The impact of COVID-19 has undeniably been severe for many countries around the world, including Southeast Asian countries. Rising issues such as unemployment, insolvency, and bankruptcy will need to be addressed, and Southeast Asia needs to find new channels to improve and sustain their livelihoods and industries.
Axie is just such a channel. In fact, Axie has brought a timely burst of relief to the Philippines and Vietnam, both of which have been hit extremely hard by the epidemic. Now, tens of thousands of unemployed families and small businesses are playing this blockchain game to support their lives, and in some cases even improve their income.
However, with the popularity of blockchain games such as Axie in Southeast Asia, a platform that can convert cryptocurrencies into fiat-currencies at a low cost or even no cost at all is increasingly necessary, and so a pressing need for such a platform developed rapidly in the region.
Bit.Store gives people in Southeast Asia more and better choices for crypto to fiat currency exchanging.
Axie Aids Southeast Asia with a Bailout
Southeast Asia has been hit hard by the pandemic, and with 7.3 million people in the Philippines and Malaysia, the unemployment rate hit its highest peak since 1993 across all fields, ranging from college graduates to delivery drivers. People who earn their living conducting business overseas have had to immediately change their jobs. As people lost their income due to the lockdown or their inability to travel abroad for work, Axie provided a platform for earning money online, naturally becoming an incredible opportunity to make the game an instant hit.
At the time of lockdown, a large number of young unemployed Filipinos discovered Axie Infinity by chance from the comfort of their homes. By playing Axie they were able to earn between $300 and $400 a month, much higher than the average monthly income of local Filipinos. According to data in 2020, workers in the Philippines’ average income clocked in at around $240 per month.
As a result, in order to earn additional income during the epidemic more and more people in the Philippines started downloading Axie and investing in Axie Infinity games either on a full-time or part-time basis. Now Axie Infinity’s active users hit more than 300,000 daily users, of which 50% are Filipinos. With the rapid growth of the Axie Infinity community, its far-reaching effect quickly became popular in Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries quickly started to get in on the Axie Infinity boom.
The reason why the Philippines and even Southeast Asia became Axie’s most important market is due in large part to YGG (Yield Guild Games), with which Axie has become inseparable.
YGG is a native Filipino gaming guild, of which Axie Infinity developer Trung Nguyen is a major investor. Recently, YGG began to broadcast this relationship to the public. Coupled with the sluggish weak local Philippine economy and a high unemployment rate, it paved the way for Axie Infinity to have just the right springboard for growth, and they took off with a bang.
Bit.Store Helps Southeast Asians
However, a major outyling problem needs to be addressed. People in Southeast Asia need to be able to receive corresponding cryptocurrency returns from games such as Axie.
Only by converting cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies are people able to buy day-to-day necessities, and because of their unemployment caused by the epidemic, sustain their livelihood.
Due to the increasing demand for such a service, there is a huge gap in “cryptocurrency-to-currency” exchange platforms and services.
Compared to the United States where cryptocurrencies are under strict regulation, and China who has notably and severely cracked down on cryptocurrencies, Southeast Asia as a whole has a much more open and inclusive attitude.
The Southeast Asian market has a friendly regulatory environment and a large population demographic made up largely of young people. Concepts like the blockchain and cryptocurrencies are easily accepted, and coupled with the inflation of local legal currencies and low exchange rate stability, the demand for investment opportunities in Bitcoin becomes much stronger.
So a variety of trading platforms sprung up in Southeast Asia.
In addition to the Philippine cryptocurrency exchange PDAX, and Vietnam’s largest cryptocurrency exchange VBTC, traditional payment giants such as PayPal, Cash APP, and Robinhood have also entered the Southeast Asian market.
However, neither VBTC nor PayPal are the most suitable trading platform to address Southeast Asian users’ needs. Although regular cryptocurrency exchanges like PDAX, VBTC, or PayPal state that they will be dedicated to serving global users, they are based in the United States, and are thus doomed to be far more focused on the United States and European markets, making it difficult to back users in the rest of the world.
With a focus on Southeast Asia, Bit.Store has from the very beginning set out to provide better services to Southeast Asian users as one of its key development goals. Based on this goal with a hyperfocus on Southeast Asia, Bit.Store first proved its commitment to the region via its transaction fees.
On PayPal, users are charged about 1.5% to 2.3% for buying and selling Bitcoin, while Coinbase charges users 1.49% of the buying and selling price. CashAPP charges the highest rate, a charge of 2 – 3% whether buying or selling. This meant that fees became the majority part of generated revenue for both CashAPP and Square’s income.
In that regard, Bit.Store will only charge users a 2% fee when selling cryptocurrency, and no additional fees will be charged to buyers.
Besides that, Bit.Store has established partnerships with more than 20 countries and regions, including Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Brazil, and has active cooperation agreements with internationally renowned payment giants like VISA and MasterCard.
Bit.Store is also collaborating with three global TOP exchanges, Binance and Huobi, as well as an international bank and an international payment institution to provide its users with access to buying and investing in Bitcoin.
In 2021, Bit.Store announced their ambitious plans for the future.
As the governing token of the Bit.Store platform, STORE is not only the representation of the overall value of Bit.Store, but will also provide more convenient ways for users to participate in the governance of Bit.Store in the future.
Website:https://bit.store/
Telegram：https://t.me/Bitstore_official
