Venezuela & The Bitcoin

[Pearls Before Swine]

Pardon me but a thought that might be common with others is, if you have a country or even a nation with lets say bountiful resources, money etc etc.. why would you be so reliant on someone else's governement?

If you've got a currency that's failing in spite of those resources, you might not have much choice other than to either borrow a ton of money from another country or adopt its currency in place of yours.  That's exactly what Venezuela is doing. 

I can't say I understand the entire political situation in Venezuela, but it's my understanding that the political system is very messed up and those resources have been mismanaged along with many other things, which has led to the hyperinflation situation they're going thru. 

Bitcoin might be getting hot down there, but it's probably not being used as money.  People with money to save might be converting it into bitcoin as a store of value, but it's not clear to me if that's the case.  I just don't think it's being spent for everyday goods.

[1714982939]

1714982939

[th3nolo]

Then again, since exchanges report fake volume sometimes, perhaps this data is inaccurate as well. As far as I know, the majority of the population is leaving below the poverty line and unemployment is at 30%.Unfortunately, in such a terrible situation, I don't think Bitcoin can help Venezuela or vice versa.

Sometimes it is really a little funny to me when Bitcoin connects with Venezuela in every way possible, either as the savior of the entire monetary system of the country or as some straw of the salvation of ordinary people. Although the percentage of unemployed is very large, the minimum wage in August was only $2 which is really not enough for any kind of life. It should also be noted that more than one million people have left the country in recent years.

Bitcoin can't help Venezuela, they need a lot more than that, above all, they need a miracle - and we all know that miracles happen very rarely, especially if you have bad relations with the masters of the world.

miracles doesn't happen when a country's situation is like Venezuela against the masters of the world who just want to milk the country. UK and US are against their current leader. their government doesn't have much option since Chavez death but even so they can still be the top oil exporter.  the country can produce more oil for China but these UK and US doesn't like that. and they will bring Marudo down. but BTC will serve their economy to be stable. they do have the resources, they can ignore all if they are just unified.

Hey all of you who talk crap, do any of you live in Venezuela? Of course you not!

I live in Venezuela and I can talk properly about what's going on in my country, more importantly, I belong to an organization that is putting the skin in the game trying to promote Bitcoin in my country.

Bitcoin is undoubtedly a method of payment that is becoming increasingly popular in Venezuela, all thanks to the legal framework that the government is trying to create, and you know what's best we don't give a damn.

The truth is that Venezuela has not broken any records in a long time.

The problem is that journalists use bolivars to measure Bitcoin purchase transactions but do not take into account the country's inflation. A more adequate measure of the volume is to use the dollar, with its value indexed after the open market (generally known as the black market) BSF/USD conversion.

Using the data provided by Yadio.io, a website that tracks the actual price of the dollar-based on Bitcoin's buy/sell transactions through LocalBitcoins gives us a better perspective.

According to their data, 294,682,299 million dollars were exchanged in a year, this gives us a figure of at least 24.56 million dollars exchanged each month, 5.66 million dollars a week and about 800,000 dollars on average per day.

That's at least $33,640 every hour, that's a tiny amount of money compared to big exchanges in other countries.

Bitcoin is being used by average people in Venezuela, and this solid data shows that their buying interest has not ceased despite having gone through a brutal bear market, we are using Bitcoin as a tool to protect ourselves from this corrupt government, as intended by Satoshi Nakamoto.

The numbers in Bolivars are nothing more than a proof that bad money will always be exchanged for good money and that bad money will always lose value and more of it will be needed to obtain good money.

Source: https://yadio.io/

[alejoat]

Bitcoin and other digital currencies are providing a lifeline to many people in the troubled Latin American country of Venezuela

[EdvinZ]

In the conditions of such a high hyperinflation, Venezuelan citizens were simply forced to look for an alternative to their national currency. But given that the price of Bitcoin is extremely unstable, it would not be entirely reasonable to buy it to save money. It would be much more reasonable to buy US dollars for this. I think that Bitcoin was bought more by those people who hoped to increase their capital, due to the alleged increase in the price of digital gold.

