Bitcoin in the 3rd world

[just a man]

Would btc be good for the 3rd world, places like Africa, Asia and South and Central America? Everyone knows about how Nigerians like their email, and mobile phones are doing well in terms of take-up generaly throughout the globe (except North Korea). So if people in the 3rd world started trading in btc more how would that effect the currency, how would it affect people in the US and the UK, would it lead to currency split, with African, Asian etc btc... does the future of bitcoin lie first outside of the West?

For instance in places like China that recently had an issue with trade denominated in QQ game-coins. The availability of un-ruled money being so easily accessible to people living under politically restrictive and corrupt systems (though in China's case for instance no longer entirely '3rd world'), or places like in India or Africa where you have millions upon millions of canny hustlers, hungry and with many mouths to feed fighting day after day with every ounce of market nouse they have to eat, to send kids to school... if they could access the power of the bitcoin what would that do?

Bearing in mind I know about the infrastructure problem in the '3rd world', but as emails from Nigerian princes and internet cafes intruded upon by holy cows go to show (true story), if people figure out a way to make a computer pay somehow, they will access a computer. My theory, if bitcoin takes off in the 3rd world or extreme economies like China then... boomtime revolution on all fronts.

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[MoonShadow]

That's pretty much the endgame.  Read Snowcrash or The Diamond Age for how it might play out and how a future without fiat currencies might look like.

[ColdHardMetal]

That's pretty much the endgame.  Read Snowcrash or The Diamond Age for how it might play out and how a future without fiat currencies might look like.

Really you should just read those anyway. Great books. Pretty much anything written by Neal Stephenson is worth the time to read.

[Timo Y]

would it lead to currency split, with African, Asian etc btc...

A currency split is extremely unlikely, unless two networks become completely isolated from each other.

It is almost impossible to restrict the adoption of a Bitcoin clone geographically, because anyone can join the mining effort, and all it takes is one communications link to the main network and the blockchain of the isolated network will be rejected.

does the future of bitcoin lie first outside of the West?

In my opinion yes. It it going to be hard to convince a Swiss person of the benefits of an alternative currency when what they have has worked pretty well for the last century.  (In fact, Switzerland already uses a decentralised alternative currency called WIR). 

Someone who has experienced the horrors of the Zimbabwean Dollar first hand, however, is going to be instantly sold on the idea of Bitcoin.

[just a man]

In another forum where I post, the bitcoin is seen as a threat to the working class. It's the working classes and the poor that mainly benefit from taxes in the west (well, theoretically) and for any economy the gobernment is Customer #1, so government spending of tax revenues pay for alot of the jobs in an economy. If people start turning stuff over in BTC then this starves the government of funds and they will no longer be able to provide public goods like schools and sidewalks and traffic lights, in the UK they will no longer be able to pay nurses and doctors or send dole-money or money for unemployed single mothers of small children. For me this is a bad thing.

On the upside they won't be able to bail out inept and corrupt banks or buy million dollar bombs to bomb the peasants of weak countries on the basis of lies anymore.

I think though it's true the working man and woman in the West might suffer from bitcoin, on the other hand in the 3rd world working men and women often don't pay tax anyway, in Nigeria for instance the democracy is not so accountable to the people as the government is paid for by the Shell oil company and Russian mobsters anyway, so the people wouldn't have to deal with a loss of services from the government with a currency like bitcoin, so one drawback they don't have to worry about

Another thing about bitcoin is the indterest rate can't be controlled, I know this is a key feature, but isn't that something you need to be able to do? Assuming that you're some sort of democratically elected body accountable to the people, you might want to be aqble to accelerate or break the economy every now and then when it's over-heating or to ecourage it to move around more... Ireland could't raizer their interest rates and they came off the road due to the reckless DUI of their banks... and having no breaks.

[hugolp]

In another forum where I post, the bitcoin is seen as a threat to the working class. It's the working classes and the poor that mainly benefit from taxes in the west (well, theoretically)

This has to be a joke right? Who is so dump as to believe the government benefits the working class?

[MoonShadow]

In another forum where I post, the bitcoin is seen as a threat to the working class.

Economic illiteracy is a widespread problem.

It's the working classes and the poor that mainly benefit from taxes in the west (well, theoretically) and for any economy the gobernment is Customer #1, so government spending of tax revenues pay for alot of the jobs in an economy. If people start turning stuff over in BTC then this starves the government of funds and they will no longer be able to provide public goods like schools and sidewalks and traffic lights, in the UK they will no longer be able to pay nurses and doctors or send dole-money or money for unemployed single mothers of small children. For me this is a bad thing.

