Bitcoin Forum

Venezuela facing hard economic crisis over the years, and the past month it begun to recover slowly. Now once again the scenario is going worse with nationwide powercut. Mundro indicates USA as the cause, even the capital city Caracas too is experiencing the same. Business people prefer moving out of the country, as they've lost hope of the recovery.

Will this make any impact on the global cryptocurrency economy as electricity is a much required resource for the successful functioning of bitcoin and major other cryptocurrencies in the market. I believe such scenario will never happen with any of the countries around.

I think it will not have an impact on the global ecosystem of cryptocurrency, especially 1st world countries. I know miners tend to outsource to other countries which have low electricity bills and have stable economic growth.

How come it became nationwide when in fact the power supply is not being centralized basing on the geographical area to which we know that a certain country has a wide lot area. I cannot believe that a nationwide power cut will going to happen. As we all know that there are private owners who supply power to the locals coming from different resources like geothermal, windmill, waterfalls and etc.

I am very worried with the condition in Venezuela and I wonder how these people live in these difficult conditions for so many time.
Something needs to be done to change the things there, so many mistakes have happened all these years and now we see the results of them. I hope war is not going to be the solution to these difficulties. :(

Yeah, this is yet another reason why bitcoin isn't proving to be very useful to Venezuelan citizens during their crisis--no electricity means no way to pay for anything via electronic means.  And yeah, I'm sure bitcoin mining is taking a huge hit there as well.

My state got hit with severe blackouts in 2011, right around Halloween, and my town was completely out of power for over 3 days.  It was horrible--very cold, and there was no way to charge my cellphone or buy food.  Luckily the water was still flowing.  It must be absolutely devastating for Venezuela, where they're dealing with all sorts of other deprivation on top of not having electricity.  The only positive is that it isn't freezing cold like it was for my area back in 2011.

Anyway, as an aside....this is why everyone ought to keep at least a little amount of cash on their person.  You never know when the power is going to go out, and food/water/supplies run out quicker than you think.  If you're relying on even a debit or credit card, good luck trying to use that when stores no longer have power.  The first store that opened in my area while the power was out was a Walgreens pharmacy, and they were only taking cash.  It was such a relief to buy some food and a bottle of Coca-Cola, but I only was able to do that because I had some cash on me.

Since then I've also started keeping batteries, food, money, and a wind-up/solar radio with cellphone charger in my house for just such occasions.  I'm not a hardcore prepper, but experience has taught me that I'll probably see another serious power outage in my lifetime.

Oh yeah--I wish I'd heard of bitcoin back in 2011 during that power cut.  I would have been rolling in money right now.

This is not the first blackout and is not going to be the last, even with Maduro gone as the infrastructure is near total collapse.
Have you seen any effect on bitcoin price/txs/hashpower or anything else?
No, there aren't any and there won't be any!



Hhaha , what ajoke!
Private ownership in Venezuela, especially in the energy sector!

Venezuela gets most of its power from one single location, the Guri dam, which is not situated pretty conveniently:
https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/4de618734bd7c87b7a040000-320-240.jpg
so energy needs to be transported over hundreds of kilometers with a decaying infrastructure that can fail every second.


I doubt mining happens at a large scale in Venezuela.
You don't just need cheap power, you need constant power without fluctuations or you're going to destroy equipment well before you get some kind of profit. None of the power failures, not this one or the one two weeks ago showed to have any influence on the global hashrate so I doubt they have more than a few thousands miner there.
Besides, imports are crypto mining equipment are banned since last year.


If the power goes down right now probably I have food and water for one day or two.
But my plan in case it's an extreme blackout that might span for days is to go back to my parent's house.
Generators to keep the farm running, 3 tanks with 2000l of water, one with 2 tons of diesel, two freezers and If I recall correctly about 200 piglets to enjoy over a campfire.  ;D

But if don't have enough gas in my tank to get my family there....that's going to be one hell of an adventure.  ;D

This situation reminds me of North Korea where the government is turning off the electricity during the night in order to save some resources.
Venezuelan issue also won't have any significant impact on cryptocurrencies simply because there is no mining farms there and i guess that BTC whales also don't live in Venezuela while the income of the rest of the people won't let them buy some good amount of cryptocurrency.

With bitcoin being the primary currency used in Venezuela, I can see how this effectively cripple the economy that has prevailed in the said country in the recent months. Electricity (which can pretty much be controlled by the government) means no medium of exchange, and ultimately, people are forced to use things that are at hand and are convenient to their situations. This could be another huge hindrance for Venezuelans knowing how they held on to bitcoins in hopes of escaping the immense gravity of hyperinflation in their country. This is one of the worst times to be a Venezuelan if you ask me.

Venezuela is facing hyper inflarion. The current president tried to take cryptocurrency route to save the economy but that failed big time! So no relief is to be seen for Venezuela anytime soon! Power cut is just one of the bad effects of a destroyed economy. If no steps taken by the government, a drought will follow soon!

I don't think any impact on cryptocurrency will come due to Venezuela's power cut because Venezuela is not a very active mining country of bitcoin. If this same power cut had happened in China, the impact would have been severe. But Nothing for Venezuela for sure!

I'm sure the United States has something to do with this. They want to take control over Venezuela like they have done with the middle east over the years.  Valuable oil and other resources up for grabs, they aren't just going to say no when its easy to take.

Electricity is most essential thing when it comes to businesses and online works, without it is a total wreck for businesses because of the transactions will be stop, Same thing here in cryptocurrency it is worst thing rather having no internet connection. Even Venezuela has no huge mining it will still has an effect.

The weird thing is their economic collapse is going on since long like since the starting of 2019 and they are still hitting the all time high , powercut might be a problem but it wont last that long it's a very essential thing.


Check this out :-
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-trading-reaches-all-time-high-in-venezuela-amidst-ongoing-economic-collapse (https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-trading-reaches-all-time-high-in-venezuela-amidst-ongoing-economic-collapse)

They were able to support Bitcoins somehow because at the end of the day the Bitcoins value is not dependent on one single country and the people involved should be benefited right now , at times like this I don't think anyone would dispel the importance of Bitcoins .
Bitcoins is essentially supporting them right now and let's just pray that this power outrage lasts no more.

USA has nothing to do with this, its exactly the same as North Korea, they do not allow foreign help from any country aside from China and maybe sometimes Russia and that is why they are facing famine that sees millions starving all the time and that results with people eventually dying from starvation.

Venezuela is going the same route now, they are trying to run the country with a single power and not trying to leave the presidency to the democratically elected officials and in order for that to happen you have to make sure there is no internet, no phone lines, no electricity and everyone should be in so much despair that even when you give them a loaf of bread they think you are a god, in order for a rise to happen there needs to be a fall and the lower you fall the easier to rise.

No, it wont really make such impact.I know what you are thinking which Venezuela do have that cheap electricity which is ideal for miners on that place but
the numbers of those miners wont really be enough.

Just look on the other side, just basing out on traditional business on that place is mainly affected.Instead of recovery and with such powercut it mainly affect their operation.

The power supply crisis will definitely affect bitcoin either one way or the other because Venezuela is one country which have been crypto friendly and at that power cut will hinder the free flows of bitcoin transactions because most of bitcoin activities such as mining requires steady power supply to functions.

For Venezuela itself, the impact is big but globally? I think it's minimal.

We have already seen it happen for Venezuela so it's possible that any country can also experience this if crisis hits them.

I don't really see any kind of sign of recovery that is happening within Venezuela.

The governmental structure has not really changed, and the bolivar continues to depreciate as we speak due to widespread hyperinflation. You're right though about the businesses within Venezuela wanting to move out of the domestic markets, which is obvious considering the circumstances.

This power cut will probably affect mostly bitcoin holders within Venezuela, and perhaps prompt innovation in terms of offline bitcoin payments. But other than that, I don't see any global implications.

I'm sure some have power because the country should have massive fuel reserves but apparently the problem Venezuela has is organising and putting resources to efficient use.   So those with best access to power I guess is government and politics related and not useful industry that could help them recover or even essential services like hospitals and similar.

