Idea for helping Venezuela using Bitcoin

[theymos]

Venezuela is in an interesting situation where Bitcoiners may be in a unique position to help. As far as I've heard, most Venezuelans have decent Internet access, and they are also readily able to accept foreign packages. But even so, many people are starving due to various government nonsense. One major issue with the government (though certainly not the only issue) is that the Venezuelan currency is in hyperinflation. Bitcoin could be used as an alternative medium of exchange in Venezuela, and apparently this is already happening to a small extent. And separately from Bitcoin, as far as I can tell it'd be very much possible to ship supplies into Venezuela in order to help people there.

It'd be nice if someone trustworthy on the ground in Venezuela could organize the following activities:

 - Accept and distribute shipments of food donations to people who are not government supporters.
 - Accept and distribute BTC donations to act as a replacement for the garbage government currency.
 - Work in other ways to promote the usage of BTC as a medium of exchange in Venezuela.
 - Trade between BTC and other supplies in order to most effectively meet local demand, and also to promote the creation of a BTC-centric market.
 
There are some existing charities for helping Venezuela, but I suspect that a large percentage of donations to these charities end up in the hands of the government itself or government supporters. I'd like donations to go only to people who are not supportive of the government (or, even better, to those who actively oppose it).

Due to various not-yet-perfectly-solved technical issues, raw Bitcoin transactions are a bit cumbersome for medium-of-exchange purposes. Therefore, it may be best to distribute OpenDime devices preloaded with set denominations of BTC, with the amount of BTC written on stickers on the devices. (I have some security concerns regarding OpenDime's current design, but it'll suffice for now.)

Does this sound like a good idea? Would you donate? Does anyone know of any trustworthy Venezuelans who would be willing to work on this?

[franky1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country

Venezuela minimum wage is 17cents an hour..
no one is gonna pay an hours wage just to transact

bitcoin is no better for Venezuela than common currency. and you can thank your best friend gmaxwell for the fee war to make bitcoin lose its appeal in third world countries.

now do you see the problem of pushing a fee war.

[Kakmakr]

Someone was saying somewhere in a video that the Venezuelians are already buying goods in Walmart via some service and they get the goods delivered to their country. It would be great if we could track that story and find a person to deal with. The trust will be a issue though, because in my experience with charities in Africa, most of the damn donations end up in the wrong people's pockets. These people end up selling these goods to the people. The world is a sick place. ^hmmmmm^

Bitcoin can make the biggest difference, if big companies like Coinbase/BitPay/Trezor/Xapo can join efforts to make Bitcoin transactions cheaper for the every day person on the street. They can also make it easier for them to make transactions via cheap mobile phones. < Most Bitcoin Apps these days, are developed for Smart phones > 

[bitbunnny]

This might be a good idea but how many people in Venezuela are actualy familiar with Bitcoin. The poorest one are in the greatest need but how many of them have access to Bitcoin, Internet etc? I'm afraid that this could be solution for a very small number of people and that in practice wouldn't make any significant difference.
Maybe if this would be organised through some organizations.

[Decoded]

I don't know if anyone's with me, but I hate the idea of the OpenDime.

It's so expensive to manufacture; the aim of an opendime is to physicalise the value of the bitcoin, but more than $10 for a single stick? If I want it to represent a five dollar denomination, it costs $15 to manufacture. FIFTEEN DOLLARS.

Its ugly; Even a note looks better and won't break if you drop it.

It's impractical; What, does one have access to a USB port 24/7?


If there is an opportunity with bitcoin in Venezuela, and they have a decent amount of access to the internet, then having a multisig wallet is more than enough.

[ChrisPop]

Well,this is a good idea for rising the popularity of bitcoin and also helping the economy in Venezuela. I've just looked up on numbeo.com and saw that the average monthly salary is around 40 bucks there. It's hard even to pay their utilities with that kind of remuneration. They can't even buy a pair of jeans with the monthly wage.. This is another reason why the low bitcoin transaction fees would help them a lot. I'm sorry theymos but I don't have any connections there,but overall its a good idea/project.

[RajaJudi]

Sound like the great plan. But how can we able to convince the Government. I mean, the Government have the authorities to do whatever they want. If they figure out there are some people using Bitcoin, they might arrest them no reasons. We still need a big adoption from Venezuelan in order to start this project. A group of people can not do anything, and they can be killed, instantly.
But, if this campaign succeeds, no doubt that it will cause a big impact on the world ecosystem as well as many other countries. People will start to reshape their mind about what Bitcoin is and how it really affect our life. Bitcoin is not some kind of ponzi scheme. Bitcoin is an innovation

[nara1892]

Does this sound like a good idea? Would you donate? Does anyone know of any trustworthy Venezuelans who would be willing to work on this?

it sounds good, of course. but the thing is I do not have so many bitcoins to donate because I need it for a business and college needs.

why do not promote bitcoin to Venezuelans anyway? because I think many of Venezuelans are rich. you can impress them by your words above. if this forum has local section of Venezuela, you can repost this thread there in Venezuelan.