For almost everyone, government is itself a bad thing.  You just don't comprehend how much is taken from you in your "best interests".  The most important tax that bitcoin deals with is the inflation tax, as inflation is functionally a hidden tax upon the entire monetary base.  It's particularly regressive as well, most directly affecting those who save directly in currency denominated investments and those who are dependent upon a regular salary (i.e. working class) while most directly benefiting those with the greatest access to new currency (i.e. government, politicos & bankers).  Bitcoin isn't really intended as a means to evade the kind of taxes that actually pay for public services, which don't have to be provided by governments in order to be effective.

Another thing about bitcoin is the indterest rate can't be controlled, I know this is a key feature, but isn't that something you need to be able to do?

No, of course not.  Wow, you have been indoctrinated well.  Did you attend a government school?

Assuming that you're some sort of democratically elected body accountable to the people, you might want to be aqble to accelerate or break the economy every now and then when it's over-heating or to ecourage it to move around more... Ireland could't raizer their interest rates and they came off the road due to the reckless DUI of their banks... and having no breaks.

The business cycle doesn't require intervention, and historicly intervention has proven counter-productive.  The great depression in the US is a prime example of this, for it was primarily intervention that prolonged the pain.

[kiba]

Another thing about bitcoin is the indterest rate can't be controlled, I know this is a key feature, but isn't that something you need to be able to do?

The interest rate should reflect the saving rate. This can reflection can only be accurately controlled by the market.

Assuming that you're some sort of democratically elected body accountable to the people, you might want to be aqble to accelerate or break the economy every now and then when it's over-heating or to ecourage it to move around more...

Democracy IS the problem. The people don't need a democracy. They deserve much better than a Lord of the Flies type of government.

If you let people take care of themselves, I am sure that they can come up with solution that is much better than what politicians could create.

[Bimmerhead]

In another forum where I post, the bitcoin is seen as a threat to the working class. It's the working classes and the poor that mainly benefit from taxes in the west (well, theoretically) and for any economy the gobernment is Customer #1, so government spending of tax revenues pay for alot of the jobs in an economy. If people start turning stuff over in BTC then this starves the government of funds and they will no longer be able to provide public goods like schools and sidewalks and traffic lights, in the UK they will no longer be able to pay nurses and doctors or send dole-money or money for unemployed single mothers of small children. For me this is a bad thing.

On the upside they won't be able to bail out inept and corrupt banks or buy million dollar bombs to bomb the peasants of weak countries on the basis of lies anymore.

I think though it's true the working man and woman in the West might suffer from bitcoin, on the other hand in the 3rd world working men and women often don't pay tax anyway, in Nigeria for instance the democracy is not so accountable to the people as the government is paid for by the Shell oil company and Russian mobsters anyway, so the people wouldn't have to deal with a loss of services from the government with a currency like bitcoin, so one drawback they don't have to worry about

Another thing about bitcoin is the indterest rate can't be controlled, I know this is a key feature, but isn't that something you need to be able to do? Assuming that you're some sort of democratically elected body accountable to the people, you might want to be aqble to accelerate or break the economy every now and then when it's over-heating or to ecourage it to move around more... Ireland could't raizer their interest rates and they came off the road due to the reckless DUI of their banks... and having no breaks.

I agree that for people who advocate welfare programs, or the 'dole', they and their beneficiaries will be threatened by bitcoin.  Anything that reduces the ability of the state to take from Peter in order to pay Paul will undermine their raison d'etre.

I'm afraid if you're simultaneously looking to increase freedom (bitcoin) and expand the power of the state (social welfare), you're going to have to live with a lot of cognitive dissonance.

Don't be put off by that though.  If you stick around here long enough you will be exposed to a lot of clear-thinking people and the cognitive dissonances will somehow dissolve.  I've learned some surprising things on this forum, beyond just the awesomeness of bitcoin.

[Timo Y]

The great depression in the US is a prime example of this, for it was primarily intervention that prolonged the pain.

Nobody can prove this conclusively.  

There are just too many aspects of economics that are not understood yet.  Saying something like "X exacerbated the great depression" is an educated guess at best.  It is like saying "X causes clinical depression, and Y will cure it".  

Perhaps we will never know what really caused the great depression, because even if we develop a  better economic understanding we can't go back in time to do accurate measurements. Or perhaps it will turn out that the great depression was just a random fluctuation in a highly choatic system, in which case it could neither be predicted nor prevented.

Anyhow, intervention is wrong on moral grounds, and it would remain wrong even if it could be proven that intervention has desireable consequences.