Theres no chance of mining but running a pi over solar panel shouldnt be the extreme or impossible scenario but I guess few have this in operation and so theres likely very poor network in operation to transact.     I read of people using jetski to go far enough in the ocean to get a mobile signal from a neighbouring country to clear credit card transactions, I imagine bitcoin could still be of use but no doubt they have massive challenges sadly.

The country has the worlds largest proven oil reserves I will remind everyone, this is such a sad failure of what could be a very able nation.  Somehow the oil has turned into a curse, now they got Russians set to occupy the place and we have a possibility of security worries in the region similar to the Cuba scenario that occurred.  Russia is known for regularly challenging the borders of neighbouring countries as part of their activity.  Russian activity in Syria coincided with the shooting down of an Israeli jet for example.  In Ukraine they lent over powered rockets to a militia and shot down a passenger jet departed from Netherlands with the loss of hundreds of lives, its not likely they turn this situation positive for anyone

very true but the case with countries like Venezuela and any similar situation has rarely been about them using bitcoin as a payment option at this point since the adoption is not really great even in other countries. it is usually about them investing in bitcoin (as is the case with most other places). and it is about how people look to save the value of their wealth as the value of local currency tanks.

I agreed with what you said because the Venezuelan citizen income and way-out to escape the hyperinflation which the country is facing is through the crypto currency trading and mining. This will definitely be a big hit on Venezuela.

Venezuela is past the point where they had an excess of cheaper energy that might have been relevant to mining.   Its not about that now, its about not starving and allowing the most basic of trading to occur because there is no alternate besides barter of dissimilar goods which is highly inefficient and hard to do.

I just spotted this on twitter, discussing the problem facing electric cuts and crypto.   One organisation was or is trying to supply families with at least $1 per day and facilitate a trader to accept this value for goods, etc
https://www.chepicap.com/en/news/8533/brian-armstrong-talks-about-issues-with-sending-crypto-to-venezuela.html

Well the problem with the cryptos is obvious, the number of transactions with bitcoin and altcoins must have decreased notably, electric power is vital, along with the internet, but because the damage is or must be very large, Maduro says it is sabotage of the USA, something totally absurd, and little by little the country can be put out, if these blackouts continue I have considered going to another country to be able to work under normal living conditions for myself and my family.

We also have to look at the timing, I personally think this is politically motivated. Black out happened prior to a big rally being plan by the Anti-Maduro factions on March 8, coincidence? Whose to blame? US? Maduro? Who will benefit more from the said outage?


We have seen that it has no effects whatsoever to global crypto currency ecosystem. But the sad part is the collateral damage, those children. We as adult can somewhat tolerate heat or cold. But those children, damn, it will be very hard for them to cope with this circumstances.

Maybe you were right,
The power cut in Venezuela won't affect the global cryptocurrency economy since Venezuela is barely considered as one of the users of the currency. If you will check the statistics and the forecast, you will never see Venezuela as one of the drivers of bitcoin. Usually, you'll see China, Russia, us and Japan as the players and if one of them had a nationwide power cut, then that is the time that would affect the cryptocurrency economy.

STT, I've quoted your post so that people know where I took the pic from but this is not directed at you.

So, the guy is an IDIOT!!!

In 2016 there was a serious drought that made the Guri Dam almost useless, and that dam is responsible for 60% to 70% of the energy in Venezuela.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-energy/drought-hit-venezuela-awaits-rain-at-crucial-guri-dam-idUSKCN0XA1WL

It was 3 years ago, and it did happen also at a smaller scale but still enough to disrupt everything in 2010 and 2012.

If you didn't anticipate this in a country where blackouts due to either maintenance or weather are the norm then you're a moron!!!! There is nothing to differentiate you from a guy that plans to sell ice cream in the desert only to find out there is no way to keep the ice cool enough there.

Some strange things happens over there and it frightens me regarding our dependence for electricity. At some point this kind of power cut could happen anywhere.

Most of biggest Bitcoin farms generate its own electricity and that electricity is green. No one will invest huge amounts of money into miners and then relay on someones else electricity. If producing electricity is as simple as mine Bitcoin.

Really?
You know this whole green electricity is a myth and has been busted a lot of times:

Canada - gas:
https://www.btcnn.com/crypto-mining-news/canadian-oil-companies-use-natural-gas-to-power-bitcoin-mining-machines/

Montana - coal:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/montana-senator-closing-coal-plant-could-hurt-bitcoin-mining-industry/

Australia- coal:
https://ambcrypto.com/australias-dirtiest-coal-plant-to-be-reopened-for-bitcoin-mining/

Perm - gas:
https://www.rt.com/business/415811-russia-power-station-cryptocurrenct-mining/

Want more?

Know what? These issues are not unique to Venezuela. Each and every socialist country is going to end up this way. The problem with socialism is that after a specific time period, three will be no rich people left to tax. All the rich would have migrated to some sane country, or they would have become poor.

You know, people seem to find ways to survive under the most difficult circumstances and the people in Zimbabwe has been a perfect example of that. Their economy has collapsed and they live in a impoverished country, but they are still using mobile phones to make transactions via M-PESA. The cellular networks are still functional and people are still doing business, without having to rely on a failing fiat currency. <hyper inflation>  ;)

There are several ways to generate your own electricity from small solar panels to charge your phone or small generators.  ;)

So bad for this people who live there, but let say they buy solar panels, if there is no signal on phone what can they do with phone? I think only radio works there if powercut will be more than 1 week.

Right, a lot of countries specially developing and third world countries are experience crisis. What's unique in Venezuela though is that the issue about the electricity. They are already in the worst situation, and add the nationwide power-cut? I don't know, If I'm in there then I would have left the country.

This country is very rich in oil. But what happened? It's because of the government's mishandling of everything that why the countries sinks deeper and deeper.

Now, everyone need to find ways to survived, even the bitcoin mining farms (if there is still at this point.)

You've gotta be kidding me. This powercuts have been affecting the country for the past 3 or 4 years, way before the United States started meddling in Venezuela's political affairs, though not at nationwide scale because the Guri dam was still functioning at somewhat decent levels, but since the govt hasn't done any maintenance to this dam in decades, let alone over the last few years when it started to malfunction, it has finally started to collapse.

And unlike the "United States did it" narrative that doesn't have any proof, the whole Guri dam situation has been very well documented for years. So, stop spreading nonsense and stick to real facts.

Socialism plus a corrupt government would do this to any country, regardless of how rich it is in resources.


Not even just rich people. Can't find the original clip used but I saw a vid where they nonchalantly expropriated a small business and the owner was just crying. Who in their right minds would keep running a business in such an environment? It's all good till you run out of other people's money.

Edit: Here's the Stossel vid, just can't find the original clip it was taken from. https://youtu.be/ACXTTfE4GxM?t=155


The sad thing is their money has become so useless that you need several bunches of it just to buy a cup of coffee. That's how bad things has become. I heard people have started just using the dollar but I'm not sure if the government has banned that like it did bitcoin.

Venezuela is now experiencing a complete crisis in everything and, above all, a political one. President Maduro, who actively introduced his centralized cryptocurrency el-petro, backed by oil, is fighting to preserve his power. The parliament of this country recognized this cryptocurrency as illegal.
In addition, it was allowed to civilians who bought and used this Venezuelan coin. Therefore, problems with el-petro cannot be caused by any negative influence on the general state of the decentralized cryptocurrency. only when the country emerges from this general crisis will the Venezuelan cryptocurrency be able to develop normally, if at all, it will not be abolished by the new government.

When Chavez was the president of Venezuela, they were actually doing quite well. Medicare was free and gasoline was available at $0.1 per gallon. But Maduro proved to be really incompetent. He should just step down and take a flight to Cuba.

Ok let me explain. The electricity of this country was actually quite good, and we used to export it to both Colombia and Brazil.
In the 60ies and 70ies, that large dam project in the river Guri was completed, it is the third biggest in the continent. It was done to complement the large iron and still mill production of the southern part of the country near the dam, and also supply the rest of the nation. When completed i think not even half of it was needed.

