Venezuelan can now renew their Passport with Bitcoin as payment.

[buwaytress]

First, guy posts old news. Like, really old. Then people here mainly say wow what a good thing, when the most recent news actually says the payment's been disabled.

But here's what really happened: at some point govt adds Bitcoin as an option for payment. And then at some other more recent point, that option was disabled. Wasn't removed, just disabled.

Neither event was announced, so it's just like a news story that says: Profile lookup disabled on forum. Panic ensues.

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[adzino]

Something they should have done years ago. Based on their current situation, it is nothing surprising to see them move to crypto currency. Their whole fiat currency system started to mess up ever since they started printing bolivar fuerte. Replacing the currency to bolivar soberano did help much to be honest.
I guess this is one step closer by the Venezuelan government to adopt crypto currencies?

[boyptc]

If this is real news, it's actually good news.

Much better to accept bitcoin for this kind of renewal rather than them accepting tons of Venezuelan bolivar which will require every person to carry those cash.

It is definitely much better for a government in Venezuela to accept bitcoin instead of useless cash. Bitcoin is very liquid and value-preserving asset, it can be exchanged to bolivars any time without loses in purchasing power. From that point of view, I don't see any reason for common people in Venezuela to start paying for services using valuable assets like Bitcoin, because there is always a better option for them such as to spend bad money first. Many believe that Venezuelan government wants to adopt bitcoin, I think it is a wrong assumption. In my opinion, what they really want is to seize sound money, which is bitcoin, from the country's population while hiding behind the idea of ​​accepting cryptocurrencies.

The hyperinflation is actually causing them to get into a cashless society and as much as they want to preserve the value of bitcoin, they just can't if they don't have other resources to sustain their living.

The news sounds good if the government is going to pass it because I've heard in various interviews that there's mistreatment for people who own and earns through bitcoin when found out.

[Negotiation]

Bitcoin is a very good currency for investment In most countries of the world it is much easier to earn as much as the demand for Bitcoin If Venezuela accepts bitcoin their country will improve a lot with crypto. Everyone in their country will use bitcoin as cash and no one will be able to operate it illegally The government has taken the passport system that it has taken much better steps In this case hacking will be less and saving the value of the coin is much easier.

[Artemis3]

That's odd tough, because of this article:

https://fintechranking.com/2020/06/26/btc-payments-disabled-for-passports-in-venezuela/

Venezuela’s SAIME has recently halted accepting Bitcoins for passport applications. The officials have disabled methods without explanation and people were unable to find the relevant information on the official website.

The situation is very vague and so far there has not been any official announcement. Venezuelans living in the country can still pay for passport applications with the Blockchain-based Petro.

It should be pointed out that U.S. based cards such as Mastercard and Visa are unable to conduct business in the country. As there is a row between the United States and Venezuela the former put a lot of sanctions against Nicolas Maduro’s country, thus preventing famous companies like Visa to operate there.

So initially they have accepted BTC as payment method and then immediately stop it without giving the public an explanation? Maybe they are overwhelmed or something, so we will have to wait for some update from them.

This has all the signs of a fake news. As soon as this was reported, someone else tried and it was down. Was it really up in the first place?

Let me tell you something about Saime for non Venezuelans. The gov ordered them to set prices in Petro, and yes, they take the equivalent in Fiat or foreign currency. A passport is 200 USD in foreign soil, for example.

Here is the funny thing: You can't actually pay with Petros. Let alone bitcoin or any altcoin. This news apparently was only applicable abroad, not within the country. It kinda makes sense, as usually at a consulate or embassy you could always pay with the local currency of that country or $/€.

Despite all the cheers, so far, this is not true at all. Saime at this point in time is NOT accepting bitcoin. So stop congratulating my country's gov until they actually deliver. You CANNOT as of yet that we know, pay Saime with bitcoin. I wish i could, it would save me the stupid ritual of exchanging into fiat first, but no.

As far as i know, the only gov entity that actually takes bitcoin for anything, is the one where you can purchase Petros. Its pointless to buy Petros when you can't even pay the gov itself with it for a passport or anything else for that matter. I think the only real thing you can currently do with Petro is buy gasoline, it was scarce just a few weeks ago but Iran sent us a shipment despite US threats, and the gov set up a few special stations that can take foreign currency, and (in theory) Petros.

That said, it would be technically trivial for a consulate/embassy to set up a payment processor, remember they have always taken USD or EUR...

Side note: $200 is twice the usual cost for a passport that's only valid for 5 years, they cost the same in Venezuela, the country where the minimum monthly wage is officially 2 USD (400K VES/400K food tickets). Because "in socialism", only the rich exploiter is allowed travel (before the pandemic anyway).

