In theory there are at least five major ways of how crypto-currencies in general and Bitcoin in particular may positively affect a local economy:
- by increasing level of living of non-working population groups reliant on remittances from their relatives employed in other regions or countries (as a result of reduced transactional costs); 2) by speeding and facilitating business transacting in the remote areas traditionally deprived of access to banking and other financial services (otherwise dependent on economically inefficient forms of barter); 3) by fostering a local consumption boom (as a result of growing prices on crypto-exchanges and widened adaption of digital money by retail businesses); 4) by creating more jobs (for example, as a result of new startups appearing in the area); 5) by attracting more business travelers and temporary highly qualified workers to the region with the liberal regulatory regime towards crypto (as in a case of the Swiss city Zug tagged as "Crypto Valley"). In practice, however, there's been not enough factual information accumulated so far to decisively demonstrate that one of those effects has already visible manifested itself somewhere in the world.
The author: Svyatoslav (Svet) Sedov Angel investor and founder of The First International Incubator for Silicon Valley Companies (FirstInternational.In) in the Bay Area, CA, USA.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SvjatoslavSedof