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bump. Catalonia is one of the very many interesting stories happening in 2017.
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Africa was adopting crypto currencies due to the value of their fiat, sometime they have to exchange their fiat to USD to buy or to do transactions. But with the help of these digital currency, they can do transaction without hassle and much faster ways.
It'll help them get favorable exchange rates if they need to buy anything using USD again. Bitcoin is becoming the world's 'gold standard'....currently somewhere around 1% adoption. we can see 2% adoption in a couple of years, and probably 5% world adoption in five years. Anything above 5% = mainstream. |
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Reminds me of the site that ranks your global wealth based on assets, income, etc. Most people in the 'lower class' division of America are still in the top 10% or something globally. Staggering!
Indeed, literally all Americans except the homeless are considered as rich by global standards. Even richer or wealthier individuals living in poorer countries could be considered less wealthy due to the low level of public infrastructure. Most people living on modern societies are in debt, so they are poorer than a homeless man with $2 in change in his pocket. Man this is so true. I know many people with a nice house, nice cars, nice clothes and who are in debit up their their eyeballs and beyond. You are right the net worth of the homeless man with no debt and a few coins in his pocket is higher than most of the debt slaves living in their bank owned houses, bank owned cars, and wearing their credit card charged clothes as their paychecks for the next 40 years are already allotted to someone else. If Bitcoin even has a small impact on changing this scenario for even a few people the world will become a much better place. indeed people who own luxury cars and luxury homes mostly have debt to the bank. it would be nice if we invest with bitcoin maybe we will not owe to the bank. most people invest with bitcoin they get a big profit, then they will not owe it to the bank. As a currency is worth less overtime, the burden of debt stings a little less as long as you purchased assets that had appreciated with value in that time (or gone down less than the currency's devaluing) |
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Venezuela’s worsening economic collapse has created something of a social experiment in the use of a digital currency as a de facto currency - a phenomenon that’s also playing out in troubled Zimbabwe. According to TheNational.ae, bitcoin adoption in Zimbabwe is seemingly skyrocketing as the country’s economic situation looks bleak. So much so, that one bitcoin is trading at nearly $10,000 on the Golix.io exchange, while the global average is, at press time, of $5,642.00.
According to a local trader, bitcoin isn’t just being bought by individuals, but by businesses with bills to pay. The country adopted the U.S. dollar back in 2009 as its fiat currency, as the Zimbabwean dollar had lost nearly all its value.
At press time, LocalBitcoins Zimbabwe has people buying bitcoin at the global average, and some buying the cryptocurrency for cash for well over $10,000 in the country’s capital. Bitcoin, as every bitcoiner would expect, is helping people in the country survive times of economic uncertainty, as Zimbabwe has been embroiled in a crisis for years. And as inflation in Venezuela has spiraled further out of control - by one estimated, it peaked above 2,400% in September - more Venezuelans are resorting to mining bitcoin, litecoin and other digital currencies as a means of coping with the country's out-of-control hyperinflation and surviving in a country where staples like food and medicine are scarce. "Venezuela was one of the richest per-capita nations in the world... but now, hyperinflation is a very difficult thing to understand until you have to buy lunch..."
"The country has not yet dollarized... but there's not enough dollars in Venezuela for that to have happened..."
"Venezuela is becoming a cashless society... we are starting to see in Venezuela, the first bitcoinization of a sovereign state." However, while cryptocurrency mining isn’t explicitly illegal, the country’s Sebin intelligence service has been known to raid establishments that show a suspicious spike in electricity usage. Electricity is heavily subsidized by the state in Venezuela, making mining a particularly lucrative prospect, despite the risks. Bitcoin mining consultant Randy Brito estimates that about 100,000 Venezuelans are "mining," although it is impossible to have an exact figure because many are protecting themselves by using servers in foreign countries, AFP reports. According to the LocalBitcoins portal, transactions in bitcoins amounted to $1.1 million in Venezuela in the last week of September. One local who spoke with AFP said her mining rig is producing 20 to 25 litecoins per month. "Each litecoin is worth $46, that's $920 a month," said Veronica - a fortune in a country where the minimum monthly salary is 135,543 bolivars ($40), supplemented by a voucher of 189,000 bolivars ($56). AFP visited one office building in Caracas that has been converted into a clandestine mining operation, with more than 20 computers hard at work performing the cryptographic calculations necessary to unlock valuable blocks of digital currency. Caracas (AFP) - Inside a locked room in an office building in Caracas, 20 humming computers use their data-crunching power to mine bitcoins, an increasingly popular tool in the fight against Venezuela's hyperinflation.
