3 Major Ways Asia Leads Cryptocurrency Adoption

While the West has a propaganda machine campaign against cryptocurrencies currently, in the East we might argue, they are years ahead. In the west you can’t use credit cards to acquire them and even Facebook has outright banned all Ads about them. That’s fierce.

Recently however the way South Korea and Japan is doing business with the future of cryptocurrencies shows a very different picture of the reality of the front lines of integration with mainstream institutions.

1. South Korea’s Kakao to Integrate Cryptocurrency For 12,000 Merchants & Millions of Users

Kakao is a multi-app Empire not unlike the Tencent of South Korea.

KakaoPay, which registered 3 million users within its debut month, will integrate cryptocurrencies into its local application to allow users to send and receive cryptocurrencies. This is like if Coinbase was integrating with merchants.

So basically, once KakaoPay integrates cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, all the other Kakao apps would become compatible with cryptocurrency payments.

South Korea has fierce demand and such a loyal and rising strong for cryptocurrency from local investors that led the likes of Kakao to focus on addressing the market.

South Korea’s largest hotel booking platform Yeogi Eottae has already secured a partnership with the country’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb to integrate cryptocurrencies. A Taiwanese airline even accepts payments with cryptocurrencies now.

2. Ripple has Received a National Integration with Japan’s Banking Consortium

This means Ripple has made it to mainstream banking circa late 2018 and 2019. According to Bloomberg, Ripple the U.S. digital payments company is working with 61 Japanese banks on an application that will enable customers to settle cash transfers instantly around the clock, the latest effort to apply blockchain technology in finance.

We always knew that was the most immediately valuable use of the blockchain and Ripple is making it happen.

3. There is Widespread Speculation China will Lift its Crypto Exchange Ban

Listen China cannot afford to be left behind on trends now that Korea and Japan are leading. This is especially true as China’s Ethereum, NEO is gaining traction and a larger role in the market cap of the Crypto Singularity.

China cracked down on cryptocurrencies in September 2017, with authorities banning bitcoin trading and initial coin offerings. China’s relationship to ICOs and Bitcoin trading needs due regulation.

Banning anonymous traders and taxing cryptocurrency trading seems to be the new trend. However Governments putting the squeeze on Bitcoin actually makes it more resilient.

Asia’s Role in the Rise of Cryptocurrencies in 2017

It’s no secret that Japanese view Bitcoin much differently than Americans, and that South Korean trading and investors fueled the entire cryptocurrency market to some extent in 2017.

It’s clear from various data recorded all year long that countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore and more have dominated the cryptocurrency economy.

In an age of hard forks and fake ICO scams, it’s somewhat surprising that Asia is embracing cryptocurrencies more than Americans or Europeans.

Where banks like J.P. Morgan view them as a threat (risk factor) to its business model, rapid adoption and integration is more what we are hearing from the far East. Perhaps the mighty American dollar $ is worried it could lose its fiat standing as the global default store of value.