PS: The current VES/BTC rate according to Localbitcoins, is about 19 VES per Satoshi. Yeah, our fiat is so worthless, you need 19 units of it to purchase a single Satoshi. And yes, we express prices just fine, to those deniers about the satoshi being an unfeasible unit.

[Bradoets]

I heard that this option is available to foreigners from outside the country and not to all citizens of Venezuela.
such decisions will affect the exchange rate, More people will sell Venezuelan pullovers and buy more dollars due to the collapse of the exchange rate?
small of Venezuelan know about bitcoin and those who know about it only know how bitcoin price can change and give them more money.
another day, another adoption

[verita1]

I am Venezuelan and this alternative payment to carry out passport services seems good to me. But I criticize the government for setting the exchange rate in Euro and not in US dollars. Bitcoin's price in euro is lower than in dollars.
Remesas Patria is a platform that Venezuelans can send remittances in Bitcoin and litecoin directly to their bank accounts.
Take a look to compare prices.

https://remesas.patria.org.ve/es/login

[verita1]

I just verified the bitcoin payment method was disabled without any explanation.
The government will not accept Bitcoin as a means of payment, it prefers to boost the Petro $ PTR. It would have to create demand and usability.

https://es.cointelegraph.com/news/btc-payments-reportedly-now-disabled-for-venezuelan-passport-purchases

Official statement that ratifies the payment methods for Venezuelan passport services. Banks (Banco de Venezuela, Banesco, BanFanb) and Petro. The price of a Petro set by the government is $ 58.80.

https://twitter.com/VenezuelaSaime/status/1275915489290657794

[Shasha80]

Very glad I heard this good news, because more and more are adopting bitcoin. To my knowledge venezuelan is indeed a country that is
open with bitcoin. This way bitcoin will be more useful and this is very good for the future of bitcoin. If more and more countries who adopt
bitcoin like venezuelan, I'm very sure the price of bitcoin will continue to rise.

[Cointikka]

Venezuelan economic condition is in a pretty bad state. Their own fiat currency does not have any value and that is why they are trying alternate options. I doubt they will be accepting Bitcoin when they are promoting their own cryptocurrency.

[htsy585]

Venezuelan citizens who are abroad can reportedly use Bitcoin to pay for passport services.

According to BTC transaction images posted on Twitter by Ronny Martinez, an engineer who hosts an academic YouTube channel, the Venezuelan government is allowing Bitcoin as a payment option for passport renewals and extensions via its online immigration platform SAIME (Administrative Service for Identification, Migration and Foreigners).

Source

This is really a good news for the entire crypto community. with each day passing, we see more and more of crypto adoptions and now it is onto another level as the government of Venezuela just adopt the use of bitcoin for the renewal of Venezuela password. I'm sure it won't take much time before other governments across the globe follow suite with the adoption of bitcoin for payment of transactions

[Slow death]

I am asking myself the following:

If a person in venezuela has bitcoin, that person will think about doing Hold to get more profit because with crisis that exists in venezuela the best thing that people should do is some business that makes them profit and if bitcoin can give them profit with trade and hodl why would they stop making hodl to pay for a passport that they can pay with their country's Fiat?

I really think it's a good initiative from the Venezuelan government, but I would like to see statistics on how many people from Venezuela are going to pay their passports with bitcoin

[Oceat]

First, guy posts old news. Like, really old. Then people here mainly say wow what a good thing, when the most recent news actually says the payment's been disabled.

But here's what really happened: at some point govt adds Bitcoin as an option for payment. And then at some other more recent point, that option was disabled. Wasn't removed, just disabled.

Neither event was announced, so it's just like a news story that says: Profile lookup disabled on forum. Panic ensues.

I wonder why they stopped though? It seems to me that they either struggle to process the payment due to the high volatility of prices or they can't handle the miners fee alone when Bitcoin price is growing. I think they are working something to get it back as soon as possible so that the people who uses Bitcoin can enjoy the privilege of transaction straight from their wallet address.

I remember Valve stopped accepting Bitcoin on Steam back then when they can't handle the miners fee that keeps on growing each day since Bitcoin that time was too bullish and it's high fluctuation rate. This may be the reason too that's why Venezuelan stop accepting Bitcoin to renew some passport.

[Harlot]

Why are most of the post out here assuming that the government of Venezuela accepts Bitcoin because it is related to crypto adoption? Remember that Venezuela has a issue about hyperinflation and ever since then they have started accepting other fiat currencies in their country as a legal tender like the US and also Euro so there is no surprise that they will be also accepting Bitcoin as a payment because literally you need to bring stacks of Bolivar just for you to buy grocery so this really isn't ideal for them, they either use debit cards or other currencies as means of payment. The bottomline is this isn't about adoption but their alternative solution as a payment due to hyperinflation.

