Some Greeks use bitcoin to escape capital controls
Capital controls now make it impossible for the Greek to wire money outside of the country (1). As they are afraid of returning back to the drachma they show interest in the bitcoin to transfer money.
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/03/us-eurozone-greece-bitcoin-idUSKCN0PD1B420150703
New customers depositing at least 50 euros with BTCGreece, the only Greece-based bitcoin exchange, open only to Greeks, rose by 400 percent between May and June, according to its founder Thanos Marinos, who put the number at “a few thousand”. The average deposit quadrupled to around 700 euros.
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On June 20, Greece got its first bitcoin “ATM”, in a family-run bookstore in Acharnes on the outskirts of Athens.
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“A lot of people are keeping all the bitcoins they buy on our platform, until they understand what to do with them,” Marinos said. “In their eyes, now they have bitcoins, they’re safe.”
Quite a volatile reasoning.
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(1) See also:
People in Greece can’t buy things on #iTunes because of the country’s capital controls
▻http://uk.businessinsider.com/greece-itunes-purchases-blocked-by-capital-controls-2015-7?r=US
That’s because Apple is a foreign company, and Greeks are prevented from sending money abroad.
This also causes issues with #iCloud.