Palestinians are using Bitcoin to transact across borders.

Good evening. I'm Bailey Reitzel and this is late confirmation from CoinDesk, bringing you the top

stories from September 18, 2018. On today's show, another stable coin, this time anchored to the

Japanese yen. And we'll take a look at a decentralized exchange that's adapting its underlying technology

to allow merchants to accept payments in any Ethereum token.

At the end of the show, I'll be joined by Coin desk reporter Lee Quinn to speak about how

Palestinians are using Bitcoin and what still remains a hurdle for them in adopting

the cryptocurrency. But first, a word from our sponsor.

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Palestinian residents in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are adopting Bitcoin for everything

from sending money abroad to buying stocks in other

countries and also shopping online.

Politically and economically isolated from the rest of the world because of a longstanding

conflict with Israel, Palestinians are finding cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin, as a useful

alternative.

But there are still hurdles.

For instance, no online crypto exchange works with Palestinian banks, and as such, the residents

don't have easy on-and-off ramps into crypto.

In reality, this means people put a lot of trust in their local crypto dealers.

In addition to that, frequent power outages in the area make not only Bitcoin but any electronic money system not always ideal.

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