Pay for Food and Healthcare with Virtual Cash? Why Not, Say Seven Towns

Seven regions around the world have adopted some form of cryptocurrency for everything from paying taxes to spending on essentials, and even for sending and receiving money abroad – showing us all the myriad of uses digital currency has. 

These seven regions – San Salvador, El Salvador; Zug, Switzerland; Miami, USA; Innisful, Canada; Nassau, The Bahamas; Shenzhen, China; Nairobi, Kenya – are, in one way or another, incorporating the crypto-world into daily life. El Salvador, for example, is officially the first country to embrace bitcoin as legal tender, and the Bahamas is the first to implement a central bank digital currency.

Digital currencies were far from the norm in the recent past. But now, “cryptocurrencies are shifting from the fringes of finance to the mainstream,” according to Thomson Reuters Foundation, with some “countries moving to embrace digital cash as an asset and routine payment vehicle.”

Also using cryptocurrencies is Nairobi, with an aim to help families living in slums: the Kenyan Red Cross is working with U.S.-based engineering firm BlockScience as well as other donors to give 400 Kenyan shillings worth of virtual vouchers to families each week. These vouchers are good for buying food, health supplies, and educational resources.