The population grew, and the economy, but everything was well kept and maintained thru the 80ies and 90ies, slowly all the old fossil fuel plants were decommissioned as this clean hydro electricity was plenty for all and there was excess to export too. The earlier governments were "lite" socialists, so called "reformists" (social-democrats). Since the 70ies not much was done to expand this generation and it was deemed unnecessary.

And then came socialism. At first, things seemed fine, with the high oil price socialists did what socialists know to do best: increase spending, and get in debt with others because oil price would never ever go down and more social programs are always needed than worrying about them being sustainable (they never are anyway), and the corruption this makes is incredible.

In the meantime all the democratic institutions were dismantled, and government centered solely on the presidential figure. The charismatic leader Chávez seemed to do things by decree faster than the bureaucratic institutions from the past, being a military commander he essentially ran the country like a commander in a military base, and weakened all those pesky institutions such as the legislative and judiciary branch, no one needs those balances and checks when the commander himself can do a far better job... And then he died, not before appointing Maduro as successor, no one knows why him instead of others. And the oil prices fell. Maduro did not want to stop or reduce any spending, and kept doing it as if nothing had changed, but the money was over. So he ordered the central bank to add zeroes to all the State bank accounts. Now you know there the hyperinflation comes from...

During these last 10 or so years, with inflation and a worsening situation, parts stopped coming for the (way too many) State owned companies, including electricity. Preventive maintenance was stopped and neglected completely. What used to be routine scheduled equip replacement, became more like: "Only if it blows up change it. We need to save what little left we have..." So the time bomb was ticking.

Had Venezuela ever had nationwide blackouts? Yes, even during Chávez in 2010, but after a mere 4 hours later everything was back to normal. But that was then. A backup plan was devised and countless millions of dollars spent, to have enough fossil fuel plants ready in case the dam ever failed again (usually its not the dam, but the very long very high voltage transmission line). By 2011 or so these were put into operation, so we had double what was needed, with the fossil fuel plants switched off most of the time.

And they slowly took everything from those plants, dismantled them, sold them, etc... corruption, corruption, corruption.

Well, socialism spending everything, the budget not cutting it anymore, all purchases stopped. First they start cannibalizing "non essential" things to repair others (since now new purchases were allowed anymore), and to "save" from purchasing parts. When there is no way or means to buy the parts, try to "repair" what we have. Oh and those old transformers taken off by their scheduled end of life, see if you can retro fit them and put them back to work... So now when something blows up after being way past their lifetime, replace it with the things that were also past their lifetime but are still "looking good"...

And then there is the maintenance related to keeping the foliage away from the transmission line. A "menial" work but they had no budget to keep doing it anymore, so meh. A little fire in the woods (which are seasonal in this country) a rogue animal there and poof, there goes the electricity again.

Venezuela has access to the Chinese market, anyone knows China can make ANYTHING. But we are already huge debts with them, and they refused Maduro to give it more loans anymore. If they hadn't driven bankrupt the country, they would have provided anything, as in fact they did years before, with buses, cars, military equipment etc. They want to blame the "sanctions" now that the US did sanction the individuals, but only because the truth of the matter gets conveniently hidden.

Just imagine for a minute there were no "sanctions", and any US company could still deal with them. They wouldn't, because the country IS broke and no one is lending money to them anymore. Socialists just neglect to tend their own debts, its far easier to blame it on "Imperialism" rather to reduce spending and balance the budget.

Since March 8 there have been 5 or more nationwide blackouts, after the first one they switched off all auto control, went to manual, and have failed to keep things running smooth again. Overloading transformers, making mistakes with loads, we sometimes get high voltage, low voltage, and most often than not, blackouts for hours. Maduro shamelessly announced "load balancing" (rationing) but zero schedule, people can't even prepare themselves, it goes and comes without warning, who cares if there is a patient in surgery or people in an elevator, they just don't care, because they suffer none of it.

Socialists are super hypocrites, they make a super rich privileged class, themselves, and throw everyone else into the utmost misery, and make sure yo keep a strong police state to keep the masses oppressed, with storm groups at their beck and call do the dirty job and keep everyone quiet or else...



Gasoline is still super cheap, its much less than that, you'd need satoshis to be able to express it, i could do the math... But all of that is pointless if the "price" means an entire nation suffering in misery. People can't live by drinking gasoline... But the corruption behind it is overwhelming.

6 VES per liter. 3500 VES = 1 USD, so 1 USD buys 583 (95 octane) liters so 0.0017 USD per liter or about 30 satoshis. Don't laugh, the price in human lives is not worth it. Oh yes, a gallon is nearly 4 liters so 113ish sats per gallon. There is also 91 octane, and that costs a third. Diesel is much much lower.

Electricity price is also ridiculous, but what is the use if they let the grid break completely? Why can't socialists understand that neglecting a social program to save the budget, means saving the entire country from a much worse situation? Ah, because they "hate" economy... That is why.

unfortunately there are many fanatics who continue to support such regime and still vote for shit like Maduro. In my country we have a regime that is the same as that of venezuela, and the country gets poorer each year, but the people who are in government get rich every year and continue to tell the people that everything is going to change and that they are working for the country develop, when in fact the shit that are in the government of my country are very corrupt and without any morals and ethics

Yes please. Mongolia.

There are some advantages to Bitcoin in that they could 'carry' it over a border while having no security fears like any normal valuable would have.   That is useful but I still see the greatest purpose for Bitcoin to be in transaction not being saved for a longer period of time exactly


Any conclusion of this type over time, also needs consideration over the graph of the oil price.    If oil were $150 or even just 100 Venezuela might have continued on a bit longer but this is partially a curse of every oil rich country that its possible to make the mistake of neglecting efficiency and ability to self sustain without the oil bonus.
Norway has done the smart thing, maybe other countries.  Its accepted the oil wealth not as not a solution by itself to fund budgets but a credit to be stored for investment because it does not help the countrys economy over the long term.  The oil price right now is actually pretty low, because inflation makes dollar worth less every year especially to any regime not directly connected to the printing presses of the Federal reserve.   Obviously Venezuela failed on the other side which is to deal with costs of production which is not perfect for them requiring refinement.
   Competition and allowing private losses and gains to be made would have made a difference, government never does a job with as much innovation and dedication as personal investment manages to achieve.   I dont want to think about how evil this regime is, there is more like them.  I just would like to hear it said that big government is dangerous and fails horribly, its totally possible in the '1st world' countries also imo

Source please.

Venezuelan people are known using Bitcoin to save their money from hyper inflation, and we know that electricity is the main source of power
to transact and obtain BTC through mining. I pity this county, their economy is very bad now, I hope somehow they can still recover and I also hope more and more people will be smarter to store their money in Bitcoin to preserve the value or possibly grow it.

PDVSA was run nearly into bankruptcy due to the abuse politicians did to it. Before Chávez, it only dedicated itself to the oil industry (sounds logical no?) but when Chávez took control of it (after the failed coup in 2002~2003) it was forced to do the things normally done by the State, and not an oil industry. In fact it was required to hand over the entire income to the central bank, where the politicians would decide what to do, before they decide to give something back to the industry.

Normally you would let the company work alone to sustain itself and then tax it, but the politicians got greedy and saw it as an infinite source of money (to buy votes with populism). PDVSA was actually quite profitable until this occurred. I clearly remember the company could easily sustain itself with oil price as low as 7 USD. But can you guess who takes pays the subsidy for the "free" gasoline Venezuelans get? Yup, PDVSA. And this is what happens when you let socialists run a company... They will ruin it, no matter what.

There was a law in place that didn't allow the gov to touch the income above a threshold, 40 USD a barrel or something, it should have gone entirely to international reserves to strengthen the local fiat, but Chávez didn't like that and changed the law to spend it all. The other oil rich countries used the extra to either build their reserve (savings) or diversify their economy. We did neither...

after fiat money was abandoned and replaced with cryptocurrency, now they are faced with electricity problems, and this is indeed very bad for their economic development, of course electricity is the main factor for crypto

Cut the bs, nobody abandoned anything.
The bolivar is still used and when it's not it has been replaced by the $.
There are 30 000 000 people in that country, do you imagine how the blockchain would look if everyone would make a tx a day?



https://qz.com/1054805/what-its-like-working-at-a-sprawling-bitcoin-mine-in-inner-mongolia/

One example that "might" use green energy isn't contradicting the fact that the above use coal and gas.
And no matter how many use green energy, it's still a myth that bitcoin miners user only green.
Get over it, miners are not some treehuggers that want to serve the universe, if it would cost 1cent/kwh they would use electricity made by teddybears slaves turning wheels in some dungeon.


