Bitcoin Forum

So, everyone should already have heard that Zimbabwe has issued a new currency, because most of us look at Zimbabwe as an example of what goes wrong with Fiat currencies when they fail.  ;)

The problem is that they have a huge shortage of the new currency, so people are only allowed to withdraw a limited amount of it and then there are already people selling it on the street at a premium to people that desperately need it.

So imagine this, you rock up at the ATM and you want to draw $500, but all the ATMs tells you that you can only withdraw a maximum of $100 per day.  :P

Luckily for us Bitcoiners, nobody can tell us how much we can use, because we control our own currency.  ;) This is just another reminder of what true Financial freedom are supposed to be.  ;D

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/world/africa/2019-11-12-zimbabwes-new-banknotes-run-out-within-hours-of-introduction/

https://www.fin24.com/Economy/Africa/long-qeues-form-in-harare-as-zimbabwe-releases-new-bank-notes-coins-20191112

Do you live in Zimbabwe?
Can you use btc to buy something?
Do you have btc ATMs or exchange offices where you can exchange btc to fiat?
What about taxes?
It will be great if your local people can directly spend btc instead of waiting to get fiat money.

Based on the Reddit threads I've read in the past that are supposedly from Zimbabweans, some people do transact with bitcoin(though a minority as far as I know), and they trade the bitcoin for fiat and vice versa through LocalBitcoins. If I remember correctly, bitcoin is more of a SoV than an actual currency.

i think the point of what OP says is to remind others that bitcoin is more about financial sovereignty and taking that control back in your own hands.
it is all a beginning, you can't expect wide usage of bitcoin as payments (to buy something) this early on. but it is happening everywhere.

Zimbabwe currency is one with a very low value. One Zimbabwe dollar to the USD is about 361 US dollar.
Which is a bit of a growth as to what it used to be.
Hopefully bitcoin can be the change citizens of that country needs

Not only Zimbabwe there are many more countries going through the sam problem. Surely Bitcoin means freedom from centralized control and Banks.

But, I do not understand how are you relating Bitcoin to financial freedom. As per my understanding you have to convert Bitcoin to fiat, you are still depending on Fiat.

It is a crisis situation out there, do not make a mockery of it. They need Fiat to survive, hospitals and food store there do not accept Bitcoin but Fiat.

nice step to suppress their hyperinflation, but wait?

the initial injection of funds to the bank is only $ 30 million ZWL, the daily withdrawal limit is $ 100 ZWL, equivalent to $ 5 USD
(based on sources from op)

I do not know the average cost of their daily lives, but this only meets the needs of less than 2 days, indeed their new system needs length adjustment. but it is very useful if the citizens start to trust bitcoin early to at least find a more comfortable alternative.

That's no imagination but a harsh reality to India as well! Recently an old bank known as "PMC Bank" failed due to corrupted lending and high percentage of NPA. The central bank immediately banned the people from withdrawing their deposits and given them a daily limit. My housing society is one of the victims and they are still hoping to withdraw their deposits.


Correct! But that is far from being a reality! We can only realize the true potential of cryptos knly if it is accepted by the stores of our country. If you don't have any way to use cryptos in your country to buy goods and services, the only way left is to trade cryptos for cash and then use it! But I understand and support your point! It is becoming more valid during the current economic slowdown.

That is probably the prevailing condition especially in developing countries like mine where Bitcoin and crypto are still mind-boggling puzzles to the legislators and policy-makers. Although one has the option to choose crypto over fiat, it is unfortunate that in the end, during the moment of actual spending, one has to get back to fiat first and do the purchase. There are people here claiming that they choose crypto as their money but they are still compelled to do the same conversion regularly for their day to day needs. 

I would not be happy if they were the banks limiting withdrawal of money to me, because it is my money and my right to take whatever, if indeed it happened in my country would be very terrible plus bitcoin users here would be called unlawful if using bitcoin as a tool payment, so of course it will kill me slowly, maybe I go to escape to a country that is free to use bitcoin as a means of payment

Oh, Jesus. The first line isn't looking good, I'm honestly dumbfounded for what Zimbawewe can do with their economy, I think it's at a state of no return and it's just going to keep going to shit...

