The city of Tbilisi in Georgia has lots of crypto startups and crypto ATMs, and it’s dotted with small-time “exchanges” that are essentially money changers with a Binance account. Visitors from nearby Russia often use crypto for payments here, as their bank cards don’t work outside Russia due to sanctions. The ease of electronic payments in the city poses competition for crypto, as does the government’s digital lari CBDC plan, but at least 200 businesses accept crypto at point of sale.
City: Tbilisi
Country: Georgia
Population: 1.2 million
Founded: 445
Most Common Languages: Georgian, English, Russian
Jump to: Crypto culture, Projects and Companies, Financial Infrastructure, Where Can I Spend Crypto
History
Legend says that Tbilisi was founded when the falcon of King Vakhtang I of Iberia fell from the sky and burned to death in a sulfurous hot spring during an unsuccessful hunt.
The hot springs and strategic location so impressed the king that he ordered the forest to be cleared and a great city founded on the site.
The Mtkvari River flows through Tbilisi’s old town.
It was only in the 12th century, some 600 years after the city’s founding, that it became the capital of a unified Georgian state under the direction of King David IV the Builder.
Tbilisi and the country of Georgia have had a long, complicated history since. The city was an object of rivalry and occupation by the Romans, Seljuks, Persians, Muslim Arabs, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
But Tbilisi has always been an international city. Situated along the historic Silk Road, it saw travelers and traders from Europe, Central Asia and further afield. At the beginning of the 19th century, Germans settled in what is now the Marjanishvili district of Tbilisi on the East bank of the Mtkvari River.
Today, the city is inhabited mainly by ethnic Georgians, with significant expat/immigrant communities from Russia, Azerbaijan,…
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