Greece could become crypto-land with a crowdsourced bailout.

[CtrlAltBernanke420]

Crowdsource steps up and offers to create a fund to stabilize their banks. Make Greece a hot bed for tech-start ups. It could happen.

[Cryptology]

They could also issue their own national e-currency while keeping the euro. Something similar to Ecuador maybe.

[OROBTC]

...

Crowdsourced funding would have to be in very large amounts to do anything to help the macro-situation there in Greece, if by "crowdsourcing" one means "donations".  Even though Greece's economy is small by European standards, it will take billions of euros/US$ to stabilize the country.  Generous donations on that scale are not going to happen.

Smaller-scale crowdsourcing could aid families, "sister cities" and the like I suppose.  And that would be doing good for some small number of people with financial problems there.

*   *   *

I do not know Greece well enough to assess the probabilities that they might seriously use crypto-currency.  My GUESS would be no, their .gov has traditionally been very interventionist and corrupt, that is a major reason why Syriza just won.  Same guess re Greece changing its economy over to some high-tech friendly environment.  WHO would believe the promises of a Greek government not to interfere nor heavily tax any such business?

Even were they to take up their own crypto (or even Bitcoin itself), for Greece to receive such funds from outside, they would have to, in essence, export something of value (or sell Aegean islands to Germans and/or Russians)...  One of Greece's big problems now is that they do not produce much that the rest of the world would want to pay for.

Russia or China might pay for military basing rights...

[CtrlAltBernanke420]

...

Crowdsourced funding would have to be in very large amounts to do anything to help the macro-situation there in Greece, if by "crowdsourcing" one means "donations".  Even though Greece's economy is small by European standards, it will take billions of euros/US$ to stabilize the country.  Generous donations on that scale are not going to happen.

Smaller-scale crowdsourcing could aid families, "sister cities" and the like I suppose.  And that would be doing good for some small number of people with financial problems there.

*   *   *

I do not know Greece well enough to assess the probabilities that they might seriously use crypto-currency.  My GUESS would be no, their .gov has traditionally been very interventionist and corrupt, that is a major reason why Syriza just won.  Same guess re Greece changing its economy over to some high-tech friendly environment.  WHO would believe the promises of a Greek government not to interfere nor heavily tax any such business?

Even were they to take up their own crypto (or even Bitcoin itself), for Greece to receive such funds from outside, they would have to, in essence, export something of value (or sell Aegean islands to Germans and/or Russians)...  One of Greece's big problems now is that they do not produce much that the rest of the world would want to pay for.

Russia or China might pay for military basing rights...

The only reason I think something of that scale could work is because should the euro bail on them, they don't have ANYTHING for decades basically.. Natural market forces will fix greece and bitcoin is the single free market left, one of they keys to greece is to default on 50-80% of their debt and cut the EU as a source of financing. and with a slight chance we live in new and strange times if the people came to help the people there is glimmer of hope for greece, but it is going to come from the people helping the people, not the banking system.

This who greece insolvency has the real ability to destroy the banking system at most, and at the least turn the entire banking system into a giant Citibank(basically a zombie bank rendering its powers basically useless in the monstrosities that the markets are.

[CtrlAltBernanke420]

These are the types of ideas that scare the crap out of financial elites. Because it might simply work and by-pass them taking all there BS making it irrelevant over the course of just a few years.

[gjgjg]

I heard the new finance minister used to work for valve, steam don't accept btc yet but they do run other digi 'currencies' of sorts so would not be an enormous leap for them to consider something unconventional!

[LiteCoinGuy]

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113380/greeces-new-finance-minister-bitcoin-highly-problematic-currency

[ALXBOB]

It would be very nice greece cryptocurrency adoptation on the other hand everybody trying to get advantage of the situation here.

p.s https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=516955.1780 greececoin

[leopard2]

Greece = Cyprus 2.0

And because BTC does not make bank holidays or fund freezing possible, they don't like it

Wait until capital controls/Grexit/bank account controls are being put in place, then the bulls will have their run. 

