Rome’s Troubles Create Conditions for Cryptocurrency Adoption
Italy is an interesting case in Europe. In certain aspects, the country is part of EU’s Southern Flank, a region facing serious economic and financial challenges in the past 10 years. On the other hand, it’s one of the world’s largest economies. And just like the rest of the continent, it has its own North-South disproportions in terms of industrialization and level of economic development. As a whole, Italy remains one of the most advanced economies, it’s the third-largest in the Eurozone and the eighth in the world by nominal GDP. It is also one of the largest exporters on the planet, including of high value added products.

The Italian economy took a hard hit from the 2008 financial crisis. The country’s problems were exacerbated by its huge public debt accumulated due to excessive spending by the government in Rome during the previous couple of decades. Since then, Italy has managed to catch up with the average Eurozone growth indicators. However, many ordinary Italians, over a third of whom live in poverty or risk of social exclusion, blame the adoption of the euro for the loss of economic power. Critics say Europe’s common fiat currency has been tailored to the interests of others further north.

In these circumstances, cryptocurrencies are gradually winning hearts and minds in Italy. Despite the ups and downs, the long-term trend in the economy built around decentralized digital assets has been mostly positive. Crypto winter, which seems to have passed already, has been a tough time for almost any company involved in cryptocurrencies, according to Federico Pecoraro, CEO of Chainblock. There has been an overall decrease in transactions in the Italian crypto sector during last year. “Media coverage has been quieter after March 2018 too,” the entrepreneur told news.Bitcoin.com.

Leading Italian Crypto Company Launches New Services
Chainblock is a well-established crypto company which started in 2013 as the first Bitcoin ATM operator in Italy. It has recently expanded its portfolio and now operates Chainblock Buy, a hybrid exchange for buying, trading and selling cryptocurrencies, Chainblock Buy With Cards which is a service for people who want to buy coins with debit and credit cards, and Chainblock Pay, a solution for merchants that want to accept crypto payments. The latter already has a prominent client – Vapor Art, which is the largest supplier of e-cigarettes in Italy. Pecoraro explained:

We love small businesses that want to accept crypto payments but we want to enable as many merchants as we can with a strategic market approach. Our goal is to provide affordable and scalable solutions for both big and small shops and spread real cryptocurrency mass adoption. We plan to enable 5,000 merchants to accept Bitcoin payments.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: news.bitcoin.com