Ok So I Just Sent £1000 of BTC to a Friend in Northern Namibia.. Now What?

[nextgencoin]

No one has asked what he wants/needs the BTC for?


I'm sure postage to many parts of Africa is pretty poor but not impossible. They can buy anything anyone in a developed country can buy and get it posted.


Also of course https://localbitcoins.com/country/NA

[Fiiasco]

As some of you guessed I didn't really send £1000 worth of bitcoin to Namibia but what I wanted to do was discuss and highlight the difficulties of using the currency in places where it would be most beneficial.
I am married into a Namibian family. My wife likes to send funds to her parents in Namibia every couple of months. She has been doing this for the last 9 years.

Currently they use one of her bankcards and she has given them her PIN. She uses a UK bank account specifically for the purpose.
So, when she decides she wants to send money she transfers money from regular account to the account her parents have a card for and just does a regular bank transfer. This works fine however she probably shouldn't have given her card and PIN to someone else.

Most people are not in a position to do this.

Prior to doing it this way or if their are some issues with the account she would use Western Union.

I showed her how simple is is to send btc if you have Mycelium installed on your phone. But we were discussing what you would do with it.

At this point LocalBitcoins is proberbly out of the question, The nearest big town is a two hour drive away. Travel to Cape Town involves a flight.
PayPal.. I don't know. I had a bad experience with it related to bitcoin previously.

I guess bitcoin just isn't ready for these communities yet.

I think you should have just said that it's a hypothetical question. People might accuse you of lying lol.

Did you try searching this up on google(You should provide more info as redsn0w said, about your needs and the bitcoins in Namibia):
https://www.google.com.au/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=send+money+to+Namibia&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=active&gfe_rd=cr&ei=NMkPVc2CLbPu8wf5_oHwBQ#safe=active&rls=en&q=send+money+to+Namibia

[Wendigo]

Maybe he could use gyft to buy gift cards and use them to get the stuff he wants ordering through his phone but it depends on which shops will ship to his PO box.

[Lethn]

Instead of complaining about how nobody uses it you could find somebody who's willing to experiment with it and sell it to them, but as you said, that's not possible because you just made the story up, in that situation what you would do is find several people to sell the coins to and sell the £1000 worth of it in chunks.

Of course, this means that you actually have to take some initiative, I would have turned it into a small event and help explain what Bitcoin is to people, that's how you get them interested and spread it's use.

I keep coming back to this video whenever somebody complains about the use of Bitcoin, a family in your situation went and did it rather than saying nobody knows about it and giving up - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrRXP1tp6Kw

[Fiiasco]

Maybe he could use gyft to buy gift cards and use them to get the stuff he wants ordering through his phone but it depends on which shops will ship to his PO box.

He said he was trying to figure out a way to send money to his wife's parents in Namibia, did you even read the previous posts?

[Lethn]

Maybe he could use gyft to buy gift cards and use them to get the stuff he wants ordering through his phone but it depends on which shops will ship to his PO box.

He said he was trying to figure out a way to send money to his wife's parents in Namibia, did you even read the previous posts?

lol it's getting ridiculous now how people don't actually read anything properly anymore, we should call these fuckers out I think because often they end up completely derailing the thread.

[Wendigo]

Maybe he could use gyft to buy gift cards and use them to get the stuff he wants ordering through his phone but it depends on which shops will ship to his PO box.

He said he was trying to figure out a way to send money to his wife's parents in Namibia, did you even read the previous posts?

OK, So I just sent £1000 of Bitcoin to a friend who is in Northern Namibia (just above South Africa).

He received the funds via an app on his phone - Mycelium..

The problem is we have no idea what to do now. Ideally he needs to transfer the btc to his local currency (NAD) or spend the bitcoin locally but noone there accepts bitcoin. How can we convert this money to something he can actually spend?

Thanks in advance.

No I read this first. I think you should visit some anger management classes to calm yourself as fast as possible.

[Fiiasco]

Maybe he could use gyft to buy gift cards and use them to get the stuff he wants ordering through his phone but it depends on which shops will ship to his PO box.

He said he was trying to figure out a way to send money to his wife's parents in Namibia, did you even read the previous posts?

lol it's getting ridiculous now how people don't actually read anything properly anymore, we should call these fuckers out I think because often they end up completely derailing the thread.

