article also suggests Lebanon’s untapped energy resources could support bitcoin mining.