The biggest bank of Ukraine Privat Bank is going to the government
Today the government of Ukraine, on a day of Saint Nicholas , gave us quite sophisticated present in a form of nationalization of Privat bank which is the biggest one in our country. More than 20 millions of people are holding their money in this place, including salaries, scholarships, pensions.
The government blames bank in accumulation of 140 billion hryvnias hole. This so called hole was created because of countless of unconfirmed loans, which is a common practice across the globe.
Nationalization of Privat bank was a surprise moment for all of us in Ukraine. Lots of people unfortunately has left without no money in their pockets. Today most of the ATMs just simply do not work. Hopefully, we can pay with our credit card for now. Thus we won’t be starving.
This situation is really weird. I have no idea where the National Bank of Ukraine was looking for when one of the leading banks created such turmoil.
If you’ve been in Ukraine at least once, you probably know that most of the people here are earning around $200 per month. That means that all of our salary goes to fulfill basic needs. So losing even this money is harsh.
If the government will trick us again, there will be a third revolution. This one we probably won’t handle cause our cup is already full from the previous one.
The only question that appears right now is where to hold the money?
Banking system has proven to be unstable. Just for the last 2 years 77 banks were gone.
Paypal still doesn’t work in Ukraine. However, to be honest, I never was a fan of it. It is still a platform that can be controlled and manipulated, plus their fees are extraordinary.
Webmoney, YandexMoney and other online services that are quite popular here will be soon forbidden.
So the most evident answer is Bitcoin.
Thanks God, Kiev and Ukraine in general has one of the leading positions in Blockchain technologies. Obviously for most of the people cryptocurrency is something way too unrealistic.
But those who do know what it is are buying it like crazy.
For instance, last week of Local Bitcoins was astounding. There was sold about 109 Bitcoins, which is over 2 million in hryvnias or $79,000. Not bad.
Kuna Exchage which is the only official cryptoassets exchange experience a steady growth this week.
2 other exchanges that I use quite often (bit-changer and UTBS) has already a low volume (1 and 35 Bitcoin respectively).
But in general, as you can see, not that much people are buying it. That simply tells that people have no idea what Bitcoin is and why it is 10 times better than bank.
I had no idea that Ukraine was leading in Bitcoin technology :) Good for you! LIke Venezuela, it seems that any economic meltdown is inadvertently pushing whole countries towards Bitcoins.
Yeah, absolutely agreed. It's just so sad that people still trust banks and governments, even after all of the stuff they've done to us.
Are you trying to spread the word on Bitcoin and convince people to start using it? Since September this year I have successfully “converted” four of my colleagues at school. Now they are putting their savings in Bitcoin and they are grateful for me having told them about it.