Can crypto help Afghans? Some think so

Crypto enthusiasts say it’s the only solution to the cash crunch that was created when the Taliban took over

The first time Sulaiman Bin Shah used crypto was as a Fulbright scholar in California. He had been hearing about the decentralised coins for some time and wanted to try them out, Qazet.az reports.

As a student of international trade and economic diplomacy he was fascinated by the idea of blockchain and decentralised banking, so in 2017 he bought some Ethereum and Litecoin. By the time he returned to Afghanistan the following year, he tried to explain cryptocurrency to his friends, but found them looking at him in wonderment.

They all thought I was crazy, buying invisible coins.”

Bin Shah, who would go on to be a deputy at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry in late 2021, said he had to start at the beginning, explaining what a ledger was and how it could be handled without a brick-and-mortar bank.

“I had to explain what it meant for everyone on the system to have access to these currencies without needing a centralised bank or financial institutions. They all just laughed at me,” he told Al Jazeera.

As cryptocurrencies started to gain international attention, more Afghans became fascinated with them and small groups of people found ways to begin trading in them, especially as at least one crypto commodity exchange had been started in Kabul by 2019. But it did not really take off until last year when the Taliban takeover of the country shut Afghanistan out of the traditional global economy, forcing more than 30 million Afghans to come up with new ways to access cash for their daily expenses.