Explain WHY bitcoin would be good for a third world country.

[Sakarias-Corporation]

okey, yes yes, i do understand completely now how this would help. thanks for the video it really helped! i guess now all we need to do is ti get it more used and inform people of the benefits and freedom

[ChuckBuck]

a lot of immature answers here i see. even from Legendary i only asked why it would be good for them. but yet some very good answers.
but how would a country like Democratic Republic of the Congo even start using btc?

If you read the above posts you'd see the example of M-Pesa being used right now.

If you can get these same users in Africa that use these mobile networks to exchange in Bitcoin, it could be transformative.

They'd have "banking" right on their mobile phone.  They can remit, transmit, and transfer at text message speed.

No worries about minimum balances, providing encumbering paperwork, providing endless paper trails....all they'd need is a BTC Address.

If that's not good for a third world country, I don't know what is...

[Elwar]

a lot of immature answers here i see. even from Legendary i only asked why it would be good for them. but yet some very good answers.
but how would a country like Democratic Republic of the Congo even start using btc?

Cell phones, QR codes...people who used to have no access to banks now have access to a world currency not manipulated by dictators?

[Guido]

It isn't a good idea because of the ridiculous transaction fees on small amounts that a 3rd world would deal with more of.
Their balance would be whittled away by .0001 fees all day.
With less and less pools it can get to a point an operator won't accept transactions under a certain fee.
And they could get away with it because they have the hashing power to solve blocks and make money.
Not many pools worth joining as is today because of the hashing power being consolidated.
Not even worth the time to try and get a new pool going unless you can bring 10-20 terrahashes to start with.
It's hard now and you need to be a command line warrior to send a small donation or whatever to someone and not pay the fee.

Ok so why not use Litecoin there? The fee's are a lot smaller and it's still quick, secure and easy to convert to bitcoin for long term storage of wealth.

agree with litecoin, plus some other good alts like megacoin or peercoin, that are quick with strong networks

be really nice for third world people to be really early adopters of these currencies too and reap the benefits, bit later to game for bitcoin

[jbreher]

"Push to make Haiti an e-cash economy fell far short"

Are you deriding over a half-percent market penetration? If only Bitcoin had that problem.

[mlferro]

Bitcoin is good for third world countries because it makes it easy for them to send and receive money, manage their finances. Bitcoin is not the only solution or implementation. Any cheap online payment system will benefit them.

You're right.
but politicians in Third World countries, can bet are mostly corrúpitos, and they will surely against these ideas. Because for them, is better, the country  be poor, as this makes it easier to manipulate people because of all the suffering they pass

[windpath]

...
 Bitcoins require Internet and computers to work. a Third world home will probably not have neither of those requirements.
...

They don't. You simply need a way to access the network.

M-Pesa is a sms text message based money service operating in Kenya, Tanzania, Afghanistan, South Africa, India and in Eastern Europe.

Today 31% of Kenya's GDP is spent through mobile phones.

With an inexpensive Nokia feature phone anyone with a mobile phone and service can use bitcoin over text messaging.

Just serendipitous timing

And in today's news...

Exchange Provides Nigerians Bitcoin Access

[fonenumba]

It isn't a good idea because of the ridiculous transaction fees on small amounts that a 3rd world would deal with more of.
Their balance would be whittled away by .0001 fees all day.
With less and less pools it can get to a point an operator won't accept transactions under a certain fee.
And they could get away with it because they have the hashing power to solve blocks and make money.
Not many pools worth joining as is today because of the hashing power being consolidated.
Not even worth the time to try and get a new pool going unless you can bring 10-20 terrahashes to start with.
It's hard now and you need to be a command line warrior to send a small donation or whatever to someone and not pay the fee.

Ok so why not use Litecoin there? The fee's are a lot smaller and it's still quick, secure and easy to convert to bitcoin for long term storage of wealth.

agree with litecoin, plus some other good alts like megacoin or peercoin, that are quick with strong networks

be really nice for third world people to be really early adopters of these currencies too and reap the benefits, bit later to game for bitcoin

I am pretty sure that altcoins are not going to be able to do anything that bitcoin cannot do in terms of helping third world countries with their money supply. If anything alts are going to make countries worse off vs bitcoin because their networks are much less secure and as a rule their value declines over time verses bitcoin

[Muuurrrrica!]

the truth is: it wouldn't with this inflation and volatility. It's just a marketing-pitch for you to get all warm and running over it.
You really want to rob the poorest of the poor off their money and transfer their last bit of what they have to the miners and traders? Can't be serious.

