Bitcoin Forum

I'm feeling secure in bitcoin's future here in the USA. But what about the rest of the world? Could I get anywhere with countries in Africa? Or what about places that have laws restricting bitcoin, Perhaps I could convince them to be more welcoming.
I'd like to take a diplomatic mission in 2016 with the goal of helping BTC adoption in a place that is struggling. I am not sure where I would be most effective though. Does anyone here have a suggestion of a country to visit? Perhaps you have contacts in your country that would help, or you are getting nowhere in your country and think something like this would help. What do you think?

EDIT: Going to Iceland!  

you should try Jamaica, no-one knows about the coin here and i think it would be nice if we had a larger local community

I believe your intentions are for the best, but lobby'ing African countries won't do much good for bitcoin imho due to their poor economics and
bad financial situation altogeather. Imho, it would be far more effective to target some of the European countries.
You could make it a business vacation even, in summer, and combine work with pleasure by selecting some tourist country.

I agree with what you are attempting to do with this, but there are still millions of people who have no idea what Bitcoin is or how it can be used.  I would focus more on the local economy some more until it is picked up by as many people as it can be.  There is no harm starting with outside countries, but why would you want to spread your time thin.  If you worry about your home group, you will provide a larger group of supporters in order to help you.

Believe me, in that country's they have no money for health care, food and houses. Do not assume that they will use bitcoins by government. Maybe in 2085 or something.

and I can assure you that Jamaica's central banking would rather not see coming.

Hmm interesting idea.

For a higher succes rate you should to determine better
- Bringing a corrupt country in (which will give bitcoin a bad name). or
- Bringing a non-corrupt country in.

Sure the first option is much easier and in a way it will help bitcoin on the short term. Looking on the long term, no respectable country would even consider bitcoin if they know a corrupted country came before them.

So if you have time, skills and are willing to make an effort. Why not try to bring in a multinational like Microsoft or Twitter?

Please pick my country, Uruguay  8)

Go with a first world country.

It will give trust and can even be a motivation for other countries to join. I believe that if we have 1 country on board, the rest will follow very fast. maybe even faster then we think.

2 main things to think about. internet usage and population clusters

for instance going to places that both lacks internet and where the population is dispersed in little villages means that you will have alot of work to do.

just considering population and usage(trading), if each village has one shop, the work needed to build up a network of people swapping coins will be large,  going to multiple villages and trying to get all the shops involved, aswell as setting up 5 local exchanges, which some may be reluctant meaning some villages will not have usage of bitcoin

however if you pick a city, then its far easier to select just 5 retailers out of hundreds for usage and one location for exchange and be able to serve alot more people. that way you have a better chance of succeeding.

this then can be used as the first stepping stone to then expand out, using the city implementation as the demo and advert to help convince villages

and as for the internet availability.. well thats self explanatory
use this to help you:
http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users-by-country/
jamaica has ~50% internet uptake

where as haiti only has ~12%, so that makes jamaica better option compared to haiti.

ofcourse there are other countries with over 50% internet. and also higher populations

places like the united arab emirates is 94% internet uptake

even Madagascar has a higher population base and higher internet uptake than jamaica.

Tunisia and north african countries need to know more about bitcoin specialé in tunisia because there is no paypall (paypall is limited for some peolple only) the credit cards is not used very match cause they cost too match i think they will be intrested with the bitcoin technologie because its free universal and it 's becoming more important

saudi arabia is corrupt as hell.. yet they are one of the richest countries. lots of investment comes from them and when they say they want something.. everyone follows their lead.

EG
saudi arabia startd taking over the banks of syria in 2004.. and look whats happening now.. uk, france america, russia all want in

I do think that wasting  your time and effort on some underdeveloped country won't help bitcoin at all. We first need to raise the awareness about it in countries with good internet access and developed base for bitcoin.
I think something like Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland) or central (Slovakia, Czech) or south Europe (Croatia, Bulgaria) will be nice.

If bitcoin could get going in somewhere like India, with such a massive poupluation it would be a great force...... ;D

Focus your efforts on countries with a well established internet access.  Also make sure the population is wealthy enough to have the capital necessary to invest in bitcoin.

