Bitcoin Forum

Hi All,
I saw this article on new Argentine regulations to severely curtail online imports to protect the Argentinean economy from the terrors of Amazon, and it got me really antsy about a currency collapse there:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-25836208

As such, my next natural reaction was to wonder if it was possible for me (an American) to sell Bitcoins to people inside of Argentina, in exchange for goods shipped to me? It sounds like they have a pretty severe clamp on receiving shipments internationally, but are there any effective regulations to keep Argentinians sending out packages of Gold, Silver, Magic Cards, etc? To be honest, at this point working to get BTC into Argentina seems as much a mission of mercy as anything.

I was quite shocked when I read about these new Argentinean currency controls to stem the flow of "hard currency" out of the country.  What you propose would divert hard currency (bitcoin) into the country so perhaps it would be tolerated (i.e., at the government level).  

Many people (including myself) were inspired that the Dogecoin community was able to raise $30,000 to send the Jamaican Bobsled team to the Olympics.  I wonder if the bitcoin community could achieve larger things to win positive PR like this (and get us yummy wine from Argentina in the process).  Imagine if we could somehow create enough hype that it goes viral in Argentina that "there's a bunch of people that want to buy stuff from Argentina" and it really takes off---we get a small bitcoin->Argentina, goods->NA/Europe/etc economy going.  This would give people more faith in the (truly) free market, belief in the idea of (truly) free trade, and optimism for the potential of this peer-to-peer electronic cash system called bitcoin.  I'd buy wine, art, music, and a few other things that caught my eye too.  

Sadly, there may be too much import/export controls to ever make this work, especially for the product I'd be most likely to buy (wine).  

I am from Argentina, let me tell you a bit about it:
You got that right, we are at the brink of a currency collapse. For years, our currency has lost so much value (30% inflation YoY) that the government is making everything in its power to stop citizens to convert our worthless currency to other more reliable currencies. Since they can't stop people from purchasing goods from China or US over the internet, they keep making up taxes and overcharges to compensate for the loss. One of this measures goes against your idea, as the Argentinean IRS makes crazy requirements to people who offers services and goods for people abroad, making it virtually impossible for common folk to do any int'l business.

Basically, we are turning into the new Cuba, growing more and more apart from international trade and commerce. To give you a glance, there are two USD/ARS exchange rates; an one "official" which is enforced by the govt (6.30 ARS / 1 USD), and the real exchange rate (black market, a.k.a "Blue Dollar", which is 12ARS / 1 USD). That means that the central bank has to use its reserves to fund the bullshit "official" exchange rate, and it is bleeding all the national treasure.

It sounds like Bitcoins would have to be taken into the country physically and exchanged by trading.
The person taking in the BTC would end up with a load of Pesos though, which probably isn't what they would want.  It sounds difficult to arrange getting Bitcoins into an already closed system.

About 10 days ago, a local BTC exchange site was created, which allows to trade ARS/BTC (Unisend.com). Before this, the only way to obtain BTC was through localbitcoins or OTC, but you always ended up paying more than the actual value of a BTC in USD...

Argentina defaulted in 2002 and most likely they will again in the upcoming future.  They did some debt restructuring in 2005, and another round of debt restructuring in 2010.  If I was in Argentina I would do everything in my power not to hold local currency as [hyper] inflation is there already and will most likely get worse before it gets better.

It's never a good sign when Chavez buys half a billion of your bonds (in 2007) to "help" you... ;)

Well I do not think it could be possible for the People of Argentina to send you gold or silver as there are too many restrictions about that. What I think to be possible is to trade e-goods. In Argentina one alternative to buy btc is by using "mercadolibre" but this currency has not made so much presence in the country really. That has a good counterpart though because if a lot of people from Argentina would acquire btc, then the isp ´s forced by the goverment would ban anything related to btc by closing ports and banning ips due to btc relation with dollars.

The interesting thing with bitcoin is that now we can have international trade as it was supposed to be. Want bitcoins? Why? Because you want to import something, chinese mobiles for example. If so, you have to export something? Export what? Anything that someone in another country wants. Find out what other people want, sell it for bitcoins.

Enough of this shit with manipulating the peso to allegedly reinforce exports. To what use? You inhibit the import at the same time. It is just a question of fooling the subjects of the country into thinking that they become richer with increased number of pesos in their pockets, while they in reality have less value, due to the distortion of the markets that the peso manipulation introduces.

