Bitcoin Forum

The ongoing hyperinflation in Venezuelan markets is reportedly causing an increase in Bitcoin adoption, according to the Panam Post.

The online media outlet has collected evidences from a nonprofit digital currency educationalist, Bitcoin Venezuela. Their report demonstrates a drastic surge in Bitcoin usage — almost 50% within one week — in the wake of government’s stringent controls over the foreign exchange markets.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/06/10/hyperinflation-fires-up-bitcoin-adoption-in-venezuela/

Same thing is gonna happen in Turkey too.
There were economical crysis which wasn't seen. With the last election we took down AKP & probably there'll be political unstability. You may want to watch Türkish exchanges nowadays for mass adoption...

Let's just hope this news will become real, unlike the Greek adoption that I've been reading about for the last 6 months.
World finances are in a really bad shape and countries may eventually turn to Bitcoin, but I wouldn't get my hopes up just yet.

Looking at the news...i got the understanding that their stats about BTC adoption in Venezuela are based on those of SurBitcoin (https://surbitcoin.com/en_US/#start) exchange users. However, i cannot find any user figure around to shed some light into their claim of a drastic surge (+50% in a week) since even a lone new user registering to SurBitcoin (https://surbitcoin.com/en_US/#start) exchange could account for the aforesaid surge if this Venezuelan exchange had only 2 registered users. To have a glance about South America's BTC users we can check the recent CoinDesk report (here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086391.0)); but, the bottom line is only a 3.28% of Bitcoin users are there.
While I agree that having more people adopting BTC is a good news, as well as another step in the right direction toward mass adoption, I think Venezuelan users are adopting Bitcoin due to lack of better available ways to hedge against inflation and bolívar fuerte (VEF) devaluation. So, what we can really infer about Bitcoin usage in Venezuela from this stats?

The adoption in these countries is very low so any uptick is gonna figure a 50% or more increase number at this point. Yet, if this increase was pandemic, we'd see 10s or 100s of thousands of increase %s or more in these country's increases in bitcoin adoption. The problem is that even though those that realize what is going on w/ their money supply is checking out bitcoin, it's very low crossing the whole population. Otherwise, it would be: Boom!

A few months earlier, I heard similar reports about Argentina also. Latin America will be a very fertile hunting ground for Bitcoin, due to the rampant inflation in almost all of the countries. But the adoption is still quite low there, probably due to the lack of reliable local exchanges which serves exclusively for the Latin American clientele.

The same will probably happen in Greece soon. Over the last months over 50 billion Euro were transferred to abroad. If there will be capital controls soon, the only way is to exchange into Bitcoin to bring the money abroad.

The Greek adoption that was talked about was by the government. That won't happen soon.
People adopting bitcoin due to weak currencies is much more easier to happen.

There was no official statement from the Greek government on any proposed Bitcoin adoption in that country. However, on April Fool's day this year, the finance minister Yannis Varoufakis made a joke about Bitcoin, which went viral. Many people around the world mistook that as a sign of the Greek government's acceptance of Bitcoin.

These things need to be supported, but it seems that every government in the world is not going to quickly accept bitcoin use in the region.

Do you think that if a country adopt a cryptocurrency it will be Bitcoin? or another altcoin?

Bitcoin. Because that is the biggest and most secure blockchain in the world. But i doubt that a country will adoopt BTC anytime soon. Maybe they will join in 5-10 years with a Sidechain to BTC.

You have to remember that the added attractiveness for Bitcoins in Venezuela is due to the government restrictions on other forms of investment assets. In Venezuela, there are government controls on amassing foreign currency (especially the United States Dollar and the Euro), and bullion bars and coins. Therefore people turn to the Bitcoin, as the government can't impose their controls on its trading.