In warehouses, offices and homes, miners are using modified computers to perform complex computations, essentially book-keeping for digital transactions worldwide, for which they earn a commission in bitcoins.
While practiced worldwide, Bitcoin mining is part of a growing, underground effort in Venezuela to escape the worst effects of a crippling economic and political crisis and runaway inflation that the IMF says could reach 720 percent this year.
Having no confidence in the bolivar and struggling to find dollars, many Venezuelans, who are neither computer geeks nor financial wizards, are relying on the bitcoin - currently valued around $6,050, or other virtual currencies. As international sanctions have left Venezuela starved for foreign currency, cryptocurrencies have provided one crucial means for the regular people of Venezuela - who arguably have been hardest hit by the sanctions despite marching in the streets and calling for the overthrow of the regime of President Nicolas Maduro - to avoid the consequences of the administration’s economic mismanagement. Now, the question is will Venezuelans abandon the worthless bolivar in favor of relying solely on digital currencies. As we noted previously, one trader, John Villar, Caracas-based software developer, most eloquently stated "Bitcoin is a way of rebelling against the system." While the currency remained a niche form of payment in the country, many users purchased food and goods online through online marketplaces such as Amazon.com, albeit indirectly through gift cards purchased with the cryptocurrency. Noel Alvarez, former president of the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce, stated that “A maximum of one per cent of the population has access to it, but it is very useful in our situation.” Bitcoin’s popularity in Venezuela continued to grow. It became the country’s leading parallel currency. Some vendors even begun accepting Bitcoin exclusively. A popular online travel agency, Destinia, cited that, due to the bolivar’s instability and the trouble many Venezuelans experience when attempting to leave the country, “Giving priority to Bitcoin as a payment method could be of help." While Destina admitted that Venezuela is not a primary focal point for their company, they chose to prioritize Bitcoin payments in the Venezuelan market to facilitate the travel needs of the people in light of the persisting economic downturn. With infrastructure in place, trading and mining becoming more popular, and the crisis escalating, Maduro’s government began to take notice. Maduro’s War on BitcoinThe Venezuelan government began to crack down on the Bitcoin community, with police extorting citizens for “misusing electricity” or undermining the country’s economy. These grievances intensified over time, however, and the attack on miners became more apparent. In the largest raid, two miners were caught with 11,000 mining computers and were charged with cybercrime, electricity theft, exchange fraud, and even funding terrorism. In Feb. 2017, following the incident, Surbitcoin, Venezuela’s most popular exchange went offline. The company encouraged users to withdraw their money immediately as Banesco, the company’s banking partner, was set to revoke the account associated with the exchange. Rodrigo Souza, the founder and CEO of Surbitcoin, noted that "When it was found that there were 11,000 mining computers consuming the energy to power a whole town at a time when there are severe electricity shortages, it triggered a reaction.” Souza went on to say that the company was not contacted by the government, but Banesco revoked their account as it did not want to be associated with such an operation. Surbitcoin resumed operations two weeks following. We suspect it will not be long before Maduro takes further, tougher action against this 'subversive' behavior. Article contains interesting info. I wasn't aware btc was trading at a high of $10,000 on the https://golix.io exchange. It is possible venezuela and zimbabwe are a microcosm of what many nations futures will look like eventually. I wish the media would cover more stories like this. To show the other side of crypto's character, that crypto isn't only used by criminals & how it can bring an elevated standard of living for many. Thank you for this post. |
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Its funny, at this time during 2017, there's another attack (many of them already attempted and will continue with Bitcoin's history) happening by corporations funded (DCG) by venture capital coming from the big fiat bank-system trying to claim their corporate ALTCOIN "segwit2x" is, this time (we really mean it, all those other failures by us mean nothing), is real bitcoin. LOL. All with managed code solely by DCG Jeff Garzik and whoever else Barry Silbert seems fit.
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No actually the wealthiest billionaires and companies will see all of their fiat-based assets have their values crumble and they $ figures would become worth less over time, they wont be as rich anymore
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remember the addage altcoins=scamcoins.
With that said, im not so opposed to: Vertcoin, Groestlcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Monero.
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An intended purpose at the start of Bitcoin?