Yikes. Looks like they are following what Argentina is doing with their currencies, and restricting users from using it... Keep in mind, this is 100 ZWL, not 100 USD, and that converts to around 5 USD. Amazing!

They should have done something with crypto-currencies and just tried to move towards a decentralized option.

There's no freedom in using their money, no wonder their economy suffers as it is not run by a good government.
Compared to BTC, we can say we are having a total freedom here as we don't even need an ATM to spend it, though there's a limited supply on BTC only but we never see people complaining on shortage.

This country should adopt with crypto and leave their fiat, they might grow this way,

Zimbabwe economical crisis is due to wrong government polices not due to FIAT currency notes. FIAT currency is still used in every country and on it the whole financial empire stands. In my opinion neither fiat nor crypto can help you if you have economical crisis due to wrong central government polices.

some bitcoiners are lucky when there is an economic crisis like in Zimbabwe but it depends on the country where they live, I'm sure you also can't make anything for example now you live in Zimbabwe with events happening there even though you have some bitcoin of course you can't shop or transact with your bitcoin there because now in Zimbabwe as far as we can see they haven't received crypto payments at their stores.

I actually put a little thought into this after my last post, and it's interesting how they are reacting in this way, I think even a blind man could realize that the Zimbabwean government is extremely corrupt and it's likely why they've chose to go down this path.

I'm wondering why they aren't choosing to adopt a decentralized payment method and use it as a bandaid as they can fix their own economy, but I just cannot... Did anyone get any ideas?

Hmhm, their currency would honestly be fine if they didn't have such a shitty government...

The Zimbabwean economy has been in shambles for a long time now and the only thing that this so called new currency issuance is going to do is to make sure that they don't use a truckload of money just to buy a few things. They are just redominating their currency that's all but they should have made sure that they had more in circulation to prevent the shortage.

This is just one of the use cases where Bitcoin could help people redeem their financial freedom. One main advantage is the removal of certain restrictions made by the government. Although we're still far from full adoption, this incremental signs and acts that leads us toward a Bitcoin-oriented economy is a positive factor to Bitcoin and its market potential. And with the help of recent advancements such as with Lightning Network, we could improve more and thus increase its value.

This is just another example of the shortcomings of fiat controlled by central entities. You literally can't get the value of your money. I'm sure that Zimbabwean people work hard for that money and still they can't use it? That's a flawed economy and it will collapse sooner or later. The inflation is ridiculously high. IMO the countries in this kind of situations need to definitely change their economy to cryptocurrencies because fiat is not viable anymore. I mean come on.. you can't withdraw 5 bucks worth of currency?! How you're gonna live ?! lol By getting back to bartering, here's my goat - give me some bread haha

Those in the higher positions are just abusing their power to manipulate the citizens of Zimbabwe. No country should experience shortcomings in terms of fiat since it is essential in their everyday lives. We can say now that relying on bitcoin would be a great idea but it would surely take up a lot of time before everything gets to work properly. On the other hand, there's no hard evidence yet that crypto can set a country in motion and boost its struggling economy so we cannot really claim that bitcoin or any crypto would solve the problem.

FIAT is crap but it is not the main problem of Zimbabwe or countries like it. The main problem is lack of natural resources, being abused by the Westerners for years as a colony, being physically away from the civilization, diseases, simply not wanting get smarter, not giving a fuck anyway, etc etc... When all these shit bad possibilities happen at the same time and combine it with FIAT, you get Zimbabwe.

Moving away from FIAT only is not going to solve shit in Zimbabwe.

Another coin that the government can turn to dust overnight. Zimbabwe should have learned the lesson...

Hmmpf, they should learn from us, 1 bank note per person per day, the socialist way of redistribution of wealth: quotas and lines, LONG waiting lines, so many and so long, you won't have time to do anything else which fits perfectly with their system, as there won't be any full jobs worth doing anyway.

100$ per day at the ATM? Try 2$. That's the reality here. And guess what, the money only lasts about 15 minutes, the ATMs get refilled about twice a day. Your best hope is to do the line at the bank for your daily banknote. Of course, most transactions are done with debit card, physical money is only rarely used in things like the obsolete (private) public transport city services.

To me, the only reason any government has to issue a coin, is to manipulate it and do things like printing to fit their ill conceived budgets, rather than reduce expenses.