[stompix]

PDVSA still gets EUR and USD via proxy countries. Most of the export to the US stopped when Trump seized Citgo anyway.

One slight correction, Citgo was never seized by the US state or anything else.
Furthermore, the Office of Foreign Assets Control has declined Conoco's claims of shares in Citgo because it might go against the sanctions imposed by the Government.  So at this point, Citgo is quite safe and is making millions in profit.

This is the same data that is represented in the article referenced in the OP, but in BTC (despite what the chart’s title says – it doesn’t seem to adjust properly when switching between VES and BTC):

As always s story about nothing.
If you make a graph of how many bolivars people of Venezuela have spent for bread it will look like they are eating x1000 more bread that three years ago.
I really wish coindance would have the option of showing not only VES and BTC but also the volume in USD, so we could have a better view.

[th3nolo]

PDVSA still gets EUR and USD via proxy countries. Most of the export to the US stopped when Trump seized Citgo anyway.

One slight correction, Citgo was never seized by the US state or anything else.
Furthermore, the Office of Foreign Assets Control has declined Conoco's claims of shares in Citgo because it might go against the sanctions imposed by the Government.  So at this point, Citgo is quite safe and is making millions in profit.

This is the same data that is represented in the article referenced in the OP, but in BTC (despite what the chart’s title says – it doesn’t seem to adjust properly when switching between VES and BTC):

As always s story about nothing.
If you make a graph of how many bolivars people of Venezuela have spent for bread it will look like they are eating x1000 more bread that three years ago.
I really wish coindance would have the option of showing not only VES and BTC but also the volume in USD, so we could have a better view.

They could have implemented something as simple as that but they haven't and therefore encourage yellow journalists, if you genuinely wish to follow the evolution of the Bitcoin market in Venezuela use yadio.io is a site run by Venezuelans who truly understand what's going on.

https://yadio.io/

[Darooghe]

The Venezuelan situation is by far the most meaningful example in Bitcoins 10 years of it being used by to protect themselves in a hyper inflationary economy. this is why we do what we do. Bitcoin is directly helping people escape the worst possible financial situation a person can experience. Before Bitcoin, there was more even more misery for people with crap governments. The people switching to Bitcoin have no reason to trust government currencies again. they will use Bitcoin for the rest of their lives. this is part of how the different layers of adoption globally takes root.

[Murat]

Venezuela is the country which is passing the worst momentum in its History, It's horrible to see when this type of Oil-based country is suffering a financial crisis and people are being deprived of their basic needs, So cryptocurrency could be a good way to make cover this situation, but I don't know how much it could be helpful for this purpose, We know their Government has tried to lunch to Peso based crypto for the foreign investment but it was in a vain, that project couldn't see the light of success, Basically they are in this position for the International embargo so they have to set again oil oriented cryptocurrency, I think that could be a good thing for them.

[ene1980]

I live in Venezuela and I can talk properly about what's going on in my country, more importantly, I belong to an organization that is putting the skin in the game trying to promote Bitcoin in my country.

Bitcoin is undoubtedly a method of payment that is becoming increasingly popular in Venezuela, all thanks to the legal framework that the government is trying to create, and you know what's best we don't give a damn.

Good to hear from a person who actually live in Venezuela, all the news i hear is from the media or some half ass hear say from those media and it is good to hear who is living and see your perspective of things who know much better than anyone in this forum, good to hear that you have a team who is promoting bitcoin to the general masses who are not aware of it and hopefully the government will create a legal framework and help the citizens recover from the situation you are going through.

Peace bud.

[South Park]

Currently, Venezuela is facing a terrible crisis and embargo from abroad.
The Venezuelan government has tried to launch the peso to stabilize its finances, attract foreign currencies and break the embargo, but this did not achieve the desired results. People tend to hoard foreign currencies and bitcoins, which are more stable than local currencies. Perhaps that is the reason for the high transaction.