[MoonShadow]

The great depression in the US is a prime example of this, for it was primarily intervention that prolonged the pain.

Nobody can prove this conclusively. 

Strange statement to make, since it has been done.

[kiba]

Economic is primarily based on logical reasoning, not inductive.

We can't run experiments on whole economies, and perhaps we never will be able to.

What we can do is reason out something that definitely is true.

[Timo Y]

If people start turning stuff over in BTC then this starves the government of funds and they will no longer be able to provide public goods like schools and sidewalks and traffic lights, in the UK they will no longer be able to pay nurses and doctors or send dole-money or money for unemployed single mothers of small children. For me this is a bad thing.

Government does a terrible job of providing public services such as roads and sidewalks.

Here is a real life example: I used to live on a narrow residential street where a lot of families with young children lived. The families were very concerned about their children's safety, because a small number of inconsiderate drivers were using the street as a "rat run" and speeding through at 50-70 km/h. The street became a very stressful, menacing place to live, and so the families proposed turning it into a "living street" with a 10 km/h speed limit, park benches, flower beds, and so on. This proposal was accepted almost unanimously among the residents, and the impact on city traffic flow would have been negligible because it was not a main traffic artery.  

Note: There seems to be a pattern in economics that when anything is offered for "free", a small number of anti-social rogues takes shameless advantage of it to the detriment of a considerate majority - you call that social justice?

Anyhow, the residents ended up lobbying the city council for almost a decade before anything was done. Meanwhile, a whole generation of overweight sedentary children grew up because the parents were too scared to let them ride a bike in front of the house.

First the city council rejected it on bureaucratic grounds. There are top-down, inflexible regulations on how roads are "supposed" to be utilised, completely ignoring the diversity of local preferences and needs.

Then the city council rejected it on political grounds. The mayor's financial sponsors were mainly people who lived outside the city and just commuted through central neighbourhoods for work or shopping. It was not in their interest to promote "living streets".

In a more anarchist society this issue would have been resolved within weeks. One possible scenario: Since the parents care passionately about this issue, they all would have chipped in and purchased the street and run it as a cooperative where they can set their own rules.   Ok, there are  now a handful of commuters who can no longer take the  shortest path to their workplace at a high speed, but do they really care enough about losing 10 seconds commute time to purchase back the street (among themselves) at an even higher price than the concerned parents are prepared to pay?

[FreeMoney]

In a more anarchist society this issue would have been resolved within weeks. One possible scenario: Since the parents care passionately about this issue, they all would have chipped in and purchased the street and run it as a cooperative where they can set their own rules.   Ok, there are  now a handful of commuters who can no longer take the  shortest path to their workplace at a high speed, but do they really care enough about losing 10 seconds commute time to purchase back the street (among themselves) at an even higher price than the concerned parents are prepared to pay?

You just want resources to be put to their most efficient use!

[genjix]

Ok, there are  now a handful of commuters who can no longer take the  shortest path to their workplace at a high speed, but do they really care enough about losing 10 seconds commute time to purchase back the street (among themselves) at an even higher price than the concerned parents are prepared to pay?

Cars are retarded anyway. Suburbanism = urban sprawl = a disease. New urbanism ftw. + pay tons in costs and pollute the environment burning precious fossil fuels to move 1 person for a 30 minute walk.

Are we building cities for cars or for people? Support pedestrianism.

[FreeMoney]

Ok, there are  now a handful of commuters who can no longer take the  shortest path to their workplace at a high speed, but do they really care enough about losing 10 seconds commute time to purchase back the street (among themselves) at an even higher price than the concerned parents are prepared to pay?

Cars are retarded anyway. Suburbanism = urban sprawl = a disease. New urbanism ftw. + pay tons in costs and pollute the environment burning precious fossil fuels to move 1 person for a 30 minute walk.

Are we building cities for cars or for people? Support pedestrianism.

Absolutely agree.

Mother f'ers asking "who will build the roadz?". Maybe no one, maybe we don't need god damn roads everywhere. If you want a road pay the full cost and see if they are actually profitable or not.

[Bitquux]

In a more anarchist society this issue would have been resolved within weeks. One possible scenario: Since the parents care passionately about this issue, they all would have chipped in and purchased the street and run it as a cooperative where they can set their own rules.

Wow. I wonder if I can get enough people to chip in and buy Ohio. Of course, they're probably not selling, so we'd have to vote in people who would allow it first. Then we might even be able to skip the buying it part and get those people to do what we wanted in the first place. Too bad it never works that way.