[hawkins]

it is a good idea, but I guess it takes a lot of bitcoin to help Venezuela. Well, before doing that, we need to know, if they know how to use bitcoin. Well, if they had indeed been able to use bitcoin, it would probably be a very valuable aid for them. Well, it may be very many people who will provide support on this matter.

[pereira4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country

Venezuela minimum wage is 17cents an hour..
no one is gonna pay an hours wage just to transact

bitcoin is no better for Venezuela than common currency. and you can thank your best friend gmaxwell for the fee war to make bitcoin lose its appeal in third world countries.

now do you see the problem of pushing a fee war.

Bitcoin would be useless with a big block size for venezuelans too since the nodes would be too centralized and they would be prone to government control.

The only way to make bitcoin viable in massive scale is lightning network, and for that we need segwit. You can thank those that block segwit for bitcoin not scaling faster.

[Sithara007]

I don't think that the government will permit the usage of Bitcoins. Right now, they have almost zero tax revenues, and they are paying the government servants by printing as many banknotes as they can. With BTC, they will not be able to do this.

[franky1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country

Venezuela minimum wage is 17cents an hour..
no one is gonna pay an hours wage just to transact

bitcoin is no better for Venezuela than common currency. and you can thank your best friend gmaxwell for the fee war to make bitcoin lose its appeal in third world countries.

now do you see the problem of pushing a fee war.

Bitcoin would be useless with a big block size for venezuelans too since the nodes would be too centralized and they would be prone to government control.

The only way to make bitcoin viable in massive scale is lightning network, and for that we need segwit. You can thank those that block segwit for bitcoin not scaling faster.

lol do your research
1. you dont need a full node to use bitcoin.

2. those that want to be a full node obviously have enough money to pay for landline internet and a computer. so a food donation is not needed, thus this topic is not for them.

3. for those in need of food wont have a computer so a $15 usb device wont feed their stomachs

4. LN in its blockstream concept has a ~$4.70 (0.006btc) prepay fee and lots of penalty fee's. again not what developing countries can afford because stupidly its programmed by americans with america 'pricing'

my biggest gripe is the american mindset of economics rather then a world wide mindset of using code to reduce problems. fee's are not a solution to spam. code is.

5. LN is useless for people that buy things irregularly. its great for and has a niche for faucets/daytraders/gamblers who do LOADS of transactions a day. but not the average spender. because. the fee's LN are dreaming up dont outweigh the utility.
eg average stats of people using atms and visa to buy real life daily things in the real world is 42 times a month.
$4.70/42=~11cents which is still near an hours wage for developing countries. well more then an hour for some.
again LN is great for daytraders/gamblers/faucet raiders/adsense stuff.. but not real peoples lives. especially in developing countries.

please atleast be realistic and dont overhype bitcoin/LN...
bitcoin has lost its footing in regard for the 'unbanked' developing countries

6. segwit is not extending bitcoin. its instead circling back round to the 7tx/s expectation whereby we only actually achieved 3tx/s.. yes blockstream can shout out 14tx expectation. but thats only IF 100% of usrs use LN and 100% of users do a 1in 1 out.. so dont expect 14tx/s as the norm. just have a more realistic mind that we will probably get 7tx/s finally. even blockstream gesture of fee discount is not going to bring fee's down to 2009-13 levels. but instead back to 2015 levels temporarily.. basically a roll back to prices at segwits first announcement. but then the new 'tx fee average' mechanism is pushing the fee's forward and avoiding a reactive pricing due to demand.

7. you do know that 2mb base 4mb weight is still under the 4mb total bloat amount that blockstream/core are now happy with. but because the ratio is 2mb base instead of 1mb base. more transactions can be accepted without having a spare 2mb empty gesture to poke the bear.

8. if you think LN is the end goal. then you need to research that CLTV and CSV combined to become a real world end user perception of funds locked in a maturity delay (unavailable funds) and funds revoke(chargeback) ability much like credit cards, paypal and bank accounts. thus the 'settlement period' makes LN no better than paypal

[Kprawn]

Do we really need to help governments, when they failed their citizens? We pick up the pieces and support these governments and once they

are back on their feet, they spit on the people that helped them. They believe a socialist system can work, and then when it fails... they want

1st world countries to support them. Hugo Chávez and Maduro has destroyed that nation, and we have to pay for their mistakes? I believe in

teaching people to fish, not to feed them... The first step should be for them to change their believe that a socialist system can work. 

