Cointelegraph hit the gym with Ray Youssef, co-founder and CEO of Paxful, to tackle Bitcoin adoption in the Global South. In between sets and a little out of breath, Youssef told Cointelegraph, “The Global South is where we should be looking” for Bitcoin (BTC) adoption.

A New Yorker born in Egypt, Youssef regularly visits Africa and the Global South to promote Bitcoin and peer-to-peer finance. He is determined to bring Bitcoin to those living and working across Africa and to undermine the “economic apartheid” created by government-issued fiat money.

Youssef is a firm believer that government-backed, fiat money is a scourge on human progress. He posited, “Creating money is the greatest creative opportunity of any government,” before launching into a diatribe against Western governments as he pumped iron. Nonetheless, thanks to Bitcoin, people around the world — especially in the Global South — now have the means to fight back against economic repression:

Youssef’s business, Paxful, currently numbers 10 million users worldwide. But the CEO explained that the crypto community needs to move a lot faster in order to reach a billion users in the next five to 10 years. He referred to the explosive growth of telecommunication companies such as M-Pesa in Kenya as examples that adoption can flourish rapidly:

Ultimately, the key to unlocking growth in emerging markets is teaching citizens about Bitcoin and the properties of hard money, Youssef believes.

It’s true that Bitcoin wallets do act as a replacement for banks. In El Salvador, for example — a heavily unbanked country — Bitcoin adoption onboarded 4 million users in a year: 70% of the unbanked population gained international payment and remittance services.

However, Youssef went