Maduro can go away and nothing will be fixed.
Without an increase in oil prices, Venezuela is the same as sub-saharian Africa.
There is no magic cure other than oil, the others are painful and will require years after years of reconstruction.

The magic cure might be stop diverting resources away from profitable enterprise to suffer the burden of 'free' gifts from government.    Unfortunately this idea of the people (which ends up being the political/military  people) own everything is embedded too deep into the political atmosphere of Venezuela.      
They need deep reform, obviously a change of government would likely help but apparently change is not feasible or allowed democratically.    Its the same thing that would happen anywhere that the joints that allow change were frozen, its leading to bigger failures and eventually the whole structure trips and falls which serves no one at all.

There is no free, its a myth the cost actually has been gigantic.  Ever been offered Free deals in your own country, suspicious as hell is the reaction most have as we know to look at sum totals for cost.    I'm sad that crypto hasnt been more help, it is possible for blockchain to be efficient in transaction usage if not the mining.    Any effort to spread terminals for crypto should have been linked to solar panels, the worst should have been anticipated and I agree its only excuses now to say we didnt think this would happen.    They could have done this for hubs at least

Three letters, CIA.  ;)

This is debatable. If Maduro leaves and there's a change in the govt, it's very likely that the new govt (if it isn't pro-chavez/maduro) will receive external help -financially- from the World Bank^[1], the IMF, and I wouldn't discard foreign investors. Also, there's no doubt that humanitarian help will finally enter the country.

So, I do think that if Maduro resigns (along with his cabinet), things can change for the better. Sure, things won't get fixed overnight, but it'll help stop the economic collapse and the deteriorating lifestyle of venezuelans, at least in a year or two.

1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-imf-g20-worldbank-venezuela-idUSKBN17L1IG

I'm 99% sure that this is bait. Let's see who falls for it.

You know things are tragic when Venezuelans have resorted to farming digital items in video games for money.  Playing a video game is better money than working in their own country.

I know someone that has been mining in Venezuela and they still haven't been discovered.  Its extremely good money for them if they can stay hidden.

Please take a look here: https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/crude-oil-brent.aspx

The oil prices have already recovered and surprisingly it is having no positive impact on the Venezuelan economy. If I am not wrong, Venezuela earns around $140 million every day from the exports of crude (at this price).

In this you are wrong, VERY wrong. As i wrote before, the Venezuelan oil industry is profitable even if the oil barrel goes down to 7USD. The problem IS NOT the oil price, is the GIANT mismanagement and misuse of funds, and the politicians meddling.

The socialists are not competent or efficient at all. Quite the opposite, anything they do (if ever) costs 10x more, and takes 100x more to do.

ANYONE that is not from Maduro's party, WILL FREE THE ECONOMY. This is the main root of Venezuela's poverty. The second root is STOPPING CRIMINALITY.

Furthermore Venezuela COULD LIVE WITHOUT OIL if it wanted, you have no idea how wrong you are by making that statement.

1) That's Brent oil.
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts
Merey oil price is at 55$. (heavy oil , needs more refining).
2) Oil production (https://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-117/issue-3c/general-interest/oil-supply-cushion-insures-against-venezuela-output-loss.html) in Venezuela has plummeted to a little more over 1 million barrels a day, that's 55 million compared to your numbers of 140. 1/3

During Chavez's era oil was at over 100 $ at production at 2.8 million barrels, that's six times the income.
Oil can recover but when you need to export it half the globe away and your production is dropping like a stone, it matters less and less.

And let's do a bit more of math.

Let's assume the cost per barrel is 20$ and you export a million barrels a day.
If you sell at 50$ you have a profit of 30 million.
If you sell at double the price, 100$ you have a profit of 80 million, (nearly triple) :D

So, in reality, the difference is enormous and hard to find anything to compensate.



My country was fword after the Warsaw pact fall.
Although we were also fword for about ten years before it finally bit the dust.

It took us about 10 years of crisis and then stagnation to finally get going and try to catch up with western Europe.
But take a look at Romania, Bulgaria or Moldova.
30 years since the fall of communism, 10 years in the EU, free trade, EU funding, ....and close to nothing.

No, just throwing Maduro out won't solve the problems, it is indeed a necessary step but it's just the first out of a hundred or so.


Yeah, because living without income from natural resources has worked so fine for evey country in South America...oh wait!
The only economy that is not bleeding right now is Chile, that relies on its immense copper exports


Anyhow, we should return to talking about cryptos and Venezuela

Probably will not have an impact in global ecosystem of cryptocurrency but will surely impact the economic lives of those who solely depend in cryptocurrency as the source of their income in Venezuela as we all know that there are crypto dependent in that third world country. Poor citizens, they are suffering from mismanagement of their leaders in their country.

Oh really? No industry? No tourism? No Agriculture? Your ignorance cannot be worse. You are thinking like a socialist. Venezuela doesn't need that oil income, and any free market economy can do fine with 10% or less of that. Venezuela's oil barrel costs 10USD less than west texas, not brent, it is the world's cheapest because its heavy, which is why we built giant refineries to export finished product as opposed to crude oil, at least before the socialists seized power...

First thing to do is shrink the state, sell those companies and stimulate the economy with lower taxes and other incentives. Just by selling the state companies there is plenty of money to keep things running without getting any more debts.

To me just dismantling the gigantic over-bloated socialist state with a much lean and smaller classic liberalism state or similar, is all this country needs to do to be better than Chile. Oh and Chile is not living of copper alone, that's another sign of ignorance. And you even mentioned "south America", so, Brazil and Argentina extract what from the ground again? What about Uruguay, so called "Swiss of the Americas"? I could keep going but very few countries in the world are "dependent" on a single resource as if they had nothing else, such as, maybe the middle east countries surrounded by sand.

It was the wrong choice and politicians to neglect other sectors, if the state oil company is sold, you can tax that and everyone else, and no longer would the corrupt politicians be tempted to steal all that income since it won't be in their hands ever again.

Unfortunately, you're the ignorant one, and you're letting your pride getting the better of you.


FACT:
Copper exports make 50% of Chile exports.
FACT:
Argentina is experiencing the second inflation in South America and 5th in the world at around 40%.
FACT:
Uruguay went this decade alone through two crisis and relies on exports of raw material and food also. Manufactured products...not that much.

Swiss of America?
You realize that's insulting to every Swiss person on this planet right?


We will come to this point at the end of the discussion.
But I'm laughing my ass here seeing somebody accusing me of being a socialist.


Yes, no nothing!
The country has nothing left, no industry, no power, no food no nothing.
Oh wait, my computer is made in Venezuela, my laptop is made in Venezuela, my car is made in Venezuela  /sarcasm
You're from Venezuela, right?
If you still have industry and agriculture and tourism why is this inflation going through the roof?



Oh, the irony, this is why I told you your ideas are so funny

You are talking exactly like a socialist!!!!
You're going to sell something to pay your debts.
Just like Maduro sold the gold to pay for food for his militia you're going to sell the oil company to have food for a few months...and then?

Norway (which is not socialist btw) has a state-owned oil company.
And they are doing pretty fine with it and have no plans on selling it, why?
Because unlike you people they are used to think two steps ahead and not only with the stomach.

What are you going to do once the money from selling PDSVA will run out?
Oh, you're going to tax the hell out of the ones you sold the company to. Doesn't this sound a bit socialist to you? A bit more?
You're going to nationalize it again as Chavez did?  ;D ;D
This is your great plan of getting out of poverty, selling the only clothes you have left and then rob the guy that you sold them to?

