Why are Venezuelan not switching to Bitcoin?

[Fraxinus]

Cause politicans don't want to make the BTC official currency and support it so more people start usint it.Also a lot of the people don't know that Bitcoin exist or they don't know the benefits of BTC

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[KenR]

Cause politicans don't want to make the BTC official currency and support it so more people start usint it.Also a lot of the people don't know that Bitcoin exist or they don't know the benefits of BTC

Not really...the only reason government doesn't support it due to the scalability issues and lack of IT education .As bitcoin is intended to work for computer professionals,it's quite difficult to make it as an official currency in a country where only 20% of the population contributes to IT.

[zimmah]

Cause politicans don't want to make the BTC official currency and support it so more people start usint it.Also a lot of the people don't know that Bitcoin exist or they don't know the benefits of BTC

Not really...the only reason government doesn't support it due to the scalability issues and lack of IT education .As bitcoin is intended to work for computer professionals,it's quite difficult to make it as an official currency in a country where only 20% of the population contributes to IT.

the government won't ever support bitcoin.

They are trying to prevent people from even using dollars.

If people don't use their government issued currency they lose the ability to print money. They'd go bankrupt and wont be able to finance the military/police and the people would revolt.

[Milkduds]

Often wonder if our concept of how troubled Countries should be adopting bitcoin is the same as me being a white dude that thinks BLM is racist.
I have tried to understand the plight but keep coming to the same conclusion and think when we are looking at third world issues its hard to understand the "Why"!
Things are pretty rough right now for people in that Country and if oil stays suppressed it will continue to be a shitty situation for people in the area.
The transient move will increase North if things continue to bleed out.

[panju1]

The government of Venezuela isn't interested in paying its creditors.
An offer from the Indian government to enable it to pay for drugs using oil hasn't seen a response.

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/KvdbATbwtRbAvCbXIJizJJ/Cold-response-from-Venezuela-to-Indias-plan-of-oil-for-drug.html

[STT]

Strange because India has a lack of oil, massive country giant population and really not that much oil except some off shore.    I think Venezuela has a problem in even extracting their oil cheaply, their economy is broken because a capitalist structure would find a way to meet those exports.  Venezuela outlaws profit pretty much which sounds good on the surface but discourages enterprise and innovation to overcome any special problems such as might occur in oil extraction over time. 

India even has giant refineries, so I would guess Venezuela could even export the raw crude and not even put in the effort to change it from the raw product out of the ground

[tyz]

Seems I need to correct my assumption. According to an article on NewsBTC, hyperinflation leads to an increased Bitcoin usage in Venezuela.

Hyperinflation Leads to Greater Bitcoin Use in Venezuela
Recently, we reported on bitcoin activity in Russia. Now common knowledge, bitcoin usage has long been demoralized in the land of hammers and sickles. Those who indulge in the benefits of digital currency are faced with the prospects of prison time and exorbitant fees.
Full article

[saiha]

Cause politicans don't want to make the BTC official currency and support it so more people start usint it.Also a lot of the people don't know that Bitcoin exist or they don't know the benefits of BTC

I think not the politicians are making the hindrance for the people to use bitcoin and that would be the lack of knowledge of people. Even though they are not switching to bitcoin.

Some of the citizens are just able to use that even the government will not going to recognize bitcoin just like with my country.

The government is no switching to bitcoin but there are a lot of users already.

[OROBTC]

Seems I need to correct my assumption. According to an article on NewsBTC, hyperinflation leads to an increased Bitcoin usage in Venezuela.

Hyperinflation Leads to Greater Bitcoin Use in Venezuela
Recently, we reported on bitcoin activity in Russia. Now common knowledge, bitcoin usage has long been demoralized in the land of hammers and sickles. Those who indulge in the benefits of digital currency are faced with the prospects of prison time and exorbitant fees.
Full article

tyz

The pattern I am beginning to see is that there is a fairly good (but not easy to quantify) correlation between lower economic free and greater use of Bitcoin within a country.  For years Argentina was somewhat noteworthy for rather high BTC use (I knew two Argentines who were into it), though I do not know what the current status of BTC there under the new government.

Both Russia and Venezuela are great candidates for high BTC usage, whether or not their .govs approve.

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Maybe "third world country" is a matter of how it is defined...  My two business trips (some 17 years ago) to Venezuela made me think that it was much closer to Peru than to the USA.  All the barrios up on the surrounding hills and the high crime rate (even then, pre-Chavez) made me think "Third World".