[Maegfaer]

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113380/greeces-new-finance-minister-bitcoin-highly-problematic-currency

This is not surprising, considering Syriza is a socialist/communist party, i.e. collectivist. The printing press of a central bank is their best friend. He has a point about Bitcoin's whales, but that is a problem specific to Bitcoin, not a problem with crypto-currencies in general. As for the dreaded deflationary spiral, that is a Keynesian view, not a fact, and there are already topics on this forum that make strong cases against it's validity.* In addition, it's possible to make an inflationary crypto-currency, even a democratic one where people vote on inflation rates. So again, a problem specific to Bitcoin.

I was excited to see Syriza win, but mostly because Greece stirring the status quo has the most chance of initiating the end of the Euro, whether it is because of a Grexit or the EU caving in to the demands of Greece, which would be followed by similar demands from countries like Spain, Italy and Portugal. Even if the Northern EU countries would accept those demands, which would essentially amount to a transfer-Union, a lot more QE would be needed. The EMU would become a free-money zone. Since the Euro is not the world's reserve currency, it'll suffer more devaluation than the USD did so far with it's major QE programs.

Crypto-currencies won't see sudden mass adoption until the hyperinflation of the major fiat currencies starts. It won't be long now until the central bank's lose all their credibility, and the deflation will switch to (hyper)inflation.


* This is probably one of the best scientific papers debunking the myths of deflation: http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2008/11/cj28n3-1.pdf

[oblivi]

They could also issue their own national e-currency while keeping the euro. Something similar to Ecuador maybe.

Wasnt ecuador thing proven to be a fail?
e-currencies are a dumb thing, might as well use Bitcoin.

[EcuaMobi]

They could also issue their own national e-currency while keeping the euro. Something similar to Ecuador maybe.

Wasnt ecuador thing proven to be a fail?
e-currencies are a dumb thing, might as well use Bitcoin.

Ecuador isn't creating its own crypto-currency:

https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=933987

[zimmah]

Crowdsource steps up and offers to create a fund to stabilize their banks. Make Greece a hot bed for tech-start ups. It could happen.

Except Greek government is corrupt as hell and they'll jyst run with the money like they always do.

You'd need to overthrow their government and install one you could trust not to run with the money. Good luck with that.

You'd be better of crowd funding to buy a large piece of land or an island, declare it a sovereign state, and make it Bitcoin country.

[grendel25]

I'd like to see this.   I'd pitch in a few satoshi for sure.  C'mon, let's do this people!

[neurotypical]

I think you guys are delusional if you think a country will ever adopt an e-currency as the official one. I think bitcoin will always be the alternative to fiat currencies.

[zimmah]

I think you guys are delusional if you think a country will ever adopt an e-currency as the official one. I think bitcoin will always be the alternative to fiat currencies.

fiat currency should have never happened in the first place.

All currency since the nixon scandal are a scam and a disaster for humanity.

[Lethn]

Good luck finding someone trustworthy to 'hold' all that money for you while they get things sorted politically, you'd have better luck funding the Kurdistan government..... Hmmm...

[countryfree]

Crowdsourcing for Greece?

I'd rather grab a lighter and burn my cash than give it to that corrupt, dirty and inefficient country. The Greeks fully deserve the mess they're in. Lending them money is like throwing it through the window.

[zezt]

If Greece really wanted to make some money, they could turn their country into an off-shore banking zone.
They would make Billions! If Europe doesn't like, the Russian can tell Europe to go piss up a rope!

[OROBTC]

...

@ zezt

Yes, there would be tremendous riches for any small country to become a free-zone for money, cryptocurrency, secret banking, secure & private data storage, etc.  A nice read is a novel by Neal Stephenson called Cryptonomicon, about a small island trying to become the world's secure (and offering secrecy) data haven. 

But, I can think of at least two problems with such a free-zone being Greece:

1)  As pointed out by others above, Greek governments are extremely meddlesome and corrupt.  At this point, who would ever trust Greece to competently, honestly and secretly to look after YOUR funds?  Ahh, not me!

2)  Such a free-zone would encounter MASSIVE resistance from other countries.  Most of the EU was mad at Ireland some years ago for having a low corporate income tax rate.  RUSSIA would not likely be good partner for Greece in this, the Russians have lately cracked-down on some BTC websites there.  Were Greece to try something like this, the EU and the USA would almost surely retaliate, and put the squeeze on them just as both the EU and USA did to the various "tax havens" now almost completely dead.