This is why I said just sending Maduro to the moon won't solve anything.
You've been living in a socialist state for so long you don't realize that your revolutionary ideas are still socialist.

Anyhow
Unless this goes back to Cryptos and Venezuela I'm no longer replying in this already off-topic thread as this should be done in P&S

50% copper vs 90% oil...
40% inflation vs 1,000,000% inflation...
You didn't mention Brazil, or the rest of South America...

Do you even know where that inflation comes from? Are you REALLY asking this in the economics area?

What did Germany had at the time of Ludwig Erhard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Erhard)? And what did they do to become what they are today? What makes you think Venezuela can't restart its economy, or that there aren't several investors waiting for Maduro to leave?

Actually all three products you mention do exist "made in Venezuela", but that is off topic. Indeed your ignorance is boundless. Hint: Siragon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%ADragon).

Socialism destroyed the economy, and most industries stopped. What is needed for them to return? a free market economy. Good economy = more income from taxes, simple. And to boost it lower the taxes in key areas, this brings even more income from those taxes. Why can't you understand something this simple or call it "socialism"? A smaller State doesn't need a huge budget anyway, that is the point of selling the State owned companies.

Its not the State that needs money, its the people, and they get it when the economy becomes free and they can work and start business again.


Very well no taxes, because taxes are socialism... NOT. Actually the Kingdom of Norway considers itself a Welfare State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state)... Incidentally their Oil accounts only for 33% of their exports...

You alone came with this "tax the hell out of it" nonsense, you seem to ignore the century this country had foreign oil companies working and getting taxed as almost everybody else does in the world.

Chavez did not nationalize the oil industry, it was done by Perez in 1976 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Venezuelan_oil_industry#Nationalization). Again, get your facts right...

I guess they published a new thing on how they could handle a 30 day electric cut as well, when the problem is going all the way to not having any food to eat and literally losing weight as a whole nation there are bigger problems than just electric but since its the year 2019 many of the foods do have a fridge requirement to keep fresh or they go to waste, not like I think the food there ever goes to waste but the ones that are left will have a rotting issue as well so they need to store them better.

I don't know whats going to happen there but bitcoin is not enough to battle this out all by itself, bitcoin is a good helper for people who are losing their money and for people who had some bitcoin beforehand but its not going to be enough to get them out of this situation.

The crisis in Venezuela is not going to have any effect on the market of cryptocurrencies, however cryptocurrencies can have a huge effect on the lives of the few people that can get their hands on some bitcoin because as the production goes down everything becomes more expensive for the average person to buy so even a small amount of bitcoin can mean the difference between having something to eat or not, I just hope that the people of Venezuela learn that they cannot rely on the government to print their currency or this will happen again.

Is there a place with a reliable price index for Venezuela? Would interesting to see statistics and and more real time info.

That’s always the major problem that is much more common with socialism. When what they give out is more than what comes in. The leaders have put the country into debt and the debt keeps climbing rather than reducing and the interest on their debt is now the greatest single expenditure.  The country has had years of lousy presidents. Their problem is not oil, and I believe also that they can survive without oil if they really want to, they have lots of gift within them that they can really explore if they want. let them just work on their leaders.

I dont think anyone here is geologist or a chemist but on a basic level the oil from from Venezuela does need refinement before it can be used generally.   Its carrying a heavy amount of sulphur which makes it sour crude not like Texas sweet crude which I believe is easier to sell on.    

True its a massive resource but it did require proper management, just scooping it up in a bucket as it pours out of the ground wasnt going to be enough.   Government ruined the industry dominated management decisions and alienated investment that could have handled the price going up and down like it has, spending required would have made.   Instead only money was taken which is not how any proper business works, its just not that easy.

As I understand it the oil workers were not paid liveable wages which means even if the infrastructure is there the staff are not present or asleep from working several jobs to stay alive

There isn't one that I know of, but given how thin the market there is, there is no such a thing as reliable Venezuelan Bitcoin price index. People there either buy very close to western spot prices, or significantly overpay.

It's literally what the highest bidder wants to pay for a coin. In shaky countries there is little supply yet quite a high demand, so from there sellers basically can ask whatever they want for their coins.

I am following https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/VES

For once it's not peanuts volumes that we have seen in countries such as Iran and some African countries that news outlets unreservedly referred to as crypto hotspots. Venezuela is marching forward. :)

There is another development from Venezuela. The army has fired on tribal protesters in the Gran Sabana region, and there are reports of multiple casualties. The deaths were from the Pemon Indian tribe. The government is going ahead with a massive gold mining project, which the Indians claim will make their lands uninhabitable. Gold is one of the few remaining forex earners for Venezuela. A few weeks ago, the government had sold 29 tonnes of gold to the United Arab Emirates.

Venezuela made a big mistake by taking oil rigs with military force. President should knew the impact of this step and should nationalising with more smooth and not cause loosing international company investment.
Its hard for venezuela peoples but i think this condition should not last long but its about politics too so i think its complicated for venezuela peoples

It's sad when I see the Venezuelan country experiencing such a collapse, the financial conditions affected by inflation like that will make the country devastated, hopefully there are countries that want to help so that the condition of the people in Venezuela is better and not as alarming as it is today.

At this very moment there are nationwide spread blackouts, they are rationing everywhere but Caracas, because in Caracas things started getting tense with protests and the regime got really scared when there were demoing in front of the palace, something not seen since April 2002.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D3AQ3XjXcAIFktF.jpg (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D3AQ3XjXcAIFktF.jpg)

Also many parts of Caracas have been without water for more than a month, which fueled the protests.

All of this has to do with socialism. Socialism is about the State owning the means of productions, so they "nationalized" many companies, including basic services such as electricity, water and telephony. Next, they neglected them, cutting their budgets so low things started breaking all over the place. They are a monopoly, its not like we can choose to go to a different company. They destroyed the free market economy and replaced with a dysfunctional "central planned economy". They didn't outright ban private business but those few that remain are so draconionly regulated most go bankrupt anyway (and they are happy with that) and next they are not replaced by anything.

We used produce 80% of everything we ate, but now the de facto regime imports 90%, distributed to those fortunate enough to have both a special "Fatherland card" AND have a designated (honest) delegate in the zone they live in... The box is (supposed) to be given once a month, and contains things like: 1ltr cooking oil, 250gr mayo, 250gr ketchup, 2kg pasta, 2kg beans, 2kg rice, 1kg powder milk.

When you are supposed to feed a family for a whole month with just that... Well i hope you can start to understand socialism true face. And thanks to hyperinflation, a wage is about 5 USD a month. You can now buy imported goods, but they have international prices, or even higher in USD equivalent.

The net result socialism produces: Poverty like never seen before, and a new super rich elite that is closely tied to the regime leadership. Oh and don't get me started with corruption, when you replace the free market with bureaucrats to decide who eats and who doesn't, you can imagine what people are forced to do for eating... Since you are no longer able to start a business or work for others, the human entrepreneurial habit is replaced with a criminal type, either "white collar" bribes, or old fashioned street armed robbery, kidnapping etc. Weapons are banned so i leave to your imagination how criminals obtain them.

Leave it to socialists to destroy an economy, they are very good at it!