[FreeMoney]

In a more anarchist society this issue would have been resolved within weeks. One possible scenario: Since the parents care passionately about this issue, they all would have chipped in and purchased the street and run it as a cooperative where they can set their own rules.

Wow. I wonder if I can get enough people to chip in and buy Ohio. Of course, they're probably not selling, so we'd have to vote in people who would allow it first. Then we might even be able to skip the buying it part and get those people to do what we wanted in the first place. Too bad it never works that way.

They might be selling sooner than you think. Pieces of Illinois might be available very soon.

[h4ck3rk1ng]

Everyone knows about how Nigerians like their email,

 

OMG HAHAHAHAHA THAT MADE ME LAUGH SO HARD HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[RHorning]

Government does a terrible job of providing public services such as roads and sidewalks.

*snip*

In a more anarchist society this issue would have been resolved within weeks. One possible scenario: Since the parents care passionately about this issue, they all would have chipped in and purchased the street and run it as a cooperative where they can set their own rules.   Ok, there are  now a handful of commuters who can no longer take the  shortest path to their workplace at a high speed, but do they really care enough about losing 10 seconds commute time to purchase back the street (among themselves) at an even higher price than the concerned parents are prepared to pay?

If you have strongly local government that is accountable to the citizens and represents a small constituency, this also tends to not be a big issue either.  Small governments representing relatively few people can be impacted by the opinions of just a few people and can get things done.

Where I live, neighborhoods can form "private" associations to build things like streets, sidewalks, and even parks.  This goes by several different names and I happen to belong to one of these groups too.  When you buy the home, you have to sign a contract with the neighborhood association to follow their rules, but it also permits the ability for residents to make street improvements and to pool money together for the common good.  I've seen neighborhood parks get built, and really good neighborhood associations like this can be a way to bypass city hall completely.

The largest problem with these kind of groups is they start to get anal and "legislate" all sorts of stupid things like regulating how many cars you can own, if children are even permitted in the neighborhood (some have minimum age requirements like you must be age 50+), what color of paint you can have on the outside of your house, or even what flowers or trees you are permitted to plant in your front yard including requiring you to plant certain species or face a fine.  When these groups get a huge thirst for power is when you know it is time to bail out on groups like this, but then again you can vote with your feet if that happens.

[Timo Y]

If you have strongly local government that is accountable to the citizens and represents a small constituency, this also tends to not be a big issue either.  Small governments representing relatively few people can be impacted by the opinions of just a few people and can get things done.

Strongly local government is what we have in Switzerland.  The cantons and towns have a high degree of autonomy. Towns can even set their own income tax. Government in Switzerland seems to do a much better job of providing public services than any other country I have lived in.  There is some degree of competition between town governements wooing wealthy migrants, so this gives them an incentive to keep taxes low and quality of services high. 

Like you say, there are dark sides to this system too. In some more traditional towns you are basically a second class citizen if you weren't born there, but if you don't like that you can move to Zurich which is full of foreigners. Of course, Zurich will tax you twice as much because they know they can get away with it.

[caveden]

Bitcoin could be really useful to immigrants who send money to their families in 3rd world countries. But, before such a thing could happen, there should be more exchanges on different currencies

[spndr7]

I being a member of third world country, India, feel that the term "3rd world" is in a sense derogatory to the national pride .Being called underdeveloped is acceptable .

May be I am too nationalistic .The two victors of WW2 divided their allies into 2 groups,those who did not participated in WW2 were kept in the 3rd world .

But I am very sure that if WW3 ever took place,then India will participate and the first,second world countries like Australia,Canada,Norway,Sweden, etc wont participate and even after that they wont be called a fourth world countries .

[just a man]

Kenyans using mobile-phone money...
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/05/132679772/mobile-money-revolution-aids-kenyas-poor-economy?sc=tw&cc=share

Very interesting in my opinion.

[MoonShadow]

Would btc be good for the 3rd world, places like Africa, Asia and South and Central America?

in my opinion bitcoin is not yet ready to circulate outside a very specific community (online, with hardware, education) and not matured yet (in pure numbers not enough users, little circulation, commodity value fluctuation after every media appearance)

i mean when btc gets rid of the fat client to manage wallet
when there will be a variety of client apps to use on different devices
when micro payments will fast, reliable and easy, then hooray. btc may be a useful commodity circulating alongside other currencies.

Yes, it is still a beta system.  That said, it's nearly ready to take over the mobile-to-mobile (SMS, etc) transfer realm and dramaticly undercut the relatively high fees those markets command at present.  All that is really needed for Bitcoin to take over that market is a functional 'lightweight' Android client that can handle transactions with spotty Internet access.

