Czechia, a particular country that consists of more than 10 million people and is situated in the parts of Central Europe, is basically known for the beautiful Prague city and the good beer. However, one will also be able to add the progress of cryptocurrency in the place to the list as well.
Due to the progress of the Trezor wallet, which was developed here in the year 2014 from SatoshiLabs, the parent company has been advancing a lot. Not to mention that this country is responsible for giving birth to the first Bitcoin pool for mining known as Braiins. It has also managed to mine about 1.3 million Bitcoins to date since its inception.
But what grouped this small nation of 10.7 million people, out of all places, to create a disproportionally large presence in the crypto world? In a very exclusive interview, Josef Tětek, SatoshiLabs’ in-house economist, manages to explain the phenomena in great detail. Tětek also happens to be the brand ambassador of Trezor wallet, the writer for the Bitcoin Magazine and holds a Master’s Degree (equivalent) in economic policy from the Prague University of Economics and Business.
This is what he said, according to CNN crypto news today: “In the geographical region that is now the Czech Republic, there have been seven different currencies in circulation over the past 140 years. First, there was one backed by gold and then, two forms of silver coins [during the rule of the Austria-Hungarian Empire]. After the country gained its independence in 1918, there was the gold-standard Czechoslovak koruna [crown].”
During the interwar era, Czechoslovakia was an industrial powerhouse led by Škoda Works, one of the largest European industrial conglomerates making everything from cars to tramways to aircraft to military equipment. It was also stood as the only Central European country with a parliamentary democracy after 1933.
However, faith in the Czechoslovak koruna and the country as a whole quickly faded with the Munich Betrayal of 1938 — where its allies Britain and France gave the silent nod for Germany to annex the heavily industrialized and fortified regions outlying Czechoslovakia. As a country left without natural barriers to defend against the German war machine, it quickly became a puppet state for the former, leading to another currency change.
But the reestablishment of the Czechoslovak koruna was again short-lived. Immediately after the Allied victory in World War II in 1945, an Iron Curtain spread from the Baltics to the Black Sea. The newly independent Czechoslovak Third Republic became a satellite state of the Soviet Union after merely three years, with a new form of Soviet-controlled koruna.
To further the policy of Stalinism, in 1953, leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party devalued all personal savings denominated in koruna by a ratio of 50:1. As Tětek mentioned in his interview with Cointelegraph: “Many people still remember it [the 1953 event] to this day, such as our parents and grandparents. Basically, it was large-scale theft [by the state].”
Then, in 1989, came the Velvet Revolution that managed to topple the Communist Party and gave birth to the fifth Czechoslovak Republic. But at first, independence did not restore faith in the new koruna. (It also did not help that Slovakia left the union in 1993). Inflation in the early 1990s in the country remained almost consistently above 10% every year.
Further explaining what draws the people of this country to the likes of cryptocurrency and the decentralized nature that it has, Tětek mentions: “There was basically a currency change every generation in Czechia. So we tend to be skeptical of the official monetary regime.
However, combined with a high percentage of people receiving high-quality technical education, the factors drove the adoption of crypto in Czechia.”