If in doubt, read Mises: Socialism An Economic and Sociological Analysis (https://mises.org/library/socialism-economic-and-sociological-analysis) (free book download).

https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/styles/list_teaser/s3/Socialism_bookstore.jpg (https://mises.org/library/socialism-economic-and-sociological-analysis)

The financial crisis there is something the civilized world has never seen before and all because of the collapse of their fiat system.
They are considering it trash as much to even throwing it in the streets to just show how worthless it is to them.
https://i.ibb.co/JtYfP4k/5l08hy28rll21.png (https://ibb.co/qjHtwf1)
https://i.ibb.co/ZmCymJX/lirey5Z.jpg (https://ibb.co/vY82YBq)
https://i.ibb.co/ng3QRny/caracas.jpg (https://ibb.co/K0NVmLg)

No country is really superior on this point at present.   Even in USA the costs of producing a 1 dollar note exceeds the value exchangable for that note.   People might say that note doesnt matter, most dollars are never printed; but its representative of the global economy doing similar to Venezuela which is to over produce note which have negliable value but are substitute for proper fiscal budgeting.  
Venezuela is the extreme example but its an effect in action all over the world.  Especially Japan is a country where the government is bankrupt while the nation is not and they are in theory democratic, its a destabilising force.   I think its a storm coming to us all

The FED isn't agreeing with you:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm

absolutely right and hopefully the country can recover as soon as possible because the community has suffered from the economy for quite a long time because the country was hit by severe inflation

I'm happy if thats the case, but I think the costs might be ignoring some of the subsidies given to the producers who supply cotton.   I'll try to get a source on that.
Really its analogy for the greater costs to the circulation of dollar and its false accounting to value but all the same I'll look it up.    If its wasn't a deceptive topic the Venezuela authorities and many other countries who went the same path would not have been able to get away with it for so long.  There is definitely a correlation


Ok found some reference for the idea but will look for something more specific

The country can recover quickly by abandoning socialist economy practices and embracing a free market economy. There is a ton of money out there waiting for a government change, since there is so much to do to rebuild the nation.

Selling the gold is like selling your bitcoin, you are burning your savings. This is very bad, its supposed to be the national reserves. Perhaps a future government will buy it back again, or perhaps it will see the light buy bitcoin instead as well...

Thanks to corruption by socialism, too much has been lost. The price is the current poverty and misery of the people. Once the market is free, and the country is made safe, many investors will come and jobs will rise, among with wages. As long as the State remains out of the way or give incentives.

Being a socialist country, Venezuela is having very few allies. They include Russia and Cuba. But Cuba is in no position to help, and Russia is too busy dealing with the issues around its borders (Ukraine, North Korea.etc). Perhaps the Venezuelans would have been in a better position now, had they spent their petro-dollars carefully during the boom years (2010-14).

You can be sure it has nothing to do with crypto and vice versa. All the crises that occur there are purely from an economic failure that is even getting worse. Venezuela is currently not in need of assistance with "crypto" tags or the like. They need real economic help

Venezuela is in all sorts of trouble these days and I think united nation should act and give some peace / relief to the citizens of Venezuela.




Venezuela is perfect example of where the economy is in serve pressure and their local fiat currency has lost its value completely. Also you can find that almost everyone in Venezuela has invested in bitcoins and the rate of bitcoin in Venezuela is far more than the normal rate else where.

 This is really a sad news. Minimized power supply will cause a lot of difficulties in everything. The economy will go down because many technologies are not working well and people's lives are lower.
venezuela needs a better leader and helps their country on the right track. Inflation is expected to decline significantly in the next few years for Venezuela.

Inflation is not declining, its increasing. Socialist mindset in the economy destroyed the nation's means of income. Venezuela's economy has been declining for the last decade, especially during the last 6 years when Maduro seized power:


The powercuts? An entire month has been lost already. Most places in Venezuela keep getting blackouts (and that also damages things), they only spared the capital from power rationing from fears of a popular revolt getting out of hand...

I think this whole process has to be analyzed in context with US sanctions. The 2017 economic collapse came just after 1 year of US sanctions.

I don't know how much of the collapse is due to internal policies and how much of it is due to the fact that anyone who does business with the USA cannot legally do business with Venezuela.

You can probably destroy any emerging market economy with this kind of sanction regardless of ideology.

Let's be realistic a bit here, right?
Think of the one dollar bill and how much cotton can be in it, (as it weighs 1 gram), then think that if the cotton is more expensive than 1$ per gram it should be around 1000$ per kilo.
A pair of socks or underwear that are made of cotton would cost from 60 to 120$.
Or more than the average weekly wage of more than half the world.

In reality, cotton prices are at around 1.5$ per kilo, so you can buy half of it with one bill:P

No, what happened in Venezuela is that they tried to print small bills that would have no value whatsoever.
For example, a one yen bill would also be counterproductive, and Japan can't really be compared to Venezuela in terms of inflations.

And funny enough, we run into this problem with cryptos also.
Remember the spam wave in early 2018?
If you had dust sitting in a lot of addresses it would cost you more to send that dust than it was worth it :D

it is true that in Venezuela the economy was hit by a terrible economic crisis, but from an incident like this it should be used to study so that it does not repeat itself in other countries because there are already examples of countries destroyed by an irregular economy.

In fact this is nothing new, we have seen crisis like the one that is striking Venezuela many times before which is what makes this even sadder, economist all over the world have warned that something like this was going to happen eventually to Venezuela and the leaders did not listen to them and now all the population of the country is paying the price for decisions that they did not took themselves.

I don't think that is true. Venezuela still amounts to less than 1% of the exchange volumes and I really doubt whether the people there can actually afford purchasing Bitcoins. As far as I have heard, the US Dollar banknotes remains as the primary method of wealth storage (although the government is going all out to stop this practice).

No, Venezuela was broken by socialist policies: Pegging the USD to an arbitrary value "to stop inflation", which was in effect a subsidy favoring imported goods and hurting local production; massive intervention by the state seizing investments, property and production or fixing prices by decree made most of the private sector bankrupt, and what the State owned or seized from bankrupt companies, was left to rot as well. Expenditure... insane money waste, often lost in corruption (ie. Odebrecht), disguised as social programs when oil prices were high. Now that they are low, they kept the same or even increased the expenditure, since they were in red unable pay wages they ordered the Central bank to add zeroes to the State accounts (because printing actual banknotes is too expensive) and we were forced into a cashless nation overnight due to their own induced inflation.

By the time the US started "sanctions" in say, 2017; 95% of the harm was already done. In theory, these "sanctions" are aimed to give the final blow that would topple the de-facto gov, but the regime seems completely oblivious to them and the (bad) situation remains unchanged (its getting worse with or without sanctions).


The amount of USD money circulating is rather limited, and this is also making inflation in USD prices as well. Imported goods are starting to be much more expensive than abroad, which makes it tricky for most people who earn under 5 USD a month.

Bitcoin is ideal to escape inflation, but as correctly pointed few people can afford them. There is a group of wealthy people often abroad trading with them as this is one of the only ways to safely move capital from and to the country with draconian controls.

So many problems for this country, i hope soon some of problems will be resolved and people can have jobs on their country well paid, but who know what will happen.

I think you are right too, when the economy is destroyed, of course many are having difficulty eating, let alone investing in bitcoin, so there are many news exodus in that country. of course it becomes an obstacle if the state authorizes crypto and the electricity goes out within a few days

The things we need to even be looking at now is if there is a way cryptocurrency can contribute toreviving their economy again or assist them in getting out of this dilemma as quick as possible, not the one OP is bothered about the effect of their crisis on cryptocurrency.

If majority of these people had invested in cryptocurrency long time ago when Bitcoin was first introduced, these would have been a saving grace for them, even if they have power supply issue, some of the holdlers would have traveled to other countries to access their wallet and get some bitcoin that would help them settle down in another country, this is also more reason why government too needs to embrace crypto, imagine they have lots of bitcoin saved in a wallet, would it not have been the best time for it to salvage their situation?

It looks like the situation has improved a little. But constant blackouts remain a concern for the majority of the people.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article229026649.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/venezuelans-struggle-find-water-aftermath-blackouts-190404065537683.html

The news indicates that the power supply has been restored, but it is being heavily rationed.

Venezuela cannot stand this situation for a long time.
It has been years that they suffer but citizens would be on the verge of collapse. And also we should not forget that other organizations can thrive under these conditions that may cause significant problems and anarchy to the country.
I can't find a way that can help Venezuela find its way to growth.

Well, we can conclude that it will have any negative effect on global cryptocurrency economics, it’s just Venezuela, not America, not China, not India. We have to first consider the ratio of cryptocurrency Holder in this country to other countries, what is their total market capital input in cryptocurrency.

For the little I know, I don’t think they have much input in this, the only people I see having serious challenge through this power breakdown are if we have miners in their country, this could affect the miners as they will not be able to get access to electricity to be able to mine coin for their own personal interest.

