Venezuelans are turning to bitcoin as the bolívar crumbles

[the_poet]

Let's hope Venezuelans embrace BTC en masse.

http://qz.com/825519/venezuelans-are-turning-to-bitcoin-as-the-bolivar-crumbles/

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

Unfortunately venezuela cannot be saved at this point, they will need to default or something,  a lot of people will suffer, but the ones that know about bitcoin will be able to diminish the damage.

[South Park]

It’s a good sign I think if a government it’s doing everything in their power to sink the country that does not mean that the people need to sink with the government too, Argentinians have done that for years it was about time the Venezuelans caught up.

[markj113]

peaking at a 400 bitcoin/week trading volume on localbitcoins isnt what I would call Venezuelans embrace BTC en masse.

[U2]

peaking at a 400 bitcoin/week trading volume on localbitcoins isnt what I would call Venezuelans embrace BTC en masse.

Most Venezuelans don't speak English either so wouldn't understand what 'localbitcoins' is. Maybe they use a different website or maybe it's all private purchases/sales.

[prabowo96]

If Venezuela wants to be a socialism country, hope they can make an digital currency and spread it in equal parts for everyone 

It's hard to see a country going down like this, hope bitcoin can leave some confort to some people there.

[NorrisK]

peaking at a 400 bitcoin/week trading volume on localbitcoins isnt what I would call Venezuelans embrace BTC en masse.

Those kind of values are quite a lot in a country that is in a serious crisis.

It might not be a lot for bitcoin at this moment, but once they start to recover, and still embrace bitcoin, it can be a serious boost for bitcoin.

Also, localbitcoin may not be the only way they acquire bitcoins. A big deal might even be traded directly for primary life needs such as food and water.

[th3nolo]

peaking at a 400 bitcoin/week trading volume on localbitcoins isnt what I would call Venezuelans embrace BTC en masse.

markj113 the reality is Local Bitcoin isn't the major exchange in venezuela Surbitcon is the major exchange and have better trading volume, but this exchange has no statistics about his trading volume. This is just the tip of the iceberg about the exchange of bitcoins in Venezuela

Why I know that, I'm citizen of this country..

[calkob]

It sounds like Venezuela is in some really serious trouble.  i hope these people can sort their country out and yeah using bitcoin would help to do that.

[franky1]

no its not.

venezuelans are only buying under 500btc a day TOTAL

seems the OP is just trying to push some story hoping people speculate falsely to raise the price, without the story itself having any merit to actually affect the price.

eg 500btc affects nothing. but op is trying to stir thousands of bitcoiners to over estimate the story to think it affects millions of bitcoins.
even those saying localbitcoins is small.. but so is their surbitcoin volumes too
https://surbitcoin.com/en_US/#market

sorry OP but speculative chain reactions based on rumours and misleading claims dont work like that

[the_poet]

no its not.

venezuelans are only buying under 500btc a day TOTAL

seems the OP is just trying to push some story hoping people speculate falsely to raise the price, without the story itself having any merit to actually affect the price.

eg 500btc affects nothing. but op is trying to stir thousands of bitcoiners to over estimate the story to think it affects millions of bitcoins.
even those saying localbitcoins is small.. but so is their surbitcoin volumes too
https://surbitcoin.com/en_US/#market

sorry OP but speculative chain reactions based on rumours and misleading claims dont work like that

Dude I just shared an article I found on Facebook, I neither need nor intend to push anything.

[mrcash02]

Congratulations for them... But it's not enough. They don't have food on super-markets, don't have medicines, critical situation there. They need much more than Bitcoins to save their country. Surely BTCs can help them a bit, because they will earn a valuable currency from the internet, much better than their current local currency. Let's see what happen...

[Milkduds]

no its not.

venezuelans are only buying under 500btc a day TOTAL

seems the OP is just trying to push some story hoping people speculate falsely to raise the price, without the story itself having any merit to actually affect the price.

eg 500btc affects nothing. but op is trying to stir thousands of bitcoiners to over estimate the story to think it affects millions of bitcoins.
even those saying localbitcoins is small.. but so is their surbitcoin volumes too
https://surbitcoin.com/en_US/#market

sorry OP but speculative chain reactions based on rumours and misleading claims dont work like that

Dude I just shared an article I found on Facebook, I neither need nor intend to push anything.

