Lebanon Banks' Shutdown Is 'Most Potent Case' for Crypto: Nassim Taleb

Bitcoin proponents are encouraging Lebanese citizens to swap fiat for crypto after it emerged the country's banks would stay closed.

In an ongoing Twitter debate which began on Oct. 24, commentators vented anger on behalf of Lebanon's population, which has been without banking services for more than a week.

Following civil unrest, banks everywhere closed their doors.

Six working days later, a senior banking executive said the status quo would continue until conditions improved.

"Once normalcy is restored, we are very confident that we can resume servicing our customers in full capacity," Salim Sfeir, head of local lender Bank of Beirut, told Reuters on Thursday.

Around 65% of Lebanon is banked, figures say, leaving two-thirds of the country cut off from personal funds.

Taleb: shutdown "Most potent case for crypto".

"The most potent case for cryptocurrencies: banks are never there when you need them," he summarized in a tweet.

"And they are trying to bully the public so they avoid accountability and profit disbursements. Bankers are legal crooks."

It is worth noting that unlike banks, the decentralized Bitcoin network operates 24/7 with 99.98% uptime since its inception, according to monitoring resource Bitcoin-uptime.