[caribbeanbitcoiner]

the truth is: it wouldn't with this inflation and volatility. It's just a marketing-pitch for you to get all warm and running over it.
You really want to rob the poorest of the poor off their money and transfer their last bit of what they have to the miners and traders? Can't be serious.

[botany]

Third world countries usually do not have fiscally responsible governments.
High inflation and erosion of purchasing power are the norm.
Enter Bitcoin. 

[gjgjg]

to some countries currencies, btc could also offer more value stability believe it or not...

zimbabwae would be an interesting place for btc to take hold, if it could. they dont have their own currency right now due to the total collapse in value of the Z$ couple of years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe
unfortunately mugabe is still there so not sure if it would be possible... but never know. at least currency wise, if the people could have moved to btc while their currency fell appart it would have been good for that 3rd world example.

[Kprawn]

Well they can protect the value of their money, if they store it in BTC and not in the Zim Dollar.

Things in Zimbabwe is getting so bad, they are giving people sweets for change, and not fiat coins. {It is too expensive to import coins from other countries... it is costing them more to mint coins, than the value of the coins}

BTC will most definitely benefit them...

[Q7]

Because if you have a fiat that get printed indiscriminately that amounts to trillions per piece of paper, you might want to consider using bitcoin as a stable payment currency. Also bitcoin would become useful as payment currency moving across regions. Anyway your definition of third world countries lacking in internet infrastructures is not accurate.

[Lethn]

okey, yes yes, i do understand completely now how this would help. thanks for the video it really helped! i guess now all we need to do is ti get it more used and inform people of the benefits and freedom

Why is it that people like you take such genuine pride in being stupid and ignorant?

[muhrohmat]

well dispise the governements be albe to tax porprietly and thas a thing stats and govs dont like to lose with decentralization of power it means like a person would have wire trasfer money from btc wallets in like 40 mins just or even less and the personal power implied by any one in the correct amount of this btcs like small are good for investments in even any contry its just like third countries need a coin too

[Sakarias-Corporation]

okey, yes yes, i do understand completely now how this would help. thanks for the video it really helped! i guess now all we need to do is ti get it more used and inform people of the benefits and freedom

Why is it that people like you take such genuine pride in being stupid and ignorant?

I asked a question which I didn't understand but all I got was shit thrown at me.


I do understand now why BTC would benefit a third world country.

[FandangledGizmo]

The countries cited as most likely to adopt Bitcoin are Venezuala and Argentina.

The reason why Bitcoin would be good there  is that even a volatile crypto-currency is superior to a rapidly depreciating one.

People also gain greater independence from the over-reach of governments and corruption as well as the centralized risk posed by many of the banks in those countries too.

[fonenumba]

The countries cited as most likely to adopt Bitcoin are Venezuala and Argentina.

The reason why Bitcoin would be good there  is that even a volatile crypto-currency is superior to a rapidly depreciating one.

People also gain greater independence from the over-reach of governments and corruption as well as the centralized risk posed by many of the banks in those countries too.

Bitcoin can help fight corruption, but only to a point. I would say that if bitcoin were to go more mainstream that there would be several semi-centralized services that hold bitcoin on behalf of it's customers. This would allow governments to be able to seize bitcoin by compelling the companies to hand over the bitcoin.

Argentina and Venezuela are cited as third world countries that could benefit from high bitcoin adoption because they are often in the news about unstable government finances and unstable local currency 

[panju1]

The countries cited as most likely to adopt Bitcoin are Venezuala and Argentina.

The reason why Bitcoin would be good there  is that even a volatile crypto-currency is superior to a rapidly depreciating one.

People also gain greater independence from the over-reach of governments and corruption as well as the centralized risk posed by many of the banks in those countries too.

The governments there are so discredited, people will gladly back bitcoin.