Bitcoin Forum

I have family and friends in Venezuela who want to purchase computers and cameras from the US, but have a limit imposed by the government of 400.00 USD Max per year on On-line purchases. I do not live in Venezuela so I do not know any details of why this is so...Can Bitcoin Help? How about Cuba?

Maria.

Doesn't US have embargo for Cuba and Venezuela? This probably means there is no direct transit to these countries from the US

How does the government enforce those regulations? Depending on how they are enforced and where the control is Bitcoin might or minght not be of help.

I know B&H Photo Video ships from New York to Venezuela with no problem. The problem is if they want to buy a 500.00 dollar Laptop, they can't do it. 400 is the Max per year they can spend in USD on-line.

But how is that enforced? I guess the shop does not control if you are buying from Venezuela or wherever. Probably the government checks the goods when they go through the fronteir and checks that they are not more expensive than the limit.

In this case the form of payment is kind of irrelevant. If this is not the case and the control is in the money part then Bitcoin might be of help.

Saludos desde España ;)

This 400.00 USD is given to them in a Visa/MC form. They can bundle up 4 or 5 cards and buy a what they want, but they usually pay 800.00 USD or more for these 400.00 USD Visa cards.

Saludos desde New York City!

Maria -> Bitcoin -> country outside us -> Venezuela ?

Then it seems Bitcoin could help. What I dont understand is what is stopping you from getting their money, buying the computer (or whatever) for them in New York and then send it to Venezuela. If the problem is on how they wire you money then Bitcoin might help, the only problem is how do they buy bitcoins. I dont know if there is anyone selling bitcoins in Venezuela. You would not have problems changing bitcoins for dollars to buy the stuff and maybe you can even find a shop that accepts bitcoins.

There is ... errr ... somewhat shady way.
They buy BTC for enough value (using multiple accounts to avoid the limit) and send them to you to make the purchase (or use one of our merchants here, accepting BTC) > purchase the goods via BTC or $ after trading them back > send them to a virtual mailbox address (e.g. shipito.com) > then you fill out a "custom" customs declaration  ;D (they allow you to do that) > send to Venezuela.

Yes, I know it's illegal in the US, as well as in many other countries (including here in BG), but is a small time job when avoiding such restrictive government regulations as this stupid $400 limit.


Дpyгият вapиaнт e дa пoлyчaт "пoдapък" oт някoй poднинa (aкo и зa пoдapъцитe нямa лимит oт $400)  ???

Maria - you are uniquely positioned to start one hell of a business. My advice? Start a local exchange.

Don't let Hugo catch ya!

 ;)

Your friend can set up a porn site which accept and only accept bitcoin. Then he can buy computers and cameras at memorydealer.com directly, or just sold the bitcoin at tradehill.com or bitcoin7.com, then purchases the computer and camera.

Honestly, how could this be remotely considered socially acceptable?

but i dont understand why they cant send the money to you? That way you can purchase the stuff for them and send it to venezuela.

If they cant send the money to you (i really dunno why they cant), make them buy bitcoins, send bitcoins to you, you sell the bitcoins to get the money back, buy the stuff and finally send stuff to venezuela.

Venezuela is a profoundly state planned economy. I assume the regulation are a form of capital control to avoid massive foreign currency leaks from the country and to discourage imports. Regardless if it's implemented as a cap on domestic credit cards or as cap on the amount of foreign currency that's being sold to the population, the primary problem stems from the fact that the government wants control over foreign currency/imports. The result is that black market $ or Eur is more expensive than official exchange rate, that's why a 400$ credit card is worth 800$.

To bypass the limitation you need to:
1. Find a cheaper way to buy $s of the black market (they have probably explored this so it's unlikely)
2. Earn bitcoins in the local venezuelean economy.
3. Put a BTC bounty on Chavez' head and be a free nation again (risky)

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/06/capital_controls

What if you use € instead of $?

Otherwise you need a way to use bitcoins to get things from USA. Like you buy bitcoins in Venezuela, use them to buy like "gift card" for amazon or what else in USA and then use these to get the stuff? Uhm... no, it's still a $ purchase...

Like all other asset, digital goods like cryptographic key pairs to a global accounting database (Bitcoin), should protect you from a monetary crisis like the world has seen all over.  Is the first signs of monetary crisis the blocking of savings accounts - not allowing early withdrawals (not even with penalties)?

The longer the asset's value memory is however (like gold having a value memory of several thousands of years as a secure physical accounting sytem), the better.  Bitcoin, as a secure digital accounting system good / asset, is still building up a value memory.

This is actually a fairly reasonable solution.

If you want to use Bitcoins to solve this problem there are two aspects to consider: how people in Venezuela can obtain Bitcoins and how they can spend them. The spending part is has already been covered but as far as obtaining Bitcoins what you need is a product or service that you can export, ideally something that can be delivered over the internet.

Another possibility for earning bitcoins would be if a member of your family is good at translating.  They could sell translation services online for bitcoins.

If it is possible to get computer parts (including modern GPUs) on the local market, setting up a mining operation could be very profitable. But I guess the lack of electronics is why you want to shop from the US in the first place.

As others have already said, providing online services for bitcoin is probably the best way to get them. Are there a problem for Venezuelans to use a paypal account or similar to recieve payment for such services? If not that would probably be easier than using bitcoins, at present time.

I guess all foreign currencies are regulated the same way, otherwise you could exchange to another first, maybe on holiday to a neighbouring country. If that's possible Bitcoin is not necessary, you could use any (foreign office of) Western Union or similar.

Otherwise selling intangible services for Bitcoin online is indeed the best option.

It's a good way of getting your money out of the country if you want to flee. The Jews smuggled their wealth out of Nazi Germany using gold fillings.

Like others said, you need to be able to offer goods and services on the net, that can be exported. 

Good luck in your search.

Don't the customs check merchandise shipped from out the country? Over here in Brazil people hesitate a lot to order things from abroad for the fear customs will open their package and hold the contents ransom until more than twice the price of the product is paid to the government...

HI, i'm a Venezuelan bitcoin miner and i'd really love to sell those translation services your talking about. ;D

I'm trying to start a VEF<->BTC local exchange too. This is actually a good country to live.

Yeah that currency exchange control and the 400$ online purchases cap on credit cards is a bitch (or a blessing if you can buy at the official rate) but i've seen numerous people complaining on the fact that they can only get 400 when they can get as much as they want in the black market. Let's face it the black market rate is the "natural market" rate, yeah tricking the system to get cheap foreign currency is ...desirable, but if you can't get them you don't complain you just go buy at the black market.

Just my opinion, that is how i do it anyway

The problem with setting a mining operation here is that we do not have the same income that you guys, a high-end gpu costs about a month of salary and assuming you buy a 6950 your still a tiny player unable to offer a decent amount of bitcoins in a reasonable amount of time.

There are a lot of sites where one can buy GPUs in Venezuela but we prefer to buy in the US because if you can buy at the official exchange rate the items get cheaper even after shipping and customs


No problems with paypal at all, but i'm scratching my head thinking about what kind of services or items to offer. Any hints? please don't say porn

Good! Please do set up an exchange. Venezuelans should have a place to purchase Bitcoins... I'm sure they'll find international purchases somewhat easier.

Open source Bitcoin exchange software: 

https://github.com/davout/bitcoin-central

http://gitorious.org/intersango