Rather than creating fiat currencies, they should be abolishing them and just adopt bitcoin. Otherwise they are planning something shady, that only ends with MORE poverty. Indeed if you start adopting Austrian school of economy ideas, first thing you do is abolish fractional reserve banking and CLOSE the central bank. This forces the ever corrupt politicians into more transparency, no garbage budgets anymore.

Well, lets just see how long they take to repeat history. One would think 40 centuries (https://mises.org/library/forty-centuries-wage-and-price-controls-how-not-fight-inflation) should be long enough for humans to learn, but alas...

It is now the time we boast the advantages of bitcoin which can be implemented on a certain country for a better mometary system. This is a certain call for the attention of everyone to see that bitcoin is way more better than fiat and the manipulation of the government will never stop but we can be freed by bitcoin. A country should have a government that would provide suffecient needs of its people but it is contrary on what is happening on Zimbabwe so maybe things would get better if they would allow bitcoin be regulated by them.

No government will give this freedom to their citizen,because they want to control the financial stability by controlling such things but bitcoin is for anyone,if bitcoin is in your hand you can do anything you want,no need for approval from banks,no need to visit ATMs to withdraw,no need to hold wallets in our hand and much more.

But when we are going to use bitcoin as currency,we still see it as speculative asset which is big barrier from next level adoption as payment.

Not only does Zimbabwe have a bad economy, Venezuela is an example of this, they have similar problems, when a new currency is issued, the monetary cone changes, cash bills are exchanged in Colombia causing shortages and inflation increases.

The Venezuelan government launched a token-cryptocurrency that is being implemented as payment for certain paperwork, such as issuance of passports, apostille of documents, among others, since all the resources taken by the traditional economy have not helped them, in countries with high crises and very high inflation, the most radical solutions do not work, however it has an ideology for its cryptocurrency but not Bitcoin, which, is totally contradictory, is something like what China wants to do.

I think that the solution for the particular economies of both Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina and all countries in financial crisis in serious condition, should take Bitcoin as an immediate refuge, thus having a benefit as a whole, for them they would get some liquidity and to The Bitcoin economy would increase demand resulting in an increase in the value of Bitcoin, that is, everyone wins, this is a way to start looking for financial freedom.

Its their government way of controlling people though. They have to limit the money to be withdrawn or else it will be withdrawn by an individual who can withdraw thousands to hundred thousands for himself and all others will be left with nothing. BTC might not be solving their situation there for the moment if no one accepts BTC as fee for products to buy. They will first have to fix their government which is going to take more than decades before it can happen.

I think it's a pretty fair comparison to make between Venezuela and Zimbabwe, they both have had horrible governments that ended up ruining their countries economy, although Venezuela has been a lot less restricted and the people have naturally adopted bitcoin for a lot of their money.

I wonder if Zimbabwe is going to keep trapping its citizen's money, I'm pretty sure they were a lot of people who were actually getting their money into Bitcoin or another crypto-currency during their financial issues, I don't agree with Zimbabwe's approach and it looks like the method that screws a lot of people.

I also wanted to ask some questions that you asked.Is it really possible to exchange or buy cryptocurrency in Zimbabwe?If it's true that residents can only withdraw $ 100 a day then it's very sad.I really feel sorry for these people.If everything is so bad, then it is unlikely that the cryptocurrency will solve something.

This story only reminds me of that Venezuelan crypto... I think that when the country is in such a bad situation, state-controlled crypto cannot save the situation. After all, it's the state that is responsible for letting the current situation become real. So at first some major changes of power have to occur, perhaps a new system should be introduced that would not allow making the same mistakes. Then a governmental currency can be introduced. As for the limits, just a couple of years ago we had this annoying thing with ATMs where you could only withdraw up to $40 per transaction. It was also done to prevent people from taking their money from their banks, but fortunately, it seems like it's not a thing anymore. As for Bitcoin, I agree that it provides the kind of freedom we must value and the one which is especially seen in the kind of situations like Zimbabwe's in. But if Bitcoin is not adopted by retailers in this country, I don't think it can help people to survive, and that seems to be the top priority right now.

bitcoin gives us freedom to trade there are no restrictions like fiat money. using bitcoin is indeed more profitable than fiat money. besides can be used for bitcoin investments can also be used as a means of payment. unfortunately not all countries can accept bitcoin as an alternative payment. I think that at Zimbahwe Bitcoin also cannot be used as a payment tool. so they still rely on fiat money in transactions.