[HeroCat]

How can they pay with Bitcoins at small shops, where Internet is not available or even it would be available, transaction time can be up to 0,5 - 1 hour. Just a few buyers will wait for 30 min for transfer, and also shop owners will not agree this. 

[Shiroslullaby]

Yes you are also talking about people who may not have an internet connection, or a mobile phone, let alone a smartphone that could run a Bitcoin app.

Also, as pointed out, most of these people would be using Bitcoin to pay for everyday goods like food/ clothes at a local shop.
We have a long way to go before local businesses are going to accept Bitcoin. The wait for confirmation time is simply not acceptable for an in-store transaction.

Until there are nearly instant confirmation times, we need more ways to load Bitcoins onto a debit card or something similar, where there is nearly instant payment.
People complain about newer credit card security features that take between 30 seconds and a minute to confirm payment.
No one will be willing to wait 30 to 45 minutes for a Bitcoin transaction to be confirmed.

[mastica]

The polotician that rules that country wont let no one take advantage of bitcoin, the last attempt to build a farm, ended with people going jail, soo how do you wanna to make such at a place where you have no freedom, be sure they cant buy the rigs, they can make their own miners but its hard to keep that hidden.

[Snorek]

Venezuela is not a third world country. Most people have access to the internet there. I came to the conclusion, that the real problem probably is that most do not even know about Bitcoin and probably most do have other problems. In such a situation where trust is lost in authorities and many other organizations, even something like Bitcoin could be seen suspicious and they may consider other established ways to save wealth: Gold for instance.

When your country's population is starving, food prices are skyrocketing, sometimes as much as 20 times the regulated price, inflation is rampant, economy is not existent.
I think it is enough to say that Venezuela is on now a level of 3rd world country.

Bitcoin won't help the situation there. Mainly because no one from government will be willing to try a new and experimental way of fighting the crisis.

[talkbitcoin]

the answer is pretty simple in my opinion:
they don't switch to bitcoin for the same reason why they don't switch to USD or any other fiat! simply because if they switch to another currency, while they keep their money's worth at the same time they can not do anything with that money since there is nowhere to spend it.

[Snorek]

the answer is pretty simple in my opinion:
they don't switch to bitcoin for the same reason why they don't switch to USD or any other fiat! simply because if they switch to another currency, while they keep their money's worth at the same time they can not do anything with that money since there is nowhere to spend it.

Let's be realistic here. We need to understand 2 things:

First: Bolivar is a dead currency, what  can you do with a FIAT with almost 200% inflation rate?!

Second: Venezuela in its current state has zero potential to issue stable currency or create a new one.

So maybe the only option is to accept other currency?

[Barbut]

It's not easy to switch currencies in one big country. Especially it's hard to suggest to people to move on bitcoin, probably bitcoin is pretty unknown there. How many Venezuelans knows about bitcoin, I would be afraid to move on something that I don't know nothing about.
Probably for some country to adopt bitcoin as currency will need much more insurance then bitcoin can offer in this moment. How much bitcoins Venezuela need to have to be functional just 1 year? How much bitcoins for salaries, for credits, and other things, is bitcoin ready for such a big task?

[Mr. Green]

The same reason why America doesn't switch to bitcoin. Because creating huge bubbles and ripping people off in every 7 years is quite profitable.

[tee-rex]

The Venezuelan people are suffering under high inflation (official inflation rate is 124%, inofficial rate is 720%). Why do they not switch to Bitcoin or alternative coins? Do they not know about Bitcoin or do they do not have access to Bitcoin buying options? This is really a mystery for me 

Maybe, the Venezuelan people are just poor and don't have spare money, while the wealthy elites prefer the US dollar? Besides, their government doesn't seem to be very friendly towards Bitcoin. I've read about people being prosecuted for mining and using Bitcoin there. But that might have been expected because if people start running for stable currencies, that would only further accelerate inflation.

[Aamir1]

The Venezuelan people are suffering under high inflation (official inflation rate is 124%, inofficial rate is 720%). Why do they not switch to Bitcoin or alternative coins? Do they not know about Bitcoin or do they do not have access to Bitcoin buying options? This is really a mystery for me 

Maybe they don't know about it, and if they know and still not using it then there must be some governmental restrictions which is stopping the people to use bitcoins as a government might not like the people to use a currency which is not in their control at all.

[tyz]

Well, you can not really compare the economical systems of America and Venezuela in my opinion. These are fundamentally different. Venezuela is not interested in cleaning up its economic system every seven years by letting bubbles burst.

The same reason why America doesn't switch to bitcoin. Because creating huge bubbles and ripping people off in every 7 years is quite profitable.