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[ https://medium.com/bitcoins-digital-currency/how-to-explain-bitcoin-to-a-7-year-old-a9a8c094feaf] How to Explain Bitcoin to a 7-Year-OldI’ve been explaining how Bitcoins work since 2010. Here is the simplest analogy I’ve discovered that explains transactions, anonymity, and coin production.
There’s a room that anyone can access. The room has security cameras that anyone can view, and every second of recorded footage is available online forever.
The room is filled with indestructible piggy banks made of transparent plastic. Naturally, these piggy banks have coin slots, and everyone can see which coins are in which piggy bank. These piggy banks can never leave the room.
Each person has a key that can open their piggy bank. Let’s say I want to buy a pair of alpaca socks, and you want to sell them.
First, you tell me which piggy bank is yours. Then, I walk into the room with a ski mask on. Anyone in the world can see me on the security cameras, but not my face.
Next, I unlock my piggy bank, take some coins out, then put them into your locked piggy bank. I leave the room.
Now, everyone in the world knows that your piggy bank has coins that were previously in my piggy bank. This is the case with every transaction, so everyone knows the history of every coin.
“So where do the coins come from? How did it start? Who got the first coins?”
There’s a robot in the room that runs lotteries. Every so often, this robot randomly chooses a piggy bank in the room, and puts 50 coins in it. When it first started, there weren’t many piggy banks in the room since nobody knew about it. Back then, it was easy to win the lottery. Today, there are millions of piggy banks in the room, so your odds aren’t very good.
“Ok, couldn’t someone make their own fake coins?”
No, because everyone has records of every coin in the room, and they know when the robot hands new coins out. If a fraud were to put fake coins into his own piggy bank, everyone would know that those coins were never handed out by the robot, and wouldn’t accept them.
“Who made the robot..?”
Supposedly it was a super genius Japanese man named Satoshi Nakamoto, but nobody knows for certain. Since the security camera footage is available from 2009, we can see that the robot was putting coins into a piggy bank since day 1. We assume it’s Satoshi, but that’s about all we know.
“… Crazy.”
From Tony Diepenbrock IV on medium. Or you can also watch this excellent video:bitcoin 101: https://youtu.be/Bhe61JaNFLU[/quote] |
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What would you do if all the state funds are seized and you can't use them for funding the referendum that can lead to financial independence of your state as a whole ? When the normal funds are freezed you look for other options, like cryptocurrencies. They will let you fight for independence and at the same time you won't be doing anything illegal too. This is the case with calatonia. The people in calqtonia are now accepting cryptocurrencies on a large scale so that they can fund for their referendum against spain , who is kind of doing a serious dictatorship there and people are seeking independence from that. The mass adoption of bitcoins in calatonia has caused a masive price surge. Spain has blocked their state funds so that they aren't able to do anything with that also its monitoring that any transaction cease to happen if its for the funding of referendum but guess what ? BITCOINS are independent  damn they know well that no one can control, they are decentralized and there you go  Nice post. "What would you do if all the state funds are seized and you can't use them for funding the referendum that can lead to financial independence of your state as a whole ?
When the normal funds are freezed you look for other options" |
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There's just an abundance of potential and resource there for Africa to sprout up and take help lead a wave technological change in the world. I see them adopt Bitcoin soon and also innovating and creating and tapping into their vast renewable energy resources too.
Africa is host to many great resources, truth and education is key to establishing better futures for her people. |
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This is amazing, but they were different forks because we did not receive them on our wallets just like it happened with the last two forks (bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold) because they were instantly credited on our wallets. And Litecoin is just a copy of the code of bitcoin, that is not exactly a hard fork or just a fork of bitcoin, because it is a clone.
The same with the other alts, i have never heard about them, not even seeing them listed in somewhere.
I guess, majority of those forked coins, come from unpopular devs, bitcoin allow everyone to modify its source code and release by their own because it's open source. But the thing is, how to bring people to use their forked coins after succesfully deploying a forked coins. That's why vast majority of all those forks becoming either useless or unpopular. The airdrop that happen from bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold, mainly because they want to make the circulating coins the same as bitcoin so they airdrops in 1:1 ratio. Also, those two are popular forked coins. Yup, those altcoins introduce an unfair distribution model that is not desirable nor fair for investment. Whether its through initial coins, or premine, or having a headstart in having a big part of hashing with mining equipment at the start or geographically concentrated in one/two countries. |
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Who woulda thought that decentralized open-source immutable scarce global currency would be the ultimate store of value?