I think a lot of the replies on this thread are not speaking to the point I am trying to make. I am not trying to highlight the weak Zimbabwean economy, but rather the inefficiency of the Banks. These people have to rely on the Banks to provide enough fiat currencies for them to eat and to pay for their expenses.

Bitcoin has none of these problems, because there are no single authority that are making the decisions to limit withdrawals or setting limits on transactions or telling you when you can have access to their services.            You are your own Bank

In the first place for their economy to be strong and well established, they should be supported by their banks, why? Most of the assets are backed by the funds that business owners loans from the banks where people have their money. Thus, my opinion for this is that the Zimbabwean economy will not be developed without their central financial banks to support it. If they really want to have a stable currency that will fully support their community and economy, let them stick to one crypto, crypto that will unite them without these banking systems that can be considered inefficient. A system for cryptocurrency I supposed is what they need to replace functionalities offered by banks.

The main problem with Zimbabwe is that all of its natural resources and then its central government is being manipulated by outsiders, which is why the Zimbabwe government itself cannot overcome its unhealthy economic conditions which have an impact on the exchange rate of its currency.
As far as I know Zimbabwe also uses the Yuan currency to resolve debt problems with China

Partially you are right it is really quite difficult to control cryptocurrencies but not everything is so obvious. Formerly I also thought like you but not now. I can plead such an argument that eventually almost all people are going to exchange their cryptocurrencies to fiat currencies to make boughts in the real world. Everyone can easily check it out by asking his friends what are they going to do with their cryptocurrencies in finally?
When we are talking about money everything may seem strange like in Orwell's 1984
“In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.”

It is not that they are against it.
It is about the anti money laundering law which they have to abide.
That should explain everything.
You will just need to research about it.
If  $100 is a lot of money in your country then it should be the limit.
Maybe there is a verification to grow it to a larger scale.

Apparently cryptocurrency for a country like Zimbabwe is really salvation to some extent.

I feel like the sate at which the Zimbabwe government and the fiat currency there sets and example for people to see how much the system is really messed up, and them creating another currency sand giving it value does not hold any meaning, and people there have already giving up on it and they are using other currencies from other countries to do transactions between them, and i fell like if they all had the resources and the ability to use bitcoin or crypto they would have already done it, but the lack of development there is what is stopping it.

How in the world could they issue a new banknote and not produce enough to meet even the first day's demand?  No wonder Zimbabwe hasn't had a stable currency in years.  If they can't even get the anticipated demand right, they're going to have problems with everything else as well.  Jesus.

Op, I was not aware of this story so I thank you for posting the links.  I did know that things were bad in Zimbabwe but didn't know about the new currency.  Hopefully for them the gov't straightens this issue out, and quickly.

And that's true of a number of countries in africa if I'm not mistaken.  Everything is messed up over there and has been for many years.

This is just a temporary problem and if I am correct, they are not printing their own currency. Many first world countries print their own currencies,

so they never run out of fiat currencies. Even if their currency are printed by another country, they should have known how much fiat currencies

should have been printed to meet the demand. They have had fiat currencies for years, prior to this crisis and they even printed too much to cause

hyper inflation in the past.  ::)

Bitcoin alone is not enough, they would all need to switch to Austrian Economics (https://mises.org/books-library). The dominant Chicago school would simply perpetuate endless cycles of bubbles and crashes, and they fear deflation like mad, they just don't get the idea of a slower but steadier growing economy based on true savings and would rather everyone get in debt so it grows real fast but nothing really supporting it (except the debt itself) which causes it to inevitably collapse like an MLM scheme.

The very reason none of them would adopt bitcoin, is because their economists fear deflation. Bitcoin adoption by any State requires to bring Austrian economists for advise, such as Huerta de Soto (https://www.youtube.com/user/josemanuelgonzalezg/videos) et al. An Austrian would tell them to close the central bank to end fractional reserve banking (and fiat), for starts. The "Chicago boys" would never do such a thing...