I don't expect the volume of export for bitcoins to be big enough to make a difference in the immediate future, but the seed is sown.

Found out today that Argentina is opening their own exchange. It could be a very good alley to get Bitcoins to them.

Here's the exchange: https://www.coinmelon.com/ (https://www.coinmelon.com/)

but as OP stated the trick is to get btc in in the first place.  also this is good for the btc price worldwide for a variety of reasons.  perhaps someome from Argentina could answer: is it possible to reliably ship a package out of the country?  if so we could create an ebay like site but only btc and argentinian goods.

Numerous countries are in a similar boat to Argentina.  The thing that they have that first world countries want to buy is the products of human capital, cheaper than the first world can do it themselves.

Just a few examples.  Various forms of art, commercial art.  Illustrations, again largely commercial.  <do not laugh please> Porn.  On line services, such as website design.  Coding, various computer languages.

I do not know if law in Argentina restricts these activities - all of which bring money (bitcoin) into the country - but this is the obvious answer.   

There is NOTHING WRONG with a premium on the price of a sought after commodity, and that is what Bitcoin will be in Argentina.

Looking at Unisend.com  6800 some pesos / bitcoin, something like 850USD / bitcoin.  I suggest buy and don't think twice about it.  You may in Argentina never see a bitcoin price that is not elevated above world average.

Or the person could buy property with his BTC.

Why don't you just sell your Bitcoins for argentine pesos on an exchange, make your 1.5x profit, then use the argentine pesos that you made from the exchange to buy goods?

it's a good idea that argentina ppl get to know something abt bitcoin.

when you visit argentina sell some coins to help out the country

tell your buddies who are going to argentina to sell bitcoins

Agreed, we need to find a way of bringing together people who will be travelling to Argentina on vacation [and therefore don't care about the long term devaluation of the currency] to bring bitcoin into the country and exchange them for pesos with a local who doesn't want to get stuck holding the bag when their currency collapses.

Win-Win, right?

^^ That last idea sounds feasible.  The tourist is buying things over a short period of time and its not restricted

Thing is with Argentina or China even is they dont want a free exchange to dollars.   Capital controls are there to hand power to the politics and their budget, their ideas of socialism.   UK had capital controls at one point, its pretty much always the same reason to give power to a few over the people.    China does control its people this way, they should be far richer.  Inadvertently chinas money supports Washington policies while everyone think its makes them best buddies, I think its far more oligarch type economies or a marriage of convenience

Selling BTC for 850 dollars is just a black market price.   They have people who'll smuggle in dollar notes and charge similar so I dont think btc is being helpful in that case, maybe even exploitative.   If they can sell online services for BTC then that creates a subsidy to that business as they can locally exchange btc themselves and gain the advantage, seems like a positive for them.  

I think the failing local currency is not the primary driver. They have a thriving blue dollar market for that. The real need is created by the currency controls (an effect of the failing peso for sure).

They need to first know about bitcoin, then have the opportunity to buy. So in addition to talking, bitcoiners can thicken the market by making sure they are ready to trade at all times. Bring a few possibly empty paper wallets, and a suitable stash on your phone.

What are the restrictions about foreigners taking assets like pesos and gold outside Argentina?For $850/btc I can pay the trip and still make profits(but not enough to bribes, sadly)

People should travel to Argentina to spend their Bitcoin to have a good time.

...

The fellow I met through localbitcoins.com has traveled to Argentina a few times and told me there is fast growing interest there among many people for Bitcoin.  And I have read as well what a couple of above posters have noted:

A large premium for BTC there vs. BTC price here in the USA.  The BTC premium is as much as for cash dollars.

Yes, it does look like one could travel to Argentina and eat great steak and drink fine wine and perhaps even pay for the trip by bringing along BTC.

***

I do not know how to make this a commercial idea however.  The products I deal in (bearings for cars) are not made (for the most part) in Argentina, and I am not in a position to judge the ideas of above posters.

But, there is likely money to be made, and help to the Argentine economy as a whole, if people can find a way to give Argentines more financial security (holding BTC) while getting Argentine products at a good price.  And this would help to subvert the onerous and unfair capital controls imposed by the increasingly authoritarian government there. 

And, perhaps BTC's greatest and highest use is to give people there the freedom to use their own capital as they see fit.