Yeah.

Maybe he could use gyft to buy gift cards and use them to get the stuff he wants ordering through his phone but it depends on which shops will ship to his PO box.

He said he was trying to figure out a way to send money to his wife's parents in Namibia, did you even read the previous posts?

OK, So I just sent £1000 of Bitcoin to a friend who is in Northern Namibia (just above South Africa).

He received the funds via an app on his phone - Mycelium..

The problem is we have no idea what to do now. Ideally he needs to transfer the btc to his local currency (NAD) or spend the bitcoin locally but noone there accepts bitcoin. How can we convert this money to something he can actually spend?

Thanks in advance.

No I read this first. I think you should visit some anger management classes to calm yourself as fast as possible.

Lol. Did you read the posts after that?

[Lethn]

It's hardly anything unreasonable, getting angry? No it's just fucking irritating seeing people glance at the title or one post instead of looking at the whole conversation and then making up what the person has actually written throughout the whole thing and then picking a fight entirely based on that and making themselves look stupid.

[redsn0w]

It's hardly anything unreasonable, getting angry? No it's just fucking irritating seeing people glance at the title or one post instead of looking at the whole conversation and then making up what the person has actually written throughout the whole thing and then picking a fight entirely based on that and making themselves look stupid.

If you think someone has made an insubstantial post, report it with the 'report to moderator' button.

On topic :

As some of you guessed I didn't really send £1000 worth of bitcoin to Namibia but what I wanted to do was discuss and highlight the difficulties of using the currency in places where it would be most beneficial.
I am married into a Namibian family. My wife likes to send funds to her parents in Namibia every couple of months. She has been doing this for the last 9 years.

Currently they use one of her bankcards and she has given them her PIN. She uses a UK bank account specifically for the purpose.
So, when she decides she wants to send money she transfers money from regular account to the account her parents have a card for and just does a regular bank transfer. This works fine however she probably shouldn't have given her card and PIN to someone else.

Most people are not in a position to do this.

Prior to doing it this way or if their are some issues with the account she would use Western Union.

I showed her how simple is is to send btc if you have Mycelium installed on your phone. But we were discussing what you would do with it.

At this point LocalBitcoins is proberbly out of the question, The nearest big town is a two hour drive away. Travel to Cape Town involves a flight.
PayPal.. I don't know. I had a bad experience with it related to bitcoin previously.

I guess bitcoin just isn't ready for these communities yet.

Can you explain better what is happened with paypal? A chargeback or they have blocked your paypal account? There is other new possibilities, like abra (but it is not open to all the world and it is 'needed' a bank account). The best option I can give you is to try search buyers on localbitcoins.

[Hazir]

When I saw title of this topic I was like. Wow, another topic how bitcoin is great and how can you send money across the world with no problems now.
But after reading every post here I am now little sad. People here are just  too optimistic over bitcoin in my opinion. Bitcoin is not good choice when you have no electronic infrastructure to back it up - then bitcoin is borderline useless. To sum this story up: You can't do anything with just smartphone with shitton of bitcoin on it. No when there isn't any bitcoin service :/ Sad really.

[Fiiasco]

When I saw title of this topic I was like. Wow, another topic how bitcoin is great and how can you send money across the world with no problems now.
But after reading every post here I am now little sad. People here are just  too optimistic over bitcoin in my opinion. Bitcoin is not good choice when you have no electronic infrastructure to back it up - then bitcoin is borderline useless. To sum this story up: You can't do anything with just smartphone with shitton of bitcoin on it. No when there isn't any bitcoin service :/ Sad really.

I agree. Especially when merchants are accepting bitcoins as payment, but sooner or later they're going to exchange it back to USD, GBP or whatever fiat currency they're using.

It would be good if they can just keep that amount of BTC(As they do in banks, depositing fiat), or buy more goods with that BTC, instead of having to exchange it back to fiat everytime.

[criptix]

As some of you guessed I didn't really send £1000 worth of bitcoin to Namibia but what I wanted to do was discuss and highlight the difficulties of using the currency in places where it would be most beneficial.
I am married into a Namibian family. My wife likes to send funds to her parents in Namibia every couple of months. She has been doing this for the last 9 years.