I understand that your point is that with Bitcoin there is no government or central bank that can tell us the minimum and the maximum we can use just like what is being imposed on this newly released Zimbabwe currency. By the way, I heard that in the past the government also released many currencies that eventually failed, so what about this new one does it have a chance to finally succeed?

Bitcoin is thriving in Zimbabwe because there are now people who realized of its critical role and importance and many are using it for survival, like buying foods and other basic goods outside the country since the local currency is considered to be worthless. With Bitcoin, this has become something that they can control themselves and can be empowering them unlike what the local currency can be offering.

They don't have the ability to verify Bitcoin transactions, banks are always looking for ways to find out and find out how to make money and take money out of your pocket through taxes.  If Zimbabwe has issued its own cryptocurrency, it is likely that those who understand the cryptocurrency market will not like to trade them because they do not want to be controlled.

That is a true reminder man, and it is a call back for those who has been lost and seeing cryptocurrency as just asset alone for them to see more of it from the angle of freedom to control our finances. It is really sad that people don’t have full access to their money and I think this type of thing happens in Germany also, you have a limit to which you can withdraw in a day and I feel that one of the countries that bitcoin policy will work against is Germany.

For Zimbabwe, I don’t really know where they fall because it seems like they are quite confused on what to do to actually control their economy because there was a time they were creating their own cryptocurrency, except maybe this policy is to discourage the use of fiat and encourage their own cryptocurrency usage.

I think this is the same issue that is going on in Argentina as well as there is a limit in withdrawal from banks and when ever there are restriction the black market will take over but the situation in Zimbabwe is pathetic because of the political instability and the economic crisis and inflation that is going on for a while and i do not think that BTCitcoin can sort these issues now, either the merchants should start accepting BTCitcoin which is highly unlikely with the economic situation but in the future and for the countries around the world this is a good reason to adopt BTCitcoin as it could ease the troubles if there is a economic crisis.

the same thing if Zimbabwe's bitcoin users withdraw to their current bank because it still has a limit on their fiat exchange, there is no synchronization that is the differentiator for urgent needs. They are currently reconstructing the domestic economic system, and things are not going well right away, it's natural, inflation is the worst so far.

Just as I said in my recent post earlier, we have to look at the bright side of using bitcoin and address the problems that bitcoin solves instead of the issues that are created.
Bitcoin gives out huge benefits but people tend to ignore it and fall prey to government backed fiat currencies.
They  don't understand the government controls these currencies and indirectly they control you.

This is really sad news for the Zimbabwean citizens because they cannot withdraw their own money, and it’s ironic that they need to pay a premium to use some extra money. @Kakmakr sooner or later people will understand that their banks have been looting them for years, and switching to bitcoins is the only solution for them.

Zimbabwe is one of the leaders in bankruptcy and insolvency a bit like Venezuela but many of you don't even know about hyperinflation in some countries that are acting like they have it under control. Belarus had to print new bills 10 years ago because they had already exchanging million ruble bills and told people to sell the old bills to the government and in return they'd get the new smaller notes. It's a great way to battle hyperinflation by robbing citizens and giving them something new that now would be worth even less :D

Only cryptocurrency and decentralization can save people from being cheated by their governments.

You are correct to say that bitcoin also needs fiat in conversion but from OP's ideology is say that, you are not even limited to how much of bitcoin you want to use Ir throw into circulation unlike the restrictions with fiat.
Although, I think bitcoin withdrawal is also limited in some exchange.

Fiat "Government/State" issued money, is always "controlled" money. And nothing destroys confidence more efficiently in a coin than limits aka. "controls". The politicians simply don't get it and commit the same mistakes all over again.

Thing with bitcoin is that no politician can destroy it, that is why is so valuable. But fiat currencies, can be destroyed overnight, or even before its born.

Yes, actual printing costs money, and its quite sad when the banknotes end costing more than what they are supposed to represent. They could become a "debit card" society like we did here, due to banknote scarcity, but within the banks zeroes keep increasing, zeroes for the State bank accounts that is...

Which in turn induces inflation. One would think Zimbabwe learned its lesson...

No country is safe, as long as some human has the power to make your money lose value over some stupid decision, such as "print more", or "restrict bank withdrawals". Who can restrict you how many bitcoins you may transfer? Nobody, that's its beauty.

