Buy vegetables using bitcoins!

2019 seems to the year for Cryptos, with many projects maturing into apps and services making it easy for every joes and Jennys to adopt it into their investment portfolios. But, if you are thinking, what you can do or buy with cryptos, the answer is quite a lot. However, just not from wherever you want. But, if you, by any chance, are planning to buy a Bugatti with bitcoins, then, of course, there is a way. All you’ll need to do is calling Post Oak Motors Cars in Houston and throw in around 753.29 bitcoin to get a Veyron to your doorsteps.

That, however, is happening in the US. And that famous Bessarabian market in the heart of Ukraine’s capital, the city of Kyiv, is now offering an option to purchasing fruits and vegetables with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Yes, Cryptos are making its baby steps into the common man’s world. It is clear that for the Cryptos to break the barriers to mass adoption, it needs to fulfil the common man’s daily essential and expenses. AND this is where the significance of Bahrain comes into spotlight.

Not saying that you can right away hop into a market and buy vegetables using bitcoins, but that the Kingdom has come a long way ahead in making such buying a reality in the near future, especially with projects like e-Dinar.

Crypto-friendly Bahrain

The latest report by bitcoinexchangeguide, says that the Kingdom is becoming “increasingly cypto-friendly” with each passing day. Supporting the view is the number of firms working within the country’s ‘crypto-regulatory sandbox’. At the moment, 30 companies are currently approved by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) for its regulatory sandbox, half of which are crypto service providers including exchanges. Four companies have been approved this year and three of them (AT Payments Llc, Zpx Pte Ltd., and Bitcove Bahrain) are crypto service providers. According to the CBB report, up until the end of 2018, 35 per cent of the companies approved for the regulatory sandbox were crypto exchanges and 11pc were other provider crypto services such as ATMs and tokenization.

When including the three companies approved this year, the number of crypto companies that have joined the regulatory sandbox reaches 50pc of the total. So, as you can see now, things are developing pretty much faster here in the Kingdom and with relevant legislation. The final rules on a range of activities relevant to crypto assets were published on Feb. 25. “The CBB crypto-asset rules deal with the rules for licensing, governance, minimum capital, control environment, risk management, AML/CFT, standards of business conduct, avoidance of conflicts of interest, reporting, and cyber security for crypto-asset services,” the CBB described. Dalal Buhejji, senior manager financial services at the EDB, told ComputerWeekly, in an interview, “Bahrain has moved very fast over the last few years and put in the right framework to support fintech growth.”

“We want fintechs that want to expand in the GCC region to come and test out their products in the Bahrain central bank regulatory sandbox.” He also made clear that the Kingdom is forcing“ no rules about recruiting locals, and fintechs can bring people in from elsewhere.” This, according to her, is in contrast to what is in practice in many GCC countries w h i c h h av e quotas about how many local staffs have to be employed. Another advantage, she said, is that the “government does not insist that the companies must be partly locally owned, which is the case in other GCC countries.

“We allow 100 per cent foreign ownership in Bahrain,” she told ComputerWeekly. In a nutshell, the CBB is giving companies working here a clear direction on what they have to aim to create a successful business and make Bahrain a leader in the blockchain business. It might be also interesting to know that a University in Bahrain has announced that it would provide diplomas on blockchain soon, in association with Learning Machine, a startup that is used to verify official records. As Khalid Hamad, Executive Director of Banking Supervision of the Central Bank of Bahrain, has said, “The goal is to always keep up the pace with the innovations that are happening now.”

So, very soon you will be able to spend your bitcoins to buy vegetables just like with your dinar which is now worth 0.00050 Bitcoin.