Currently they use one of her bankcards and she has given them her PIN. She uses a UK bank account specifically for the purpose.
So, when she decides she wants to send money she transfers money from regular account to the account her parents have a card for and just does a regular bank transfer. This works fine however she probably shouldn't have given her card and PIN to someone else.

Most people are not in a position to do this.

Prior to doing it this way or if their are some issues with the account she would use Western Union.

I showed her how simple is is to send btc if you have Mycelium installed on your phone. But we were discussing what you would do with it.

At this point LocalBitcoins is proberbly out of the question, The nearest big town is a two hour drive away. Travel to Cape Town involves a flight.
PayPal.. I don't know. I had a bad experience with it related to bitcoin previously.

I guess bitcoin just isn't ready for these communities yet.

OK, So I just sent £1000 of Bitcoin to a friend who is in Northern Namibia (just above South Africa).

He received the funds via an app on his phone - Mycelium..

The problem is we have no idea what to do now. Ideally he needs to transfer the btc to his local currency (NAD) or spend the bitcoin locally but noone there accepts bitcoin. How can we convert this money to something he can actually spend?

Thanks in advance.

 

My hope for humanity is dying little by little everyday...

what you can do is getting a credit card that you can load with btc or sell btc online/offline for fiat in SA

And he will be able to get one of these credit cards will he.
He doesn't have a proper address,  just a Po box.
Also, he doesn't, Have a Pc, just a phone so can't scan documents unless he goes to an Internet Cafe.
I doubt he even has a passport.

Just for the theory.
Yes your imaginery friend could get himself one with just a photo or soon/already anon prepaid cc's - no id check - that he can load with btc or you could do it and send him.
not a great danger of theft too because you can send a fresh card and load after he received it.
Imho way safer then what your wife is doing right now.

[Kprawn]

Most countries around you with less infrastructure are gearing towards BTC. {BitX operates from within Botswana}

Kenya has also started to invest in BTC enabled ATM's {Albeit their first one} So they should not have to travel to Cape Town to get their money.

The BitX account just have to be linked to your local bank account and then you exchange it for fiat and have it deposited in to your local bank account.

It's not that difficult at all... 

[countryfree]

As some of you guessed I didn't really send £1000 worth of bitcoin to Namibia but what I wanted to do was discuss and highlight the difficulties of using the currency in places where it would be most beneficial.
I am married into a Namibian family. My wife likes to send funds to her parents in Namibia every couple of months. She has been doing this for the last 9 years.

Currently they use one of her bankcards and she has given them her PIN. She uses a UK bank account specifically for the purpose.
So, when she decides she wants to send money she transfers money from regular account to the account her parents have a card for and just does a regular bank transfer. This works fine however she probably shouldn't have given her card and PIN to someone else.

Most people are not in a position to do this.

I guess bitcoin just isn't ready for these communities yet.

I was thinking about a scam, as I was doubting there's a phone network in Northern Namibia. This is no London! And driving to SA isn't an option, African roads mean the journey would take 3 days. So there's an opportunity. It's probably very small because of Northern Namibia being so remote, but Africa badly needs BTC-to-cash shops. In America, there used to be many small shops offering people without a bank account to cash their checks, the same thing needs to be done in every large city in Africa.

Otherwise, the credit card solution is a good one, but I understand it can only be done within a family.

[Q7]

As some of you guessed I didn't really send £1000 worth of bitcoin to Namibia but what I wanted to do was discuss and highlight the difficulties of using the currency in places where it would be most beneficial.
I am married into a Namibian family. My wife likes to send funds to her parents in Namibia every couple of months. She has been doing this for the last 9 years.

Currently they use one of her bankcards and she has given them her PIN. She uses a UK bank account specifically for the purpose.
So, when she decides she wants to send money she transfers money from regular account to the account her parents have a card for and just does a regular bank transfer. This works fine however she probably shouldn't have given her card and PIN to someone else.

Most people are not in a position to do this.

Prior to doing it this way or if their are some issues with the account she would use Western Union.

I showed her how simple is is to send btc if you have Mycelium installed on your phone. But we were discussing what you would do with it.