Yes, the Zimbabwean government are not learning a lesson from their previous mistakes, because they are doing this deliberately. They are getting a lot of pressure from the international community to change their political decisions and to have a clean government, but they are just ignoring that and going on as if the rest of the world does not exist.

The former president <Mugabe> even taunted the West by doing the opposite of what was suggested by the international community. That old fart destroyed his country and the economy and the people he left behind, still have the same mindset that he had.

It just shows you that you can change the currency, but if the currency are still in the hands of a corrupt/incompetent government, then it will continue failing.  ::) 

The bank should not be able to control bitcoin because it is very clear satoshi nakamoto provided information in the bitcoin whitepaper which shows that bitcoin was created to make money that can not be held by anyone so that bitcoin will only have movement and have value depending on demand and depending on supply availability .

On the structure of bitcoin, it was created solely for that purpose, but we all know how Government moves, it is for the people and for the development of the country that they impart control and regulation to the financial aspect of our everyday living. Though, in terms of software infrastructure, Bitcoin is so secured, but what about if the government starts to create wallet specifically utilizes bitcoin? We're not sure if we can still be decentralized if they make us blindly believing that they support us in the future.

Yes the main feature of bitcoin is its anonymity, people should have their own transaction that are not visible and government cannot take place or they could not be trace. Banks and government are not allowed to control our bitcoin and altcoins , we have our freedom using this. But I think sooner or later bitcoin will be regulize by them and they will put taxes.

Zimbabwe has many problems in addition to this, I hope they will be able to solve them after the cryptocurrency revolution.

Exactly what Maduro did with us. All those self-proclaimed "leaders" always ruin people's lives while they and those closest to them live in obscene luxury from corruption and direct stealing. But because they have the weapons and the military in their pocket, nothing can be done.

It's a pretty big shock for their people, only being allowed to withdraw 5 USD worth of notes a day, although those 5$ can definelty do a lot more in Zimbabwe then the US, to be fair. Germany isn't as much, and their economy is fine to be fair.

They keep trying to relaunch their currrency instantly, and it's been so inflated due to the policies that the government has implemented, and I'm not sure how they can start-over now, it seems like a lost cause.

In fact, we can exchange Bitcoin to Fiat by selling it through the local crypto exchanger website in our country. However, we do not deny that every local exchanger limits the withdrawal of money from the exchanger to the bank. Surely they (local crypto exchangers) limit because of the rules of the bank and the government. For example Indodax limits withdrawals of 200 million IDR to each user.

No, the local exchanges limit the withdrawals to minimize the damage when there are some kind of security breach or when they get hacked. So even if you manage to hack the site, then you cannot draw all the money from all the accounts.

Some of these exchanges also put limits on different features, based on the level of KYC verification that were done by the users. So when a user only provide the basic identification documents, they will have a lower limit for example on withdrawals. When you provide them with all the required documentation, then they give you full access to their service.  ::)

This post doesn't make any sense. I just don't see how what you have said has anything to do with cryptocurrency. You don't even live in that country, and guess what , if you're living in that country whether you choose to make use of Bitcoin or fiat, you're still going to face that same problem they are facing there, making use of cryptocurrency doesn't change anything.

At a point you will like to sell and withdraw your money from Bitcoin and that's when you will face the same issue. Nobody is accepting bitcoin for payment except online, when you need some cash in your pocket to purchase some regular stuff you need like food, that's when you will also see the same problem.

The earlier government controlled authorities knows the benefits of bitcoin the better, Zimbabwe as a case study had shown the lapses and shortcomings in using fiat and its over dependence and reliance having been controlled by a centralized system this had resulted to more inconveniency and hardship to their people who had excess fiat in their accounts but have been regulated to use a fixed amount for their daily transactions despite having many stuffs, goods and services to spend money on.

The government has already formulated a thorough policy of this. Appreciate the government's initiative. It will address the need to meet Bitcoin whenever necessary.

Basically, cryptos are not really by banks. We have freedom to exchange our bitcoins. But these exchange centers are most likely government regulated and somehow transacts in a bank. Well, I guess banks and bitcoin/cryptos are of different term and nature but definitely they have some similar  characteristics, that is they are both in financial institutions. Most likely they can improve themselves by collaborating or doing there own separately but we know in the middle they meet up. I believe there are still connections between banks and bitcoin/cryptos.