# Why Crypto Matters 🌍 

By [Curiosity Wormholes](https://paragraph.com/@curiosity-wormholes) · 2023-01-12

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There are 1.7 billion adults globally who don’t have access to fundamental services like payments, borrowing, and lending money.

In Latin America, around 20% of adults are unbanked. While in Sub-Saharan Africa, around 40% of adults are unbanked.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/cd904bc9c61bda69e7fba1cdf540cc79bf93dfddfb22f0e1d50a1e594fbd771a.png)

It’s easy to take this for granted in most developed countries, where financial access and smartphone penetration are near-universal.

Hundreds of millions of these unbanked people are beginning to adopt smartphones, which empowers them to access open crypto-financial infrastructure.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/02f90266c061b06018209e9830a8b1aa41204f8848d7400bde46235060d81b3a.png)

Something tells me that ♦ and ฿ will change the world for the better ($18,141 and $1,400 at the time of writing).

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/b73e40862f6a11cd43416182ceecd571767591e113100fa7a1054437dde4982a.png)

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*Originally published on [Curiosity Wormholes](https://paragraph.com/@curiosity-wormholes/why-crypto-matters)*