A young man joined bitcoins for two and a half years to leave the country but lost part of the coins after the brokerage house was closed.
In Algeria Bitcoin is not legal.
Cryptomoedas for some are a form of investment that can yield lamborguines and millions of dollars in the account. For others, however, digital currency is used the way it was created, a way of living according to ideals of freedom, being a weapon against tyrannical governments and an alternative to the current economic system that is in decline and keeps people in poverty.
In an account published in the reddit this Saturday, a resident of Algeria told how he and his brother have joined fractions of Bitcoin Bank over the past two years to try to escape the country that suffers from extreme poverty, it has become an addiction and has almost ended in tragedy.
After 3 years finding ways to earn bitcoins on the internet, with faucets or performing tasks, the government closed a brokerage house in the country and with this they lost a part of the bitcoins that were being gathered to finance a change of life.
„We both have been fans of the cryptomoins since early 2017, we heard about them on a Teamspeak server, but at that time we couldn’t buy, we stayed working on some services to make some portion of money and once we had at least $100 (of our shit money) we would buy Bitcoin on Bitcoin groups or Facebook. Since we don’t have international credit cards“. Says the user identified as CyreexCS.
Poverty reaches 20% of the population
In Algeria cryptomorphs are banned, the country of North Africa faces widespread and growing poverty, Algeria suffers from frequent terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Poverty affects 20% of the population (6.3 million). According to recent studies, 14 million Algerians live below the poverty line, living on only R$ 7 per day.
Intending to change their lives in another country, they have dedicated their lives to joining fractions of Bitcoin in the last two and a half years, achieving a total of R$10,000. For this reason their brother took the matter very seriously, nothing else mattered but to collect fractions of the digital currency.
„My brother took it very seriously (to collect bitcoins), because he wanted to leave our country and study abroad, cryptomeda was for him the best way to keep money and to pay the monthly fees, so every penny he earned was put in his accounts and he deprived himself of anything else“.
Bitcoin is not legalized in Algeria
The problem is that the cryptomoins are forbidden, and one of the brokers he used to keep part of the bitcoins was closed, so he couldn’t draw the coins and went into despair.
„We woke up one day and found out that one of the things we feared the most happened, an account with $ 480 was closed, he started crying and went crazy, locked himself in his room and did not want to talk to anyone. Later he left the room with blood in his hand and fainted“.
The young man survived his injuries after undergoing surgery, but continued mourning the loss saying all the time that he wants to leave the „shit country.
„My parents decided that my brother needs to go to therapy as soon as he leaves the hospital, but they really don’t know why. My brother doesn’t want to talk to them about cryptomorphs, all he says is that this country is shit and that he can’t stand living here anymore and that he will kill himself if he stays here one more day“.
His brother also says that everything that happened was his own fault, for having used a brokerage house in a country whose Bitcoin is forbidden, and besides, people who have been in the market for longer know that the ideal is to keep the coins in their own wallet.
„I’m not here to blame anyone, I will never deny that he is responsible for what happened and that his greed was the problem and I understand that some of you can blame us for opening accounts in countries that forbid it“.
Having cryptomorphs is not within everyone’s reach
Having cryptomoedas is a facility that many people can enjoy, either to invest or to use, here in Brazil and in many parts of the world it is possible to buy Bitcoin in less than 5 minutes. For others, however, the currency is a difficult luxury to obtain, even if it is only a few fractions.
The importance of Bitcoin in the lives of young people has become a priority in life, the result of a poor country with few opportunities. The loss of coins was to see part of the dream being destroyed, years of hard work earning crumbs daily.
But as his brother said, they will keep trying. We hope to be able to publish in a while that they managed to change their lives with Bitcoin’s help.