1 coin = $12,400, the most expensive Bitcoin in the world comes from here

Bitcoin prices hit a new high this week, reaching a high of 6943美元as of press time.

Every time the price of Bitcoin hits a new high, investors who have been considering buying Bitcoin will lament that they should have bought some when the price was low. They complain: "It's too expensive now." However, while potential investors in the highly liquid market complain that $6,900 is too expensive, the increase in Bitcoin prices in some emerging markets such as Zimbabwe due to rising demand has led to local transaction rates far exceeding the global average.

In some emerging markets, Bitcoin transactions are often at a premium - due to the instability of the local currency, the domestic demand for cryptocurrencies has increased, while the volume of cryptocurrency transactions is relatively low. The world's "most expensive Bitcoin" currently comes from the Zimbabwean exchange Golix, where the price of the currency has reached as high as 12400美元, an 87% premium over the global average price. In the past two weeks, the price of Bitcoin in Zimbabwe has risen by $2,400, while the global average price of Bitcoin has increased by about $1,000 during the same period.

To understand why this happened, we need to go back about 10 years, when almost no one in Zimbabwe knew about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. In 2009, hyperinflation forced Zimbabwe to replace its currency with the U.S. dollar, which also forced the country's central bank to issue 100 trillion in U.S. dollar notes. However, there were not enough U.S. dollar reserves in the country to meet the demand, so government bonds that were supposed to be equivalent to the dollar had to be traded on the black market, and foreign entities did not accept these U.S. dollar notes. Subsequently, banks began to ration dollars, and Zimbabweans often had to queue for hours to withdraw $50 from their accounts.

Therefore, many local people have begun to turn to Bitcoin, because Bitcoin can be obtained without directly using cash, and Bitcoin can also be used abroad.

Yeukai Kusangaya, who coordinates trading at the Golix Bitcoin exchange, said:

You don’t necessarily need cash to buy Bitcoin. Most people can do it electronically. This way, buying Bitcoin is not affected by cash shortages… In some cases, sellers want to exchange Bitcoin for cash, so they have to find buyers with cash and conduct P2P transactions themselves.

Some observers believe that the government may ban the use of Bitcoin due to capital control policies, but others speculate that the government currently does not have the resources to achieve this and may be unable to recover if it fails. Therefore, Zimbabwean technology analyst Nigel Gambanga said that the current situation is so terrible that he would not be surprised if the government really chose to formally regulate Bitcoin or even select it as legal tender.

If Bitcoin trading becomes more popular and central banks continue to be unable to resolve the country’s currency crisis, we may see central banks and governments change their stance and take a more active role in cryptocurrency trading.

The country has already taken some extreme measures, such as banning fruit imports... so adding Bitcoin to the country's diverse currency basket doesn't sound so ridiculous.