Report contents
MENA · Developing
Lebanon
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 35 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +3 |
| Inflation 96.9% · unbanked 77% · remittances 33.4% GDP · capital controls 0.55 · sanctions 0.25 | CNI 0.715 |
| Need multiplier | ×1.572 |
| Livability score | 0.655 |
Raw 35/84 = 0.417 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.71, from five components: inflation 96.9% (three-year average 2023 to 2025, at the 50% clamp), unbanked 77% of adults, remittances 33.4% of GDP, at the 25% clamp, capital-control intensity 0.55 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0.25. Need multiplier ×1.57. Livability score 0.655, rank #9 of 79.
Three findings
The largest rank jump in this group: +52 places on pure necessity
Lebanon sits #61 on raw capability but #9 once need is applied, because the Crypto-Necessity Index reads 0.71, near the top of the index, on inflation at the clamp, 77 percent unbanked, and remittances at 33.4 percent of GDP. With the banking system collapsed since 2019 and the pound down more than 90 percent, Tether functions as the de facto medium of exchange in Beirut, Tripoli, and other cities.
The textbook stablecoin remittance corridor
Against a roughly 5.8 billion dollar remittance baseline, an estimated 400 to 700 million dollars in personal crypto inflows, about 7 to 12 percent, routes diaspora support to households through Binance P2P (peer-to-peer trading between individuals) and OTC channels, with monthly stablecoin volume above 30 million dollars. The lived comparison is stark: roughly 2 to 3 percent fees on stablecoins against Western Union's 10 percent.
The lowest ecosystem score in the entire index
Lebanon's ecosystem pillar reads 1 of 16, the floor of all 79 countries, with zero scores on local events, social sentiment, and developer base. The pattern is necessity-driven usage without any supporting infrastructure: a population that runs daily commerce on USDT yet hosts no conferences, no hackathons, and no developer community to speak of.
In one line
"Lebanon's banks froze, its currency lost ninety percent, and a dollar-stable token became the medium of exchange in Beirut by default. When a cousin abroad sends help, it now arrives as USDT at two percent rather than Western Union at ten."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 2/4, stable and grey. The Banque du Liban's 2013 prohibition remains on paper but unenforced since the 2019 collapse, while 2025 regulatory bandwidth went entirely to the Banking Resolution Law and the draft Financial Gap Law rather than crypto. Watch the Finance Minister's December 2025 engagement with Binance on formalisation, with eventual regulation flagged for 2026 to 2027.