|
 Although absolute figures are hard to come by, Greek interest has
surged in the online "cryptocurrency", which is out of the reach of
monetary authorities and can be transferred at the touch of a
smartphone screen.
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.
Using bitcoin could allow Greeks to do one of the things that
capital controls were put in place this week to prevent: transfer
money out of their bank accounts and, if they wish, out of the
country.
"When people are trying to move money out of the country and the
state is stopping that from taking place, bitcoin is the only way to
move any value," said Adam Vaziri, a board member of the UK Digital
Currency Association.
"There aren't any other options unless you buy diamonds, and that's
very difficult to move."
But Marinos said the bitcoin buyers' main aim was to shield their
money against the prospect that Greece might leave the euro zone and
convert all the deposits in Greek banks into a greatly devalued
national currency. If voters reject the demands of international
creditors in a referendum on Sunday, this becomes much more likely.
"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."
VOLATILE CURRENCY
That said, the value of a bitcoin, a web-based digital currency
invented six years ago that floats freely and is not backed by a
government or central bank, has been highly volatile.
It peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing almost 70
percent in less than a month after a hacking attack on the
Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in early 2014.
This week, as Greece defaulted on a debt to the IMF, the price
jumped to a 3-1/2-month high of $268 on the Bitstamp exchange - up
more than 20 percent since the start of June - while the number of
daily transactions reached a record 150,917.
[to top of second column] |
Most bitcoin-watchers reckon the digital currency's rise is mostly
due to speculators betting that capital controls would trigger heavy
demand. In March-April 2013, when Cyprus clamped down on bank
withdrawals, bitcoin rocketed almost 700 percent.
Coinbase, one of the world's biggest bitcoin wallet providers, which
is not currently accessible to Greeks, said it had seen huge
interest from Italy, Spain and Portugal.
It said the average daily sign-ups from euro zone countries had
increased 350 percent since the start of June. Average daily bitcoin
purchases from the euro zone this week were up 250 percent compared
with June's average.
On June 20, Greece got its first bitcoin "ATM", in a family-run
bookstore in Acharnes on the outskirts of Athens.
There, if they had them, customers could insert euros and in return
receive bitcoin at the current exchange rate, which they would scan
into an electronic "wallet" on their smartphones.
But with Greeks having to form long queues at bank ATMs just to
receive a meager 60 euros' cash a day, this machine has seen no
customers since talks with creditors broke down on Saturday.
"Before Saturday, there was some very limited interest, mostly
customers asking what it does and how it works," said Maria Varila,
an employee in the shop. "Since Saturday, however, when all hell
broke loose, there has literally been zero interest."
(Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos and Dimitrios
Michalakis in Athens; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
