It's not so straightforward to buy bitcoin in the Middle East. Yes, I have tried everything. If bitcoin was about the free world, why all the exchanges ask for very strict verification that even the stock exchanges don't ask for? I have never had to take a selfie with my passport in my entire 40 yrs of life until I came in to the bitcoin world, what the heck?!! All the exchanges take ages to verify and when they do, they discriminate those from the middle east. Most of them don't allow us to use fiat currency to buy bitcoin, so how the hell new comers will buy it? The barriers of entry to the bitcoin world are too many for people in middle east, am sick of it.
I find the conventional banks much easier to deal with than the bitcoin exchanges. Guess what? I was successfully registered in one after waiting for a month, only to be told I can't spend more than 300 Dollars a week in buying bitcoin, seriously??? I freaking have thousands of dollars to invest and they want me to spend 300 dollars a week for a coin worth $2500???
Now, the easy way is to buy from others, but I am gonna have to pay a premium of 10 to 20 pct above fair market value to buy and that's BS!
I am thinking to start my own ICO for an exchange that has commercial sense an open to the world. We need a revolution here.
I don't think that it does any good to blame this occurance on bitcoin at all.
Firstly, would you tell us the exchanges that you have been working with? Because it seems odd that you can only purchase $300 a week if you are already verified, because that's usually the sort of limit that you have in place for unverified accounts.
Secondly, make sure that you understand how bitcoin works. bitcoin is NOT regulated by any governments or institutions like the SEC, only bitcoin DERIVATIVES and EXCHANGES are. Once your funds are in bitcoin, they can be freely transacted all across the world.
Your argument about traditional banks being better than bitcoin is also untrue. Search up in your local bank how much it costs to send a transaction to a foreign country, and how crap the conversion rates are. Now compare this to the flat $1.5 or so fee that you pay when using bitcoin. Thought so.