Bitcoins in Brazil and Brazilian Economy

[thebohemian]

Hi all together,
I am an expat living in Brazil for around a year now. I've been following what is happening to the value of the brazilian Real closely.

A few days ago the former historic low of 3.96 BRL for one USD was reached and on September 24th it went to as far as 4.24 BRL/USD. The brazilian economy goes through a crisis because of (non-exhaustive list):
 - low oil price
 - economic struggle of an important trade partner: China
 - corruption scandal in the contry's biggest oil company PetroBras
 - (...)

I am skimming the internet every day for news on the economic situation and am also talking to locals. So far the people around me do not seem concerned (prices four domestic produce still stays stable). Big mourning, of course, for those who want to go abroad now. I only have information about the Rio de Janeiro area. If you live somewhere else in the country I am interested to hear what people think there.

Trading volumes for BTC on brazilian exchanges is veeeery low compared to Bitstamp/Bitfinex and the like. As such a little move of BTC's value together with a change of the Real's price causes the BTC/BRL pair to jump crazily. To say it with one word: v^OL_aT^IL_e  

Out there in the world some people are saying Brazil is becoming the new Greece except that there is no EU to help and population is 20x bigger (11M vs 200M).

So what is this thread about?

If you have substantial information to add (economic situation, advice on how to deal with the crisis, ...), feel free to comment.

I am not asking for investment advice. I don't want to read conspiracy theories.

Let's have a intelligent conversation about what is going in this country and how that fits together with Bitcoin.

[VirosaGITS]

I can tell you what i gleaned from BTC in Brazil. I have a friend in Brazil and we wanted to exchange money using BTC. Legally, BTC is not widely used in Brazil because there is a huge seller tax on it, like pretty much everything there.

So i can understand why they would avoid dealing it there, since having to pay 20$ on the BTC as tax when converting currency is ridiculous. So what Brazilians do is participate on USD/BTC exchange by using a USD account.

[knowhow]

I live at RIO DE JANEIRO as well the thing is our currency has no value our resorces are being sold cheap because financial problems worlwide,and the worst thing is the taxes we must pay to get anything,no other country has such walls.Portugal is facing deeply financial problems but the taxes isnt 50% as Brazil is taking,besides those politicians stoled all the money,and guess what where i live looks like the payment will be done in two times,and those 13 salary looks will be paid in 4 times or more because someones just stealed 60 milion.

[edric]

Hi all together,
I am an expat living in Brazil for around a year now. I've been following what is happening to the value of the brazilian Real closely.

A few days ago the former historic low of 3.96 BRL for one USD was reached and on September 24th it went to as far as 4.24 BRL/USD. The brazilian economy goes through a crisis because of (non-exhaustive list):
 - low oil price
 - economic struggle of an important trade partner: China
 - corruption scandal in the contry's biggest oil company PetroBras
 - (...)

I am skimming the internet every day for news on the economic situation and am also talking to locals. So far the people around me do not seem concerned (prices four domestic produce still stays stable). Big mourning, of course, for those who want to go abroad now. I only have information about the Rio de Janeiro area. If you live somewhere else in the country I am interested to hear what people think there.

Trading volumes for BTC on brazilian exchanges is veeeery low compared to Bitstamp/Bitfinex and the like. As such a little move of BTC's value together with a change of the Real's price causes the BTC/BRL pair to jump crazily. To say it with one word: v^OL_aT^IL_e  

Out there in the world some people are saying Brazil is becoming the new Greece except that there is no EU to help and population is 20x bigger (11M vs 200M).

So what is this thread about?

If you have substantial information to add (economic situation, advice on how to deal with the crisis, ...), feel free to comment.

I am not asking for investment advice. I don't want to read conspiracy theories.

Let's have a intelligent conversation about what is going in this country and how that fits together with Bitcoin.

Do you think the Brazil's currency will continue to decline against the dollar?  If so, it makes sense to hold USD, or Bitcoin which can be seen as an equivalent in some countries where currency controls are implemented because central banks have completely lost control of inflation and want to enforce the use of their own currency rather than have their citizens use foreign currencies.  This is the common use case for bitcoin in an inflationary scenario like you are describing - asset preservation.  It is used in countries like Venezuela.

[VirosaGITS]

Do you think the Brazil's currency will continue to decline against the dollar?  If so, it makes sense to hold USD, or Bitcoin which can be seen as an equivalent in some countries where currency controls are implemented because central banks have completely lost control of inflation and want to enforce the use of their own currency rather than have their citizens use foreign currencies.  This is the common use case for bitcoin in an inflationary scenario like you are describing - asset preservation.  It is used in countries like Venezuela.

On my end, i am quite aware, i know someone in Brazil that been going through legalities for ages to get his inheritance and since then the US price has gone up and their's has gone down.

If he had been able to get it back then and converted it to US like he wanted, he would now have twice the money he would otherwise inherit now if he could get done with family bickering on the technical issues.

[thebohemian]

...

Do you think the Brazil's currency will continue to decline against the dollar?  If so, it makes sense to hold USD, or Bitcoin which can be seen as an equivalent in some countries where currency controls are implemented because central banks have completely lost control of inflation and want to enforce the use of their own currency rather than have their citizens use foreign currencies.  This is the common use case for bitcoin in an inflationary scenario like you are describing - asset preservation.  It is used in countries like Venezuela.

I think so actually because none of the reasons for Brazil's economic crisis shows signs of going away soon. Of course, in this globalized world it is also important to take into account what is going on in the US and Asia.

What I haven't understood yet is how much or how little does Brazil's economy depends on imports for everyday goods. As I wrote before the prices on the street (at least in Rio) have been staying stable. US/EU tourists rejoice as for them everything is extremely affordable!

Indeed, I advise people who have the capacities to flee to BTC. Of course, the latter needs to be eyed closely.

Holding USD is funnily a bit unpractical as one would need to keep cash. First the exchange places are expensive and secondly you don't want to walk around with stashes of money in Brazil.

Setting up an account on an Brazilian BTC exchange is rather simple. Create an account, send a copy of a utility bill and within two days its done. Setting up online banking (important to work with the exchange) involves going to your bank getting a bunch of papers and numbers and then it is a matter of typing the right stuff into web forms. I saw someone doing this and I find that it is made difficult to keep average people away from trying.

[ashour]

I think that many bitcoin companies/startups will be build in latin american and specifically in brazier which will help the Brazilian economy to adapt into bitcoin.