Google Searches For BTC Are Increasing In Cuba: Report

Google searches for Bitcoin are increasing in Cuba according to a new report which shows that Cubans are getting heavily interested in Bitcoin and other major digital payment options like PayPal which are unavailable. In today’s latest crypto news, we are reading more on the report.

Cuba is seeing an influx of BTC-related activity as the BTC interest is on the rise in the country. According to the data from Google Trends, Google searches for BTC in Cuba now rank second in terms of Bitcoin interest over the past 30 days. the island nation follows Nigeria which remained at the top in search of Bitcoin on Google since April 2020. The rest of the top five regions searching for BTC comprise the African countries of South Africa, Ghana, and Cameroon.

Cuba’s rise in Bitcoin-related searches is coming during the report of Cubans increasingly turning to Bitcoin in order to avoid sanctions imposed by the United States to gain access to digital financial services. As major payment companies like PayPal and Stripe which are not available for Cuban nationals, the coronavirus pandemic imposed travel restrictions which made payments even more complicated.

In later October, the local programmer and Youtuber Erich Garica called on the nation to use the number one cryptocurrency for cross-border remittances claiming that anyone who wants to send payments to the Island Should buy Bitcoin and send it through a Cuban crypto exchange BitRemesas:

 “We do not have access to payment platforms like Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, or Union Pay. We do not have access to anything, to any of those resources. What technology has allowed us to dream, see other scenarios? Blockchain and Bitcoin.”

Back in April 2020, Italian-Cuban entrepreneur Mario Mazzola launched the first decentralized bitcoin exchange in Cuba named Qbita. According to Mazzola, the new exchange aims to allow the people in the country to buy and sell BTC as major crypto services like LocalBitcoins and PAxul are not accessible in the country.

Globally speaking, The crypto hype bubble that rocketed Bitcoin and Ethereum into the public eye and made them household names when they reached all-time highs was also accompanied by a surge in search interest of people who were scrambling to find out what the fuss was all about. However, the recent crypto surge on the markets did not come with a change in Google search volume – in fact, the volume has been decreasing.