The Philippines has an excellent on/off ramp to Bitcoin and Fiat called coins.ph. Users can buy/sell bitcoin as well as transfer exact amounts of Philippine Pesos for no fee or danger of chargeback. As such, Bitcoin opens the possibility of Ecommerce and eliminates the current (very real) credit card fraud. The zero fee also makes it a better option than PayPal and banks which are terrible in the Philippines. Banks charge a fee for just about everything and can close your account for any reason. They also have horrendous queues at peak times with ridiculous waiting times. By comparison, coins.ph can be funded at any pawn shop or 7/11 grocery store. Mobile phone load for all networks can be bought instantly directly on coins.ph. Overseas workers can also send micro payments of money easily to their relatives where banks make this hardly cost effective.
In short.... the banks in the Philippines suck and coins.ph is better than a bank.
There’s also Rebit.ph.
I can add veracity to this reason. I have been in Davao since 1994 and the banks (as well as grocery stores and even the roads) are so overcrowded that it is a way to waste a half-day for what should require only a few seconds or minutes to do.
Also can’t even open a bank account here anymore without a TIN number, but the BIR will not issue the TIN number unless you convince them you need one (bank account not being a valid reason). Once you have a TIN number you have to file a form every month at the BIR office and stand in line again (do not dare use their e-file as nothing technological works properly in this country), else you will pay a $20 per month penalty.
Basically bank accounts are an enslavement paradigm in the Philippines. Moving from the cash economy to the banked economy, causes the national government to track you. The cash businesses are tracked/fleeced at the local level by barangay officials, corrupt local police, local competition that will eject you from your business with some corruption/force and take the location/concept, etc..
Cryptocurrency
in spite of also being a corruption at the highest levels, is actually increasing degrees-of-freedom for the peons (but the end game of crypto is 666 directed). Working online removes them from the aforementioned local threats with cash-based businesses.
Also Philippines was the SMS capital of the world long before Twitter. And filipinos made friendster the #1 social network for a while. So my point being that filipinos love their mobile phones, so to be able to manage their cash/investments from their mobile phone fits with their lifestyle. They’re accustomed to quickly downloading an app and go. Presumably much less adoption friction than complying with all the hassles/requirement of the banks.
Another reason the people in the developing world are going crazy for Bitcoin is purely speculation and get rick quick fantasy. The Asians and Latin Americans have gained some savings now and want to live the high life. They’re very much enticed to speculate. Gambling is very very popular pastime amongst Asians.
And MLM scams spread by word-of-mouth very easily in the Philippines. Filipinos kept asking me about afair
Bitclub which they heard about from Facebook or from a friend.
Bounty campaigns ,airdrops ,translations ...imagine your average monthly income is $100 per month and you're told that you can triple that just by posting here .And you also can invest some of that money into a project that could make you rich .
Hell ,I'm sure there are some people here who have quit their job to be 100% into the crypto world ....and not only "poor" ones .
But of course ,not everybody has access to the internet or has heard about cryptocurrencies and this forum .
Indeed this is another reason. And yes you’re correct that there is still a huge reservoir of billions of people yet to come in, yet who will eventually.