[stompix]

Despite all the cheers, so far, this is not true at all. Saime at this point in time is NOT accepting bitcoin. So stop congratulating my country's gov until they actually deliver. You CANNOT as of yet that we know, pay Saime with bitcoin. I wish i could, it would save me the stupid ritual of exchanging into fiat first, but no.

So the miracle lasted a few hours

I was a bit suspicious since SAIME posted this on their Instagram account just a few days ago
https://www.instagram.com/p/CB1ZIMcH635/

I saw petro, probably some banking apps but no BTC


Maybe they were testing how crypto payments would work and since they don't have a payment gateway for petro they tried to see how it works with bitcoin?
A bit far-fetched but this is the only scenario I consider remotely possible.

but I would like to see statistics on how many people from Venezuela are going to pay their passports with bitcoin

Well, according to what artemis3 says, and he is from Venezuela, I can make a pretty good guess..0!

[abhiseshakana]

Why are most of the post out here assuming that the government of Venezuela accepts Bitcoin because it is related to crypto adoption? Remember that Venezuela has a issue about hyperinflation and ever since then they have started accepting other fiat currencies in their country as a legal tender like the US and also Euro so there is no surprise that they will be also accepting Bitcoin as a payment because literally you need to bring stacks of Bolivar just for you to buy grocery so this really isn't ideal for them, they either use debit cards or other currencies as means of payment. The bottomline is this isn't about adoption but their alternative solution as a payment due to hyperinflation.

I think the adoption of bitcoin in Venezuela is due to TINA (there is no alternative). As a result of a total economic embargo from the US to Venezuela. Become a solution because of the lack of alternative cross-border payments except using the swift system. Maduro also admitted that Venezuela needed dollars to maintain economic stability.

[Kakmakr]

I think the Venezuelan government is just too happy to accept any alternative currency that can hold it's value. The local currency are even more volatile than Bitcoin and if you do this through payment processors, then the volatility will not be an issue.

This article --> https://fintechranking.com/2020/06/26/btc-payments-disabled-for-passports-in-venezuela/ says to me that they reconsidered their acceptance or it ran into trouble. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous, so Passport fraud will be much easier if you pay with Bitcoin and if you not doing this through a payment processor.  

I think they did not consider the volatility and the conversion took too long to convert it back to Fiat, so they lost income. (Lots of new merchants made this same mistake)  

[Vatimins]

     Ahh.. it's always so refreshing hearing news like this one despite all the bad things happening both in the real world and in this industry. I just wish though that this is truly a lasting and ascending step for this industry and not just something temporary because I have seen good news such as this that either turns out to be fake or doesn't improve or gets terminated in a way. It's just sad. But still though, progress is progress. Wish these kind of news also gets to happen here in my country.

[AakZaki]

~snip~ so Passport fraud will be much easier if you pay with Bitcoin and if you not doing this through a payment processor.  
~snip~

The positive and negative impacts of adopting bitcoin for payment of passport and other renewals will remain. Like the negative impact you mentioned about passport fraud which will be much easier if payment uses Bitcoin. Just like money laundering. Adoption is carried out indeed needs to be analyzed again and in the proper regulation so that it does not have negative adverse effects.

[Harlot]

Why are most of the post out here assuming that the government of Venezuela accepts Bitcoin because it is related to crypto adoption? Remember that Venezuela has a issue about hyperinflation and ever since then they have started accepting other fiat currencies in their country as a legal tender like the US and also Euro so there is no surprise that they will be also accepting Bitcoin as a payment because literally you need to bring stacks of Bolivar just for you to buy grocery so this really isn't ideal for them, they either use debit cards or other currencies as means of payment. The bottomline is this isn't about adoption but their alternative solution as a payment due to hyperinflation.

I think the adoption of bitcoin in Venezuela is due to TINA (there is no alternative). As a result of a total economic embargo from the US to Venezuela. Become a solution because of the lack of alternative cross-border payments except using the swift system. Maduro also admitted that Venezuela needed dollars to maintain economic stability.

Whatever exact reason it is it is not about what others have previously said about the Venezuelan government trying to adopt cryptocurrency but it is more about them having a solution for their economical crisis. A lot of members failed to see what the current situation of Venezuela is that the value of their own fiat currency is so low that they can't even carry it anymore to buy grocery from that's why digital payments like Bitcoin has been made possible because of it.