[just a man]

Would btc be good for the 3rd world, places like Africa, Asia and South and Central America?

in my opinion bitcoin is not yet ready to circulate outside a very specific community (online, with hardware, education) and not matured yet (in pure numbers not enough users, little circulation, commodity value fluctuation after every media appearance)

i mean when btc gets rid of the fat client to manage wallet
when there will be a variety of client apps to use on different devices
when micro payments will fast, reliable and easy, then hooray. btc may be a useful commodity circulating alongside other currencies.

I'm thinking over a 10 year framework. Bitcoins are not going to be of much use right now to immigrants from Nicaragua or the Gambia sending money home from the US or Europe now no (or indeed workers in Lagos sending money back home to their rural fishing village on the Niger Delta or what have you), but give it five to ten years and the infrastructure will start to get there. Who'd heard of facebook five years ago? Not me anyway, now people log in from all over the world including Africa and Asia and other parts of the '3rd world'.

15-20 years ago only gadget freaks used mobile phones. Now see my link about the use of mobiles in Kenya to send and receive money... 15 years ago who would have associated email with Nigerian con-artists? Email scamming I obviously don't approve of but my point is that it's an example of how these internet technoloigies provide opportunities to people anywhere. Peoplke seek the cheapest and most efficient solutions for things, and the price of entry to bitcoin is not that much higher than other internet services people acces relatively easily via internet cafes etc in 3rd world urban centres.

Today I have an Nokia N8 and consider it the dogs-bollocks (that's British for "rather cool") perhaps I should have got an android phone, but I couldn't say no to the 12 megapixel camera. In 5 years, 10 years... my N8 will be passe, here in the UK anyway, it and this generation of android phones. Which means that in 5 years time these phones will be quite affordable to not particularly affluent people in Africa and Asia.

I went on a camping trip in the Sahara once and was struck by how my Berber guide depended on his old Nokia and the credits he'd buy in town to keep in contact with his community when out in the desert, climbing to the tops of sand dunes or rocky hills to get better reception (I will call my cousin to bring us some more things, some more onions for tagine, you want alcohol? My cousin he can bring, some hashish and cigerettes yes?) Even more I was struck by the use of solar panels on the roofs of their mud-brick homes. Makes absolute sense to have German solar panels on your roof when you're a Berber villager, there's plenty of sun and fuck-all power infratsructure.  My point is that some of the techs we take for granted in Europe and the US have aspects that make them even more useful and important and make even more sense in corners of the world that aren't economicaly developed or don't have decades of infratsructure invested into them.

In the next 10 years the take-up of bitcoin outside the developed world will be alot more vigarous because it will mean alot more to those able to use it. Life's tough out there, a better form of money can more literally be a matter of life or death. Could represent a major infusion of wealth from working diaspora's in the West or developing-world capitals out into fishing villages and farms and so on all over the place.

Only need bitcoin clients on android phones made affordable to working class people in developing world countries by the passage of a few years. Don't underestimate the ability of people in the developing world to utilize technologies that avoid the need for centralized infrastructure, or infrasturcture at all. If M-Pessa over mobile phones can take off in Kenya, then surely bitcoin can take-off anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Why dont we start our own charity project or plant the seed for it ? . The idea is that when we get an android client thats workable we contact an organisation that sends used or cheap android phones to the disadvantaged. Perhaps the Grameen Telecommunications which provides low cost mobile communication in rural areas.

 They can then install a  bitcoin client and  people can post a bitcoin address maybe with a backstory similar to how kiva.org does with loans for entrepeneurs. They could then start a local bitcoin market within their community from direct bitcoin donations. The majority of your donation would then go directly to them. This is where bitcoin would really shine.

 

[MoonShadow]

@just a man
this talk is similar to a link you posted
http://www.ted.com/talks/iqbal_quadir_says_mobiles_fight_poverty.html
this guy started a mobile phone network in bangladesh
i do no doubt ability of people to adapt new technology

i just would have second thoughts trying to convince people in developing countries to adapt btc right now. example the drop of value after the slashdot peak 50 us cents per 1 BTC to current 30 us cents per 1 BTC today. imagine someone's hard earned money loosing almost half of it's value in a few days/weeks.

That 50 cent peak was a false high, lasting only a few minutes.  That said, people just need to be aware that Bitcoin floats, and can go up or down quite often.  The spot price on MtGox or anywhere else isn't a particularly useful metric anyway, exactly because it moves so much.  The 24 hour weighted average is a much better number to use, and I don't believe that ever broke 35 cents.