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The fair value of bitcoin is the price that people are willing to pay for it. Right now it is around $7200  Pretty much this, because with no Balance sheet and earnings to report from you have no way of assigning proper value. And for this reason you must revert to the simple laws of supply and demand to determine a fair price. This price may not be accurate at what an actual bitcoin is truly worth but given it is the price the market will pay for a bitcoin then yeah I think this is as close as we get towards a fair price point. Think of the larger outside force controlling all this: the unrestrained global supply of fiat currency/credit...too much pumped in too many hands |
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There are some great educational merits in this post that I hope are helpful to those new or learning. If so, please reply here.
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The main reason why I adopt bitcoin is monetary.I was attracted to it because I have find out that having it could help me gain enough money in addition to my monthly salary. I've been looking for an additional income before because my salary is not enough due to the increasing needs and the expensive prices of foods and goods in the market,good thing I have found bitcoin which could help me to sustain our daily needs.
As I have learned deeper on bitcoin I just then realized the advantages of its technology in terms of transactions.Sending bitcoin all over the world with low minimal fees or sometimes free any time and day is possible. And now I was also amazed on its technology.
Aw man, all of what you said and still no mention of the ideology? Isn't it the opposite ideology from current fiat systems that allows bitcoin to provide for all what you mention? |
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I am from Philippines and I am surprised that my country is ranked on the 34th. I am proud as well because the people in my country used to neglect and refuse to entertain the whole idea of bitcoin. Back then, only a few people used it.
Great thanks for replying - again, I mentioned this is cash trade specific on localbitcoins there may be a more popular different exchange method in your area. |
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Peter Thiel – PayPal co-founder and billionaire venture capitalist, for a long time now has been a backer of the virtual currency Bitcoin. Thiel did again indicate out the ‘real potential’ of BTC at the Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, pointing out that people are truly underestimating it.
Peter Thiel has long been one of the early proponents of Bitcoin. As early as 2013, he stated that Bitcoin has the potential to change the world. As one of the co-founders of PayPal, he recognized the ability of Bitcoin to revolutionize the monetary space. He had long held the view that monetary sovereignty’s time is limited and encrypted money would be the future. Earlier Peter Thiel did comment on how Bitcoin unlike PayPal, was really able to create a currency.
Bitcoin BTC could very well be the virtual gold of our time and replace it as a reserve currency – according to Peter Thiel. Many ‘similarities’ were compared between the two by Thiel like it is mineable and its limited supply.
“It’s like a reserve form of money, it’s like gold and it’s just a store of value. If Bitcoin ends up being the cyber equivalent of gold, it has a great potential left.”
On the other hand, Peter did not really have any enthusiastic feel about the other virtual assets and altcoins which could be discouraging for altcoin followers which have put their hopes for most part of the year on them.
While Peter Thiel is pretty bullish on the potential of Bitcoin, in Riyadh, a certain Saudi prince has a different view. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the richest Arab in the world, believes that Bitcoin will implode like Enron. While Bitcoin trading is allowed in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority has warned people about the risks of investing in Bitcoin. The Middle East is a region teeming with billionaires and if Peter Thiel has managed to convince a few people to invest their oil-dollars in Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin could receive a boost. http://ethereumworldnews.com/gold-yesterday-comes-bitcoin-reserve-currency/Tired of "is bitcoin is a bubble"? Now you can enjoy the wonders of "is bitcoin a reserve currency"? On a serious note, it is possible bitcoin could eventually become a reserve currency to replace gold. This paradigm could represent the natural evolution of cryptocoins with limited supply if it is established that limited supply and algorithmic based regulation are best methods to promote stability and long term value. Would be interested to know public opinion on this. Would people feel safer having bitcoin as a reserve currency than they would having fiat like the dollar or euro as reserve? Ofcourse, Bitcoin protocol miners and users have formed nearly an uncorruptable system. Centralbank/Fiat based systems have had centuries history of horrid corruption. Its a matter of educating the public with truth and understanding. |
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Hey I am from India. Yes its right that bitcoins are very popular in India, over an estimated 2500 users are accepting bitcoins daily, Already 5 lakh users are into this business. But remember this..this data is quite old if I remember correctly... There had been 1 million downloads for the local wallet in India named zebpay, from play store alone. Thus the numbers are well above 5 lakh for sure:) Besides I think Japan should have had more users. Great, cool. Thanks for chiming in. Yah, like I tried to note, this is specific to cash-trade volume on localbitcoins.com only so there may be more popular alternatives in a country that are not counted. |
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