Jobs, what our economy needs is jobs, and for that the economy must be opened, so investors can come and open business. To open the economy the socialists must fall. Without opening the economy any source of income must be in a foreign currency to be able to survive hyperinflation, obviously something they can't seize like crypto works.

Since nobody wants to kick the socialists out (and the few who tried failed, were killed, etc.) people flee the country in desperation. How can you live with 5 USD a month when the price of imported food is higher than in the US, and local production disappeared?

While Caracas was supposed to be spared from the blackouts, yesterday we had another one for several hours... And each time this happens the water stops for at least 4 days or more, which is what prompted demonstrations and lootings last time.

Also the internet service is garbage, it comes and goes at random, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours or days, and many people never get it again.

It is very sad to hear that this is the situation right now there.
These conditions are very strict to live at.
Investments will come only if political stability will be in place and if so happens, then jobs will follow decreasing the unemployment rate. 5 USD a month is unacceptable, you can't live a day without this amount of money in some countries and I can feel how hard it is to do so if you have to spend a month with $5.

The state of the economy in Venezuela is so poor that what is needed is for the current government to fall and a new non-corrupt capitalist government that has the best interests of the people of Venezuela comes after it, that is the only solution to the problems of Venezuela, bitcoin could help a few people but when the money that is printed by the government has no value how are you going to get bitcoin? Now if a person was able to get bitcoin before all of this happened then he could flee the country but that is not a solution for all of those that had not the foresight to do that.

This is why we need jobs, to start rolling the aforementioned wheel. It all involves a free market, and rule of law investors can rely in. If Venezuela were to open its market and end crime (and corruption), it suddenly becomes seriously attractive as we have the lowest wage on the planet. Of course, that will bring a lot of low paid job offers that will start competing among themselves (Supply and Demand), and this is what ultimately will start rise up wages, not that stupid socialist "everything solved by decree" mentality that only bankrupts business and scares everyone away.

Unfortunately in 2009~10 everything seemed ok, people were content with their income and quality of life to bother stop and think the future would become so dark (literally). We are now paying the price... Offer jobs online is one of the things you can do to help. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/give_a_man_a_fish_and_you_feed_him_for_a_day;_teach_a_man_to_fish_and_you_feed_him_for_a_lifetime)"

Sending money is useless. While a good intention, it most likely goes to waste, unless properly audited by International NGOs for social aid etc (nearly impossible with the current de-facto gov.)

An explanation of why the military continues to back a failed government is an expanding drugs trade, upto 50bn a year is being exported north via small plane from excess production walked over the columbia border.
Not a surprising development for a failed country but a terrible failure when they have so many legitimate resources

https://us.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/04/10/venezuela-drug-routes-nick-paton-walsh-lon-orig.cnn/video/playlists/around-the-world/

^^^^

I don't understand this. Is it that easy to get coke on a small plane and fly all the way to Southern United States? If I am not wrong, around 3,000 km of sea lies between Venezuela and the US. How can the planes go all the way without being detected?

And that's probably just a side dish, the military are making millions with contraband gasoline to neighbor countries to bother with drugs. But of course that is tightly controlled and perhaps is leaving some people out of that pie who then resort to drug trafficking.

Another more recent source of trafficking is precious metals. They are supposed to be handled exclusively by the State, and yet Venezuelan Gold and Coltan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan) keeps showing abroad. Few days ago an abandoned container full of Coltan from Venezuela (http://www.ilfriuli.it/articolo/cronaca/trieste,-sequestrato-un-container-di-coltan/2/196420) was found in a warehouse at some port in Italy i think. Oh, Coltan is a bit radioactive and it was unlabeled which infringed EU laws and only because of that we learned about it...

The corruption levels of this country cannot be expressed with words anymore, if not at the top, its one of the top 5 more corrupt places on Earth.


As for how drugs enter the US and EU, use your imagination. The cartels might take it to central America or the Caribbean islands first, then use small planes, boats, even submarines. Do remember the nephews from Nicolás Maduro (https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/12/16/venezuelan-dictator-nicolas-maduros-nephews-sentenced-18-years-drug-trafficking-ny/) were captured (https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/12/16/venezuelan-dictator-nicolas-maduros-nephews-sentenced-18-years-drug-trafficking-ny/) doing just that in Haiti planning to use a plane from State oil PDVSA to smuggle 1,700 pounds (800kg) of cocaine into the US.

https://media.breitbart.com/media/2016/07/Maduro-nephews-arrested-US-Attorneys-Office-Manhattan-640x480.jpg (https://media.breitbart.com/media/2016/07/Maduro-nephews-arrested-US-Attorneys-Office-Manhattan-640x480.jpg)

Uh huh, everything is just an imperialist lie™ to remove a couple of nobodies from, nowhere as they didn't had any positions within the gov...

I dont think the fuel is working out for them anymore.   They exported a ton to Cuba recently because thats a political ally and to Russia also.    The country has a problem because it cant drill oil properly, efficiently and also a chemical process to refine the heavy sour oil type is not so easily done.
  They failed in industry to juggle costs of refinement despite the worlds largest oil reserves, its like a Greek tragedy its such a familiar failure and so is this turn to drugs trade and a criminal economy has developed due to normal capitalism being banned.
Military radar is required to pick up objects close to surface, this is really extreme and not normally used outside warfare afaik.    Also the smugglers are deliberately using the smallest possible airplanes, this makes it extremely hard to track.   I suppose they are also irregular in their patterns of movement, the problem then is the cost of surveillance over what is quite a large area and the payoff to smuggle means it will go ahead even if the occasional plane is tracked and stopped perhaps.    This is why you will always hear of smugglers sentenced to spend every year of their life until old grey and just years from death before any chance of release, the rewards are so massive the discouragement required is also very large

I live near venezuela, and always see bad news coming from this country, that suffers and that we do not have a correction in the crisis, I hope soon it will end, people die and suffer!

Oh i don't think you understand how the fuel business work, and its not about Cuba, that was on a different level. Gasoline trafficking lets them transform 100USD into 40000USD by crossing the border, that's only 1 cistern truck. This has been going on for decades, getting more lucrative by the minute (they LOVE hyperinflation).

Because of the ridiculous subsidy, gasoline is essentially free. A decade ago it was estimated 2/3rds of gasoline production was smuggled out of the country. That was when we still actually produced our own gasoline... Instead of importing now that we let our State owned refineries rot.

very sad to hear your story, even though I don't know exactly, but we can imagine that if the electricity goes down for a few days, it will certainly make it difficult for crypto transactions, and it means that their economy stops

More importantly the water stops, and it takes at least 4 days to recover the water to the city once power comes back...

Guess what the "socialist" gov did for Easter? "To reduce the electric rationing in the country side, the water system for the city won't be electrified during these holidays". Indeed yesterday the whole city went dry (again). We shall see if it takes another demonstration (with the usual deaths caused by the gov goons shooting at them) in front of the presidential palace to make them wake up...

In "socialism", only the vast majority of the people suffers, not the elite in power. Ironic, given their rhetoric, but that is always the result from an ideology based on coercion and "class struggle" rather than freedom and peaceful development.

If the subsidy on gasoline is cancelled (at least temporarily), then there will be a huge improvement in the health of the Venezuelan economy. But for some unknown reasons, the government don't want to do that.

IIRC, the last time a venezuelan govt decided to eliminate the subsidy on gasoline, all hell broke lose. The whole thing triggered a surge in the price of gasoline and public transport fares, venezuelans didn't like that so riots spread throughout the whole country which led to thousand of citizens getting killed in the protests. I read about this a long time ago, this whole event has a name but I can't remember it.

But I think there are other ways to help the venezuelan economy if they want to start in the oil industry, for instance, the privatization of PDVSA, the company in charge of production and exportation of oil.

