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February 23, 2014, 10:52:34 AM |
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There is a young woman in Venezuela. She has degrees in PolySci and Economics. She has a young daughter. Her husband, a civics engineer, is in the hospital on life support. She begged him not to go to the rallies, but couldn't stop him. Every day there is fire and blood and death and a river of angry flesh in the streets. A police truncheon caved in his skull. The doc will pull the plug soon, if he doesn't flee Venezuela first.
She has the background in economics and politics to understand that Maduro meant well but is hopelessly naive in both of those fields, and that the current unrest and subsequent violence was designed and funded from outside; shades of the cold war. None of that matters now.
She has some savings, and had the foresight from her education to convert that to cash over the last few months and has avoided the bank runs and the other internal currency controls. But inflation is at 300% and threatens to go Zimbabwe amid the continued G20 currency wars, escalating violence and lawlessness. She has to get her daughter out.
Chile or Uruguay would be the best bet, she concludes. She considered buying gold to mitigate the inflation which might hit 10,000% before she leaves, and to make the money more portable, but she has heard about how the border guards like to linger on the pat downs for pretty young women, and how it can go from degrading to dangerous if they catch you in the crime of taking your money with you. There is a certain type of pathology that is attracted to a TSA or border guard job these days... but she has to take the money with her somehow. The alternative is showing up penniless in a foreign country. That means turning tricks for food.
Due to her interest in economics, she is somewhat familiar with Bitcoin and the various entry/exit techniques. She makes a few trepidatious inquiries on localbitcoins.com from her laptop, picks the dealer with the longest history and best rating, and meets in a coffee shop close to her apartment:
"I want to buy $10,000 equivalent in American dollars of bitcoin from you, is that ok?"
"Lady, everybody wants that these days. I'm nearly tapped out. And the internet filters are troublesome too, but they only make things crazy and slow things down. The full blackouts though, the kill switches, they stop everything. The local miners say they have to stop mining then or a Venezuelan Bitcoin blockchain will fork and all those transactions will die the minute the internet connection is turned back on because the rest of the world's hashing power is 1,000 times ours. Lots of chaos right now."
"Well how much can you do right now?"
"Maybe $1,000 American."
"Is that all? Surely you can do more please?"
"No, I'm tapped out. A lot of people are doing what you're doing."
"Ok but if I buy $1,000 now can I buy more from you in a few days? Please if you could help, it's very important. I have a daughter..."
"Maybe, I don't know for sure. Keep emailing me."
Over the next few weeks she manages to convert her Venezuelan money to bitcoin, losing 15% of value from devaluation and 25% from local inflation of bitcoin. She decided on Chile, and fled. She drove, thinking that was safer than flying. Agents immediately whisked her away at the border.
Her family says the government knew about her plans because they heard government agents and military people had taken over the ISPs. The family has tracked down the daughter. She is in the custody of the Ministry for Children and Families but they won't release her to the husband's family members. They haven't been able to get any word from the government on the mother. They suspect she is dead.
Tor might have helped her. Zerocoin might have helped her. Darkwallet might have helped her. I'm struggling to understand how the Bitcoin Foundation's activities to date might have helped her, but I do hear they give good Congressional testimony.
"I did this thing for ordinary people. I did not do it for businesses or banks, and I did not do it for governments ... I did it in spite of them." - Satoshi Nakamoto, 2014
Post found on the bitcoin foundation forum posted by Dan Plante
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