Topic: Bitcoin to failed states? (\o/) (Read 2713 times)

when the phone company royaly screws you it doesn't seem that bad 

If the market should recongize Bitcoins as useful the market will use it. All we can do is spread the info and just try various business ventures and see what sticks.

this is where i see the most potential for bitcoin to make a positive difference in the lives of the most people.  access to sound currency will massively change the lives of the poorest and most oppressed around the world and be a huge net benefit to humanity.   

fleshlights you say?

Patience.

Dream a little!

Time really isn't an issue.  It's not like Bitcoin is ready for mass adoption anyway.

The most obvious solution to lack of internet would be sms:es, sending an sms to a server that relays the transfer to the network. If android has/gets a wide adoption, you could use android-apps to generate the sms:es... I have no idea what kind of phones they use. In Cambodia, most common people use moncolor dumbphones with flashlights built in, so there might be some time before we get there

Kenya already has p2p cellphone banking.  And "good" Internet access for Bitcoin is relative, as there are other solutions.  When a decent lightweight client for Android is developed, expecially if Android phones start shipping with a Dash7 mesh radio, a casual user in Kenya might not ever need Internet access.

How many of those countries have good internet access?  Seems that's a pretty big requirement.

There are several android clients being worked on presently.  This topic has come up with regard to third world usage of Bitcoin before, please search the archives.

A failed state is more or less a country where the state no longer has a monpoly on physical force.

According to failed state index(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state) we seem to ge a lot more of these lately and there are more to come (varnings for most of of asia, central america and the non failed parts of Afrika)

Since these states don't have a state-backed currency, bitcoins would make a lot of sense there. Also there is less competition from fiat-currencies.

So how could this be done? What would be needed in terms of technology and "marketing" to intiaite this change. Don't understimate the technical infrastructure of theese countries, in most of central Afrika, money is regularly transferred via sms. What would for example a standalone bitcoin-client require in terms of tech-spechs? How could you design one for someone who is illeterate? Could it be sent over the phoneline? SMS? MMS?

How could you propse bitcoins? Using the purchasing power of our stronger echonomy? Tourism(maybe not in theese countries)? Lot of them have millitary in them...

Here is a list of the most failed states:
 Somalia (0)
 Chad (+2)
 Sudan (0)
 Zimbabwe (-2)
 Democratic Republic of the Congo (0)
 Afghanistan (+1)
 Iraq (-1)
 Central African Republic (0)
 Guinea (0)
 Pakistan (0)
 Haiti (+1)
 Côte d'Ivoire (-1)
 Kenya (+1)
 Nigeria (+1)
 Yemen (+4)
 Burma (-3)
 Ethiopia (-1)
 Timor-Leste (+2)
 North Korea (-2)
 Niger (+4)