The article was posted yesterday or the day before:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1668944.0

When I read it I thought that it could not be right myself and felt like it was some kind of story to promote speculation in some form.
Kind of odd that it is being spread around so much though when it was not long ago that people where saying they should adopt bitcoin and where not.

[Velkro]

Let's hope Venezuelans embrace BTC en masse.

I dont need to have hope, they need to put their hope in bitcoin because there is hardly any other way for them to store value.
Poor people, poor country, poor goverment they have. Shame.

[pooya87]

just FYI, Venezuela has a 31.1 million population as of 2015 and a 400-500BTC daily volume on localitcoins means there is only a small number of people are doing the bitcoin trading.

if Venezuelans had embraced bitcoin it means that at least 20 million people had embraced it which means 0.00002BTC each

[Kakmakr]

just FYI, Venezuela has a 31.1 million population as of 2015 and a 400-500BTC daily volume on localitcoins means there is only a small number of people are doing the bitcoin trading.

if Venezuelans had embraced bitcoin it means that at least 20 million people had embraced it which means 0.00002BTC each

Something you have to keep in mind is that only 54.9% of the population have access to the internet. The declining oil industry is perhaps the most urgent problem of Venezuela's economic crisis. I think most people are concentrating on buying food, not Bitcoin as a investment.

Their biggest problem is stupid government policies that are destroying a great economy with a huge potential. Solve that, and the people will prosper and only then, will they start buying Bitcoin.

[pooya87]

just FYI, Venezuela has a 31.1 million population as of 2015 and a 400-500BTC daily volume on localitcoins means there is only a small number of people are doing the bitcoin trading.

if Venezuelans had embraced bitcoin it means that at least 20 million people had embraced it which means 0.00002BTC each

Something you have to keep in mind is that only 54.9% of the population have access to the internet. The declining oil industry is perhaps the most urgent problem of Venezuela's economic crisis. I think most people are concentrating on buying food, not Bitcoin as a investment.

Their biggest problem is stupid government policies that are destroying a great economy with a huge potential. Solve that, and the people will prosper and only then, will they start buying Bitcoin.

i agree, as i said in the other topic about Venezuela and also a while back about Greece and a while back about Cyprus (i think) when economy of a country is bad people are not thinking about investing especially not investing in bitcoin which is always risky. it is like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you don't think about anything else when you have nothing to eat.

[mobnepal]

Good move by Venezuelans however the devaluation of local fiat is not only problem of Venezuela, most of the developing countries and under develop countries suffer high level of economic crisis, USD domination, devaluation every year and most of them even don't know about bitcoin which can make them stay in safer side from these types of financial disaster.

In Nepal also Nepalese rupees is being weaker and weaker every year and people haven't yet realized that this is happening and we may soon see similar type of heavy crisis here too. I have already started educating my family and relatives regarding bitcoin and how we can actually save our wealth against Rupees devaluation.

[unamis76]

Not the first time that news like these appear. I think 400 BTC in Venezuela is quite reasonable from what I read about the country. Not many people can access the internet (and even less know about Bitcoin), a reasonable part of the population has more to worry about in their daily lives and Bitcoin (especially mining operations) are frowned upon by government and authorities. I hope they can have a new government and skip this crisis. Bitcoin will certainly help some people keeping their assets.

[yayayo]

In a high inflation environment, Bitcoin is the investment of choice to escape currency devaluation. Therefore increased adoption by Venezuelans is not a surprise. However even if the trading volume has skyrocketed, it started from a very low level. Judging by the numbers, Bitcoin is being bought only by an extremely small fraction of the whole population - it has no significance in the Venezuelan economy.

Apart from the low total adoption, Bitcoin can only be used as an investment. It can't solve the every day problems of the Venezuelan people: You can't buy food with it. Most Venezuelans are totally absorbed with their daily fight to obtain basic necessities.

ya.ya.yo!