They cannot remove subsidy, because if they do, it will increase the cost price of gasoline to the end users who are the citizens

The point is guys, they have no choice.   An economy can be like gravity or nature itself and certain fundamentals will not be reversed by blunt force alone.   We are not talking magicians here, they are running out of viable production.   'The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money'

Ultimately I dont care about politics or nationalism, every country is different and thats all fine if it can be made to work.   Whats happening in this country is one section of people have turned against the less powerful people in that country, its a failure of humanity that we can all lament hope something better occurs.     This can be a successful country again, unfortunately the UN as usual amounts to nothing productive in this scenario

Caracazo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracazo)

This stupid taboo caused the ruin of the country. Because of this, the military became more corrupt than ever, decades of corrupt to their root officials unwilling to move a finger against their accomplice De-facto gov. When socialists came they gave them even more means to make money, now they could traffic food and medicine besides gasoline and drugs, and lately precious minerals. The price of all this, is the misery of everybody else.

And it all started by giving the gasoline away for practically free. Socialists extended it to everything else, and everything else became scarce, expensive, and a source of illicit money, and a need to bribe to obtain it solidifying the culture of corruption. Some (old enough) Russians will probably recognize this pattern from the Soviet Union, i'm sure, and their former satellites.

"Caracazo" was over in less than a week, a month later everything was back to normal. The blackout of March alone was far more worse. And people started looting as well, but the socialists deployed their SA style armed irregulars and stopped people gunpoint (and killed some too), along with the armed forces of the military and police.

I also believe that without ending this horrendous subsidy this country will never recover, it is at the core root of the problem. The military will probably attempt to stage a coup because this is the same as taking the drugs from drug traffickers. I also believe all these decades of corruption has irreversibly damaged the military and the police, and should be completely disbanded, and the police redone again, the military is useless. among many other things that politicians don't dare or think to do, this country has no hope.

Yes, this is bad to Venezuela economy not only in cryptocurrency but their economy itself. Usually the industrial sectors are earning or will be productive through the use of machineries run by an electricity. This is the same with cryptocurrency especially if in their are it is widely known. This may decrease crypto market a little bit but it could not compromise the market because no one could sell crypto without power to run their gadgets.

Electricity is essential to all industries. As one of my professor said during college days that electricity is the blood of industry.

Effects to cryptocurrency values would be less. So far I have not seen any country that have the same problem as they do have. So to cause the global cryptoeconomy to be affected, countries that holds most of the digital coin must be affected first or there should be a global economic problem that should hit every country which nobody would want it to happen. Today there are so many efforts made to show how power can be used can be made with renewable energy resources. So electrical problems might nit be that big in the future.

The World's Most Miserable Economy Has Seven-Figure Inflation (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/the-world-s-most-miserable-economy-has-seven-figure-inflation)

Unfortunately a decade and a half of "socialism" got rid of most of the national production, 90%+ stopped, went broke or fled the country. Nobody wants to invest in a country where the gov can seize your assets on a whim, and the State itself doesn't produce anything but corruption.

Electricity failing due to neglect on the State electric company, was just the icing on the cake. In the same situation are all basic services, which where all nationalized during Chávez and inherited by Maduro the inept.

It is deeply ironic that a "socialist" gov gives gasoline away for free, but provides no healthcare, no education, not even personal security, nothing. But unlike in a free market economy, you can't find a private solution either...

Are you able to do your own electricity generation? For example solar panels on your roof.

In the UK and USA, having solar panels and generating your own electricity (and selling the excess back to the grid) is quite common. It decentralises electricity generation and makes it less likely a bad actor can harm the entire country by hacking the grid.

Some people have small gasoline generators, and a few places have the large ones.

Sadly no, renewable energy doesn't have much traction. Gasoline being nearly free doesn't help... (Same reason we would be the last country on earth to see an Electric car).

I saw one of those small gasoline generators the other way for about 2 million bolivares. Remember the average wage here is 20 thousand bolivares (per month)... 1 USD would be about 6000 bolivares by now (we will see tomorrow), 1 bolivar is about 3 satoshis.

Two days ago we had 12 hours blackout, its getting a little better, but still there is a deep problem in the dam that needs urgent addressing: Replace of two giant transformers (it has 3, only the last one is working) only a company from Germany has them, but they don't recognize the usurper so there is no way for this to be purchased. Unless the Chinese can cook something (since they have nearly all world technology, copied or not...).

I am agree, Venezuela government should not seize investor asset and do nationalization with more smooth. Government can buy the company share instead using military force. I dont think socialist system able to run in digital era, because anyone can make trade instantly with others people around the world

How cheap are solar panels in your country? Setting up a portable solar power plant (including the inverter and battery) can cost up to $10,000 in my country and here it is a big amount. Even at industrial scale, solar electricity is quite expensive when compared to other forms of energy such as nuclear electricity, thermal electricity and hydro-power.

And in case of Venezuela, the solar panels and other components will be even more expensive (if they are available at all), due to the ongoing embargoes and sanctions. As far as I know, the solar panels needs to be imported from Brazil as they are not produced in Venezuela.

Is there no way they can buy a second-hand transformer from a third party?

As an aside, is there any chance of Maduro stepping down and making way for someone who hasn't antagonised the world? 

The only chance Maduro steps down is if another country were to welcome him like a King, which is quite unlikely.   The only one I can think of is Cuba but they want him to stay right where he is in order to keep sending the oil in exchange for goods and labour provided, they have their own problems.   Any benefactor would need to be a rich nation I guess, I dont think China has any purpose from him except as a gateway to aquire assets and access to the oil fields perhaps similar to how China operates in Africa.    
Russia wants Maduro there to give them a free base in South america.   The Venezuela Military want Maduro to remain there so they can continue to export drugs from Columbia with immunity from prosecution.     Unfortunately the people are all secondary, the only ones who benefit now are corrupt or somehow receiving money from a government which is broke outside of cash to buy bullets to fire at those who disagree.    Its not a unique path, its well trodden downward spiral by failed regimes into chaos and eventually war and destruction of the country

Could the ordinary people remove him somehow? If Maduro's status depends on him handing out money, maybe the money will run out and those supporting him will turn on him?

Everyone wishes that, except the small group that is profiting from corruption or the few remaining followers who still blindly believe in them.

As for the dam, I'm guessing that the Chinese could build them (they just take anyone's money), but given the current debt with them, it seems unlikely. Besides they would need to custom manufacture them, as those things are very rare worldwide. I think companies from Germany and Japan can provide them as well. They call them "auto transformers" and are probably related to the 730kv line

Things are getting really interesting. Maduro has accused Guaidó of attempting a military coup against him. However, it looks like the coup attempt was suppressed. As of now, it is impossible to say whether Guaidó enjoys any support from the military factions. Initially, there were indications that some of the soldiers were supporting Guaidó.

Here is a very sad article about how crypto isn't working out for Venezuela anymore:

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-cant-fix-venezuela-i-should-know


Looks like the lack of reliable electricity and internet has scuppered the adoption of bitcoin in Venezuela.

Surfing in search for a topic i remember that i saw in news regarding this situation as being solved. Is it right or it's just a fake news?

seeing news on television, he said there would be no coup d'état by guaido, which was caused by a lack of troops to rebel, although Guaido received support from the US. but it seems that until now the conditions tend to be conducive, hopefully the country will be able to solve the problem

You can find the full story in this article
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36319877

Dethroning the current president will bring chaos in any country and Venezuela proves it right. If it come to the point of power or electricity shortage then it will obviously affects cryptocurrency transaction in the country. This will not affect global transactions but hopefuly it will not come to that point.

I think that the problem of Venezuela is political, that it has the worst governments in the world, where they have dropped an economy that came to be the most prosperous, even better than the USA in the 1970s, to be the worst, due to the system socialist and communist destroyer.

Many who are followers of this fraudulent current that the USA is to blame, I say and affirm that no, because the power cuts if it totally influences the development of Bitcoin technology because it is the first country with the most bitcoin movement in negotiations , the service is almost free, practically nothing is paid, it is a total paradise for the miners, but at any moment the country will be totally off because they have no plans for improvement or changes in the electrical system.

I personally think that Venezuela no longer has a solution if it is not an intervention, and that can only be done by a multinational coalition led by the USA and Europe, otherwise they will see Venezuela die worse than any African country or even worse than Cuba.

Its economy is a disaster, many who operate with Bitcoin manage to survive while their rulers live as if they were in Dubai, this is the scenario there, a Venezuelan tells you, who knows what their only solution is.