In my opinion this shows at a small scale what it could happen at a larger scale when the fiat currency system fails, people are going to do everything that they can in order to protect themselves and if the currency created by the government becomes so useless like what it is happening in Venezuela then they are going to use everything that they have at hand to protect their wealth, that is why I think that if we get another crisis like the one we saw in 2008 the adoption of bitcoin will go through the roof.

[Arkann]

Currently, Venezuela is facing a terrible crisis and embargo from abroad.
The Venezuelan government has tried to launch the peso to stabilize its finances, attract foreign currencies and break the embargo, but this did not achieve the desired results. People tend to hoard foreign currencies and bitcoins, which are more stable than local currencies. Perhaps that is the reason for the high transaction.

In my opinion this shows at a small scale what it could happen at a larger scale when the fiat currency system fails, people are going to do everything that they can in order to protect themselves and if the currency created by the government becomes so useless like what it is happening in Venezuela then they are going to use everything that they have at hand to protect their wealth, that is why I think that if we get another crisis like the one we saw in 2008 the adoption of bitcoin will go through the roof.

The fact is that Venezuela has huge problems with other countries that support sanctions and therefore this country has a very poor economy and practically no value of the national currency.  I think that the situation can dramatically change if not only people accumulate cryptocurrency on their own, but the state apparatus must make a decision in support of Bitcoin and other higher-rated cryptocurrencies, and not launch its own national cryptocurrency, which cannot show good results  in the current situation in the country.  I believe that the use of cryptocurrency on a national scale will bring more benefits than the use of fiat currencies of hostile countries, such as the United States.

[South Park]

Currently, Venezuela is facing a terrible crisis and embargo from abroad.
The Venezuelan government has tried to launch the peso to stabilize its finances, attract foreign currencies and break the embargo, but this did not achieve the desired results. People tend to hoard foreign currencies and bitcoins, which are more stable than local currencies. Perhaps that is the reason for the high transaction.

In my opinion this shows at a small scale what it could happen at a larger scale when the fiat currency system fails, people are going to do everything that they can in order to protect themselves and if the currency created by the government becomes so useless like what it is happening in Venezuela then they are going to use everything that they have at hand to protect their wealth, that is why I think that if we get another crisis like the one we saw in 2008 the adoption of bitcoin will go through the roof.

The fact is that Venezuela has huge problems with other countries that support sanctions and therefore this country has a very poor economy and practically no value of the national currency.  I think that the situation can dramatically change if not only people accumulate cryptocurrency on their own, but the state apparatus must make a decision in support of Bitcoin and other higher-rated cryptocurrencies, and not launch its own national cryptocurrency, which cannot show good results  in the current situation in the country.  I believe that the use of cryptocurrency on a national scale will bring more benefits than the use of fiat currencies of hostile countries, such as the United States.

The economic sanctions that Venezuela is enduring are not really the reason this is happening to them, the economy of Venezuela was in a really bad shape already and the sanctions are just helping to show the weakness of their economy, but I think you are missing my point, when things get so bad people are not really going to look for the approval of the government for their actions, in fact cryptocurrencies could become illegal at that point but it will not matter because if people have to choose between obeying an unjust law and assuring that they will have money tomorrow to eat something then they will always choose the latter.

[stompix]

I think that the situation can dramatically change if not only people accumulate cryptocurrency on their own, but the state apparatus must make a decision in support of Bitcoin and other higher-rated cryptocurrencies, and not launch its own national cryptocurrency, which cannot show good results in the current situation in the country.

Oh yeah, we can all switch to bitcoin and a miracle will happen

Let me ask you something, how do you think that these will happen just because of the use of cryptocurrency:
- the government will suddenly have more money to spend
- food and basic necessity stuff will suddenly appear in shops
- hundred of thousands of jobs (and well paid one) will be created
- the whole infrastructure will be repaired (and I'm not talking only about roads here)

Even if you would concentrate only on the money...

Venezuela's GDP lost somewhere around 100 billion (that's yearly).
In 5 years that's 500 billion lost, or...value of all the bitcoins mined today if the price would be 25k$.

And don't forget, BTC has a long list of countries which it is supposed to save...