Top 8 Caribbean Crypto Countries and the #1 industry that’s being disrupted.

This is not a secret, Cryptocurrency adoption is growing around the world, and the 2021 Triple A reports I looked at showed that we now have an estimated 300 million crypto users globally and over 18,000 businesses already accepting cryptocurrency payments. Counted in all of that, is the Caribbean of course, as currently, there are over 214,000 Caribbean Crypto owners and eight particular Caribbean countries are leading the adoption of this fast emerging industry.

Here’s what I found.

The top 8 Crypto using Caribbean countries are:

107,752 Crypto users in Haiti – 1% of population

39,214 Crypto users in Jamaica – 1% of population

35,851 Crypto users in Puerto Rico- 1% of population

16,377 Crypto users in Trinidad & Tobago – 1% of population

5,474 Crypto users in Suriname- 1% of population

3,576 Crypto users in The Bahamas- 1% of population

3,569 Crypto users in Belizeans – 1% of population

3,022 Crypto users in Barbados- 1% of population

All of this Caribbean Crypto user data is also part of the global picture that also revealed the top 5 Crypto using countries in the world right now.

They are:

Top Countries

1. India (100 million)
2. USA (27 million)
3. Nigeria (13 million)
4. Vietnam (5.9 million)
5. United Kingdom (3.3 million)

The Triple A Report also gave us the Owners Demographics

• 79% male, 21% female
• 58% are aged under 34
• 82% have a Bachelor’s degree or higher
• 36% have an annual income over US$100k

It’s fascinating, especially since Bitcoin, is only 13years old and it’s estimated by the Edge Market Report that there will be just over one billion Global crypto users by the end of 2022

CARIBBEAN TRENDS TO WATCH

With that in mind, there are two trends I am also watching in the Caribbean Crypto Space and they are Crypto remittances and Crypto exchanges.

According to World Bank figures, officially-recorded remittance flows to low and middle-income countries were around US$540 billion in 2020 – a number that was barely dented from its previous year total of US$548 billion by the COVID pandemic. Remittances are a big business.

So it is clear to me that Crypto remittances will shake things up in the Caribbean. Why? It’s already trending that way globally. You see “Digital remittances and cross-border transfers reached almost US$95.96 billion in 2020 with15.8% of remitters already using cryptocurrency for money transfer. Additionally, Crypto remittance is 388 times faster and 127 times cheaper than traditional remittance methods” being offered by the traditional remittance brands and banks.

Additionally, from the 1729.com report ” Crypto and blockchain offers workers around the world the opportunity to save money on fees by cutting out middlemen, radically accelerating the speed of their transactions, and increasing security & peace of mind when sending their hard-earned salaries across borders to their families.“

According to 1729, “As a story in the April issue of the global tech publication Rest of World about Maria Salgado, a Mexican worker in the U.S., highlighted, “Before Bitcoin, like most migrants, she would send her money via the international transfer companies Western Union, MoneyGram, or Vigo. They all charged her, on average, $10 for every $200 she sent. Meanwhile, companies like Mexican crypto exchange Bitso charge commissions as low as $1 per $1,000 sent.”

Fact is, there is no coincidence that Haiti and Jamaica especially, where the value of remittances as a share of GDP is  23.18 % and 23.6% respectively, now have the highest amount of Crypto users.

They both have large global Diaspora communities. At the moment, senders of remittances are paying heavy fees, so it reasons to me that when you can cut fees but cutting out these high fee middlemen, hardworking people overseas can retain more of their earnings which then goes out into the local economy.

But the middlemen will not go down without a fight, look for paid for traditional media narratives and content marketing campaigns that will seek to sow doubt and fear monger around scams and pyramid schemes. It’s also possible that the current traditional middlemen-type businesses like banks and investment companies will also seek to offer Funds, that offer businesses and retain consumers the opportunity to invest in Cryptocurrencies through them, in the style of REITs (Real estate investment trusts). It is going to be interesting to watch things unfold this year.

So yeah, a shakeup in our Caribbean remittance ecosystem is inevitable.

The second trend I’m watching is around crypto exchanges and which one will dominate the mindshare and market share in the Caribbean. Currently, based on the country and the type of card that you’re using ( Visa and Mastercard) and the issuing Caribbean bank’s openness, CEX and Kraken are being used most by Caribbean crypto users.

Super interesting, since FTX the 3rd largest global crypto exchange is headquartered in the Bahamas and Binance the largest crypto exchange in the world is registered in Cayman. Further WiPay, a online payments company born in Trinidad but based now in Jamaica, announced a couple of days ago that they are partnering with Binance to make that crypto exchange accessible to the Caribbean eventually. Currently, you cannot use Binance directly with any Caribbean-based Visa or Mastercards. Even though there are workarounds via other exchanges if you ask seasoned Crypto users.

That said, global and Caribbean crypto has a way to go. In the Caribbean especially there are issues of digital illiteracy, financial illiteracy, lack of trust in government and other issues as shared in this excellent blog post by fellow Caribbean Tech Blogger MIchelle Marius.

For me, it’s exciting times, it is a time to realise that the global financial system is being reordered and seemingly being aligned with the Rise of The Rest culture – a somewhat level of the playing field for the many, rearranging and reducing the financial power of the few. Well, at least that’s the value system behind the creation of technologies like Blockchain and Bitcoin. The unfolding over the next few years will be telling.

I believe that it’s an exciting time to be alive, to experience, experiment and start a business in these fast-changing Fintech and Blockchain industries. The opportunities are abundant if you choose to do your homework and if you were around and in the Tech industry in the mid to late 90s and understood that trajectory until now, then you will see even more possibilities.

So, if you think this is some fringe sector that can be banned or outlawed into irrelevance, think again. Currently the global market cap for Crypto is US$3trillion dollars and the small, medium and big brands are in the sector accepting payments and creating fresh ways to integrate the inevitable global adoption of this financial sector. Take a look at that chart below from Triple-A Report.

I’m going to be writing, podcasting and doing more events around this in 2022 and we’re going to start this week with me hosting This Week in Caribbean Tech Podcast Twitter Space on Tuesday January 25th and 8pm EST ( Jamaica time) Set a reminder here.

Data Sources: Triple A and 1729

Additional reading: Crypto-Caribbean: The World’s Most Idyllic Blockchain Sandbox