[franky1]

Do we really need to help governments, when they failed their citizens? We pick up the pieces and support these governments and once they

are back on their feet, they spit on the people that helped them. They believe a socialist system can work, and then when it fails... they want

1st world countries to support them. Hugo Chávez and Maduro has destroyed that nation, and we have to pay for their mistakes? I believe in

teaching people to fish, not to feed them... The first step should be for them to change their believe that a socialist system can work.  

socialist systems do work.. its when capitalists suck the socialists dry that people then blame socialists.. when its the capitalists that caused it.
however socialist systems can work without governments. and bitcoin is proving that with bitcoins consensus network.

governments are capitalists in sheeps clothing.

take the rhetoric that "the worlds citizens" are indebt to a combined few trillion.... um no. corporations/agencies are in debt. yet them corporations/agencies are trying to pass the debt on... meaning capitalism has failed people

[CoinLearn]

Does this sound like a good idea? Would you donate? Does anyone know of any trustworthy Venezuelans who would be willing to work on this?

I wonder if any Venezuelan is actually reading this to provide their side of the story...

[yayayo]

Judging by the last article I've read about Bitcoin in Venezuela, Bitcoin seems to be used only underground in this country. Using Bitcoin in the open is much too risky and would make people a target of harassment and prosecution. So you can rest pretty much assured, that anybody using Bitcoin in Venezuela is not pro-government.

While the idea is generally nice, I fear it will fail in practice because of the aforementioned problem. I'm also skeptical if foreign shipments make it into Venezuela that easily.

So in my opinion, donating Bitcoin to Venezuelans for food shipments is not really such a good idea. It would be better to help Venezuelans to self-organize in respect to grow their own Bitcoin community and establish a local market based on Bitcoin. So providing information and platforms regarding Bitcoin targeted at Venezuelans would be helpful. If possible, these information should focus on ways how Venezuelans can earn Bitcoin by providing products (possibly very difficult) and services (maybe easier) to the world market.

In that respect, donation shipments of old mining equipment could be an idea worth considering. If I'm not misinformed, electricity prices are relatively low in Venezuela because of the typical socialist subsidies, so mining on old hardware may still be worthwhile.

Improving the supply of coins to the Venezuelan market is a precondition for establishing Bitcoin as a currency alternative.

In my opinion it's much better to foster self-empowerment than to just donate and keep people in dependency.

ya.ya.yo!

[Clement Kaliyar]

This is the exact problem we are facing in India.The government all of a sudden withdrawn the big currency notes of 1000 and 500 rupees on november 8th and still now we are facing big problems to get money out of banks as well as to  get change even if we get a currency from bank.The biggest comic part is that they introduced 2000 rupee note and the ATMs will only disperse a single 2000 rupee note per account and you cannot do anything with that note because no one can give you a change for this high denomination. The Venezuelanian people revolted and the governent held the ban is what i heard from news and what is the situation over there.

[mrcash02]

Doesn't matter what we do to help Venezuela now, it won't be enough, things only will change there, when that demon tyrant be removed from the command of the country. Unfortunelly, he has a legion of fools, that agree with all his actions. The bolivarianism is a sick that must be extirpated in South America, Venezuela is the most injured.

I think if donations start being send to trusted hands, soon the government supporters will know and arrest the one who is sharing the donations with an allegation of conspiration, for an example. The opposition leader was arrested and many others too without reason.

The economic situation on that country is almost blowing up, and venezuelans must solve it fast and bring a new age of prosperity to their country... Bitcoin can help them to rebuild their economy, but not now, not with this leader.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

<snip>
Venezuela minimum wage is 17cents an hour..
<snip>

Holy crapsteaks!  Is that seriously true?  I did not realize Venezuela was so poor--I ought to pay more attention to what's happening in the world, but the part of me that detests news won't let me.  Having said that, why not use another crypto that has lower fees?  I know a lot of them do, but I know me saying that is heresy around these parts.  But I know you can send DOGE almost for free.

Then again, I thought S. American countries were pretty comfortable using the good old USD when all else fails.  Is that not true anymore?  I thought I read somewhere that the only commercial use our current dollar coins get is in Mexico and parts south.

[OROBTC]

<snip>
Venezuela minimum wage is 17cents an hour..
<snip>

Holy crapsteaks!  Is that seriously true?  I did not realize Venezuela was so poor--I ought to pay more attention to what's happening in the world, but the part of me that detests news won't let me.  Having said that, why not use another crypto that has lower fees?  I know a lot of them do, but I know me saying that is heresy around these parts.  But I know you can send DOGE almost for free.

Then again, I thought S. American countries were pretty comfortable using the good old USD when all else fails.  Is that not true anymore?  I thought I read somewhere that the only commercial use our current dollar coins get is in Mexico and parts south.

17 (US) cents probably is true, the situation there in Venezuela is getting desperate.  Venezuela probably is the most vilnerable country in South America: poorest and with the poorest prospects ahead.  They have more OIL than any other country in the world, go figure (ah, THAT counts as a failure of Socialism).

Yes, I would have thought that US$ would work!  Ecuador's official paper currency is the US$ (Panama too I believe).

* * *

I like theymos's idea re Opendimes loaded up with varying amounts of BTC (still need a real BTC wallet though).  Opendime seems to be the cheapest solution.

But, how do you convince Venezuelans to accept a digital currency that would surely be the target of Maduro y Cia...?