I would say choose a nice second world country.

wealth is not that important.. because in some countries you cant measure wealth as some people are unbanked. but may own property and be self employd with employee's (farms)..

so although it may appear that the country is poor.. there is alot of bartering and a need for a value medium to trade off against.

also, people dont need to buy 'whole bitcoins' its devisable by 8 decimals, and to be honest 1million people trading 0.01 is more adoption then 10 people in saudi arabia trading 1000btc

but you are right about the internet requirement. and i think anyone able to have internet, even via a phone has atleast some spare value or need a better method of moving said value

I don't understand what's your plan. You sure may go to an African country, but government officials will not want to meet you. You're a foreigner, and unless you want to invest a vast sum in the country, all government's doors will be closed. You may have good intentions, but Africans have already suffered a lot from white guys telling them how they should manage their country. In several places, you will not be welcomed.

and in some places it's machete law

If you want to do some diplomatic mission, you should first find the countries which have acknowledgment of bitcoin.

Zimbabwe - Everyone is suffering economical hardship there.

Any country in South America or Africa.

But if you are smart you go with China. Their economy could decimate the current market cap if they got involved.
Billions into bitcoin, would be like.. Heaven

seems like someones only after a price pump. and not really thinking about the usablilty growth

Mexico or Brazil.
Maybe Brazil because they are bigger and have more money, for now

Brazil is actually quite good. The people of brazil are into bitcoin. They are a respectable country etc.

I go for brasil too!

Go for the unbanked.  Ignore the fat and happy 1st world fiat users.

Anywhere informal banking networks thrive is ripe for Bitcoin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala


This narrows it down a bit.  India has 10 year visas for Americans if that helps.

Nice idea u have. Well after reading comments I think maybe to find something in the middle, not poor like Africa and not some big and rich like Brasil or Mexico. Did hear about Serbia, its where i`m from, also in our neigborhood is Croatia, Monte Negro, Bosnia, Macedonia, we all speak same language. I cant say we have a lot money, or that we are big but for sure we are nice countries to see, have fun, maybe invest. I think we need here someone who will start some big campaign so people can see and understand better what this is all about. Well inform yourself a bit on internet about these countries and for more information I`m here.

you can start your own campaign, its in your area afterall

I have campaign, very small and for now without any big succes. I talk with people about bitcoins, I`m tryin to show them what it is(to the one who wish to see). I think I dont have knowledge and expirience for something more serious.

But lets say I`m willin to try something more, what can u suggest me? Where to start? In which direction my campaign needs to go? How to organize somethin like that?  I have some idea about all that, but I would like to hear someone who have some expirience in this kind of things.

I do not understand, you have a campaign that seems not to be bringing in success, so why would you try to lobby another country.  If you can not successfully promote and give people in your own back yard enough of a reason to use Bitcoin, what makes you think you are going to be able to go into someone else's backyard and tell them all about it and expect different results?  You do realize that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

in your area are there any shops that accept bitcoin?
in your area are there any bitcoin ATM's?
are there any exchanges that specialize in your fiat currency to buy bitcoin without headaches or long processing issues?

before telling people about bitcoin you first need to know how easy it is to get and then to spend.. im not talking about making a bitcoin address and making a bitcoin transaction. im talking about fiat->bitcoin and then bitcoin->real world products.

if you lack these in your area, then there is no point saying how bitcoin is 'useful, better, faster than fiat' because if people cannot buy toilet roll with bitcoin, they wont see its usefulness.. and as such you will be better to tailor your speech to 'investments' talking about how secure the private keys are to just hold the coins. talk about the long term deflationary nature. international finance remittance/trading, etc

but if there are EASY ways to buy toilet paper and baked beans direct through bitcoin.. then you can talk about the speed of transactions and real world usefulness.

In Serbian capitol city Belgrade there is one ATM, Croatians have couple I think. There is one site that excange bitcoins in Dinars (Serbian currency) but I didnt have enough coins to test it yet.

Tnx for your comment but these things that u mentioned I already know. And I didnt see any useful information for startin some serious campaing.
And in my opinion campaing is all about that, showing people what it is, and bring all the necessary things for further expansion. I dont think its a big problem to make excanges, to make promotions, to install ATM`s. Maybe I`m wrong but its how I get this topic and what OP planing to do.

adoption is already galactic in size, and look at the price!