At this point LocalBitcoins is proberbly out of the question, The nearest big town is a two hour drive away. Travel to Cape Town involves a flight.
PayPal.. I don't know. I had a bad experience with it related to bitcoin previously.

I guess bitcoin just isn't ready for these communities yet.

Hmm...to think of it if you can find some buyers in ebay or local marketplace who would accept your btc in exchange for goods then ship it to Namibia, perhaps that is worth considering. I mean come on, there is bound to be something that you will find it useful and which you can easily get buyers for it. I know it sounds awful having to receive the items and then finding buyers who would buy those stuff and then only you get back your local currency but any way is better than nothing. Unless you can find someone in your country willing to pay you in your local currency in exchange for btc

[CrackedLogic]

By reading the few posts before me, I would say that bitcoin is for primarily to be used within developing or developed countries. In under developed countries, the poverty would not allow people to use bitcoin as they would not have the correct resources to access and use bitcoin to it's full potential.
In an under developed country the people that would be able to use bitcoin may not have a good enough technical knowledge for in order to understand what they're doing. They may just treat their wallets as another piece of software on a machine, which could always be recovered by downloading again if something has to happen.
Obviously you can do that,but what happens when they haven't backed up?
This goes for the same with the financial aspects as since it's so easy to use bitcoin on illegal activities.

[funkenstein]

OK, So I just sent £1000 of Bitcoin to a friend who is in Northern Namibia (just above South Africa).

He received the funds via an app on his phone - Mycelium..

The problem is we have no idea what to do now. Ideally he needs to transfer the btc to his local currency (NAD) or spend the bitcoin locally but noone there accepts bitcoin. How can we convert this money to something he can actually spend?

Thanks in advance.

It might help if you asked yourself what you are doing and why.  Why does your friend need exchange commodities?  Food?  Rent?  Real estate?  To pay his/her employees?  Who does he need to procure whatever it is from?  Apparently he wanted the coins so you sent them to him.  What's the problem?   How could we possibly help you with the information you have given us?   

[NeuroticFish]

I find this as a very interesting experiment.

I think that a service / directory with all possible ways to buy, sell and spend bitcoin for each country (region) needs either to be done, either to get popular/used.



I know a lot of ways to sell BTC in US/UK/western europe, but not in my own country. Maybe I could research more. But this is not the real problem.
The real problem is: if I don't know, can I expect my father, or my grandfather know?

There's still work to do if we really want this to become widely used, as a global currency.

[CrackedLogic]

OK, So I just sent £1000 of Bitcoin to a friend who is in Northern Namibia (just above South Africa).

He received the funds via an app on his phone - Mycelium..

The problem is we have no idea what to do now. Ideally he needs to transfer the btc to his local currency (NAD) or spend the bitcoin locally but noone there accepts bitcoin. How can we convert this money to something he can actually spend?

Thanks in advance.

It might help if you asked yourself what you are doing and why.  Why does your friend need exchange commodities?  Food?  Rent?  Real estate?  To pay his/her employees?  Who does he need to procure whatever it is from?  Apparently he wanted the coins so you sent them to him.  What's the problem?   How could we possibly help you with the information you have given us?   

I don't think you have covered the whole thread. Look at this.

As some of you guessed I didn't really send £1000 worth of bitcoin to Namibia but what I wanted to do was discuss and highlight the difficulties of using the currency in places where it would be most beneficial.
I am married into a Namibian family. My wife likes to send funds to her parents in Namibia every couple of months. She has been doing this for the last 9 years.

Currently they use one of her bankcards and she has given them her PIN. She uses a UK bank account specifically for the purpose.
So, when she decides she wants to send money she transfers money from regular account to the account her parents have a card for and just does a regular bank transfer. This works fine however she probably shouldn't have given her card and PIN to someone else.

Most people are not in a position to do this.

Prior to doing it this way or if their are some issues with the account she would use Western Union.

I showed her how simple is is to send btc if you have Mycelium installed on your phone. But we were discussing what you would do with it.

At this point LocalBitcoins is proberbly out of the question, The nearest big town is a two hour drive away. Travel to Cape Town involves a flight.
PayPal.. I don't know. I had a bad experience with it related to bitcoin previously.

I guess bitcoin just isn't ready for these communities yet.