 (adoption) Seems to be increasing due to MMM Global's adoption of Bitcoin as a means of cheap and easy money transmission.  I would rejoice if this were a legitimate business but it reeks of Ponzi and is being adopted by the worlds poorest at the moment.  Search out Sergey Mavrodi and you'll see.  I think this will be yet another black eye for Bitcoin.

I think the best country to invest is in asia, you can try singapore or japan or india,

they have quite a lot of traffic transaction and i think asia people willing to learn about bitcoin and also their internet quality and everything to

support internet systme is also quite good

yeah I think Zimbabwe is the best place.
almost all people in distress there, their distress in the economic field.

Of course, I'll recommend you my country, France :). This is the first touristic place in the world, so this may be a good argument. If you need help for your crusade, I can of course help you with translations or informations ;).

I want to suggest my country Philippines, there are no laws restricting bitcoins(yet I guess) but our central bank had issued a warning a year ago on virtual currencies especially bitcoin(ref link (http://www.bsp.gov.ph/publications/media.asp?id=3377)) and also medias here mostly report the bad side of bitcoins (used in illegal activities) thus those give a negative effect on bitcoin to public. But despite of that, it seems people are getting interested to bitcoins especially for earning online purposes coz a lot of people here were unemployed. There are still some doubts though.

north africain countrys suffer from unimployement and they don't have freedeom in curryncy exchange

Either try to get some West European country to join, or some asian countries where bitcoin is popular. F.e. China or Japan but also Indonesia.
The man thing (adoption) is there, since those countries have a lot of nodes, meaning their citizens are into bitcoin.

Yes you are right. if a rich country joins a poor country will consider it. If a poor country joins, a rich country won't consider it.
Getting a first world country into bitcoin, will motivate other countries to consider it. Even some big companies would consider it.

Maybe go for Third World Countries, they sure need a bitcoin adoption ::)
I would Suggest my own country, Indonesia
I read an article said that Indonesia could be the place where bitcoin could grow ;)
There are many people who doesn't know what Bitcoin is, and so far there is no law regarding acceptance nor regulations on Bitcoin
So Bitcoin in Indonesia is still grey in here :P

Third world countries are maybe easier, but it won't give bitcoin a higher reputation. The problem with bitcoin is it's anonimity.
For politicians it's easy to use country money to do fraudulent transactions etc. So maybe it's better to get some major company in and have them pay salaries i bitcon and/or accept bitconi payments on invoices..

South america or africa will give bitcoin a bad name, since those countries have on default quite a high corruption rate.
Go for a big country and you will reap good results.

North Korea if you have some balls.



 ;)

You can be a Nigerian prince!

The smaller and wealthier the nation, the better.

Thanks for all your input guys! Some good stuff to consider in these posts. I have been away for a couple weeks, but I see things have been moving here.
After some consideration I am going for a harder target, Iceland.

Iceland has a big advantage in terms of mining. Very cheep energy and cold weather could help Iceland to become a global center for mining. However the government there is quite shy about international finance. The 2008 market collapse was a disaster for their economy and they passed a bunch of laws that make it unfriendly to bitcoin.

I'll be in Reykjavík at the end of this summer and my plan is to show tour operators how bitcoin could benefit them. I also plan to meet with someone from the finance ministry and present any findings to them.

There are a bunch of impoverished countries that would make great progress with Bitcoin, for example Venezuela is under insane amounts of devaluation, their local currency is worth nothing, anyone living in the first world (USA or Europe) can live like a millionaire on there, of course, have fun dealing with the high amount of criminal activity.
I don't see a clear way to introduce Bitcoin there... but definitely it would help.

iceland is already very bitcoin mining heavy. its not as negative as you may think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDK90WWh8Ck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A-mcSOGolM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5A8E7yMt2E
(i could keep going but google has the answers)

atleast you will meet lots of people already doing it, but it seems your not bringing anything new to that country in regards to mining.. but maybe just trying to lobby retailer acceptance should be your concentration instead of mining.

Such a country would be a great testcase.
A west European country or the USA will be too hard, but such countries which have a good name, could be the perfect example.

I think you are spot on Franky. I was only leading with mining because they are uniquely positioned to be a dominant force in that space. And what country of 300k does not want to be a world leader at something?
As you point out, the real battle is retail. That is especially true for a small country with it's own currency. Icelandic Króna are useless outside of Iceland. It would be great to use bitcoin or have an ATM at the airport for dumping Króna on the way out. Otherwise you are inevitably stuck with $20 worth of monopoly money.
Iceland is working hard right now to develop their tourist industry. I'm going to try showing them the advantages of allowing tourist to pay with BTC. In the mean time I have a lot to learn about Iceland, it is a weird place. 

yea stick away from the mining side when you arrive. as thats like trying to talk strangers into investing $200million into these weird boxes that together suck up more electric then a town to create a currency they have never used..

instead its easier and cheaper to get a few bars, hotels and restaurants accepting it..
if you get that..
.. then you can show them the mining side.. but not before that.

so yea concentrate on the retail side and the remittance (bitcoin atm at airports/hotels) and show people that its a real currency. then they will throw $200mill at mining rigs without a headache or lobbying

Iceland might a smart choice. Just tell the people BTC isn't linked to any government, that should please many out there. Some lost a fortune after the 2008 crisis, their whole life savings which were in the bank just vanished, with the government the only one to blame. So don't think about lobbying the government, convince the people!

Good idea I agree Iceland would be a good country to try to lobby. Alot of people commenting on this thread have hit the nail on the head with this one

...

RodeoX, I agree re Iceland.  Also agree with above comments to try to spread BTC at the retail level.

Last I checked at our local Starbucks, they still do not accept BTC.

iCEBREAKER's suggestion of a "hawala" country is good too.  But, my guess is that you would need to know the language pretty well to make progress.  And those places are dangerous.

China & India?  Mmm, only of you are very comfortable in its/their culture(s)...

I saw good cases made for Mexico and Brazil, yeah, maybe so, but again the language.  Argentina as well, there is a very active group there.  FORGET Peru (the country I know best other than the USA), no one knows about it nor cares about it (there are no capital or currency controls in Peru).

My opinions only.

It would be very nice to have some Jamaican Bitcoin users. But I just don't see this ever happening. If some people in the U.S.A don't want to use it, what makes you think Jamaicans will want to use it.

Philippines iS a great market to tap you should take a second look at it they could be the first asian that embrace bitcoin potential we have a large lending company here and they only use bitcoin and that community is 100k and still growing if you succeed you can make Philippines a good example but you will have a hard time as many politicians and bankers are oppose to it 

by saying you already have a large community, means that it needs no support as those in the community can do their part.
EG 100k people talking is better than rodeox, just one man.

i think places that do not even have any bitcoin retail presence at all should be the go-to place

Good to hear about such initiatives that make me feel good. I am a convinced follower of bitcoin but never able to do such things. First of all because I cannot understand how must act if I would do such kind of things. I must go to the streets and stop various people on the road to speak those about bitcoin? Don't seems to much effective. To try to go on their televisions and radio stations to speak about bitcoin? The best way to use but who can be able to open their doors for me. To speak with some friend found here in bitcointalk? Why me can do more than him in his country? Why me is best than him? So, to conclude: I would like to read from the OP the way chosen by him to realize its aim when will arrive in the country chosen by him (the Island for example). I'm curious to know what I wrote in order to do the same thing in my county when bitcoin has a very few spread.

Brazil is already into Bitcoin. There is another thread about this already. They are ahead of the game.

I totally agree with this. Below are the links to some of the threads (maybe there are even more):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1234350.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1190774.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=587262.0

It's good to see that not only so called "developed" countries are adopting Bitcoin, but that in countries like Brazil, Romania or Philippines Bitcoin is also making its way to wide adoption.

If you want a small bit a bit technical inclined country with quite a number of tourists try searching for "Maldives".Its a small place (its a Island)with lots of tourists attraction places .If you start bitcoin centers therein where most of the tourists are from Europe ,there is quite a higher chance the locals will start accepting bitcoins since European tourists can easily pay with them.

You shold make a list of countries who are unfriendly towards bitcoin and visit that ones. ANyways, you should probably start by your own country right?

very interesting to see how bitcoin will work on the island of Cyprus - known to the offshore sector, what are the challenges and what this decision may appear, and the mode of offshore companies makes something new in Finance, to experiment and to expect good results
but if Cyprus in 2016 and go fully on bitcoin, I think it will be a win over old