Topic: Idea for helping Venezuela using Bitcoin (Read 1827 times)

Hello theymos I'm a citizen of Venezuela, and I'm not with the government. I have been talking about this with my father a long time ago ways to do donations this because the government has hard regulations on everything Included donations. If you are interested in someone who can help with the donations I'll be glad to help, and also I can give you all my personal info for more transparency via PM.

I appreciate your initiative; every cent counts for a Venezuelan because we have an hour wage of .17 cents and also the food It has become more expensive, we can't find medicines and more things. I'm sure this a good way to making the difference and I think like you most large percentage of donations to these charities end up in the hands of the government itself or government supporters

I am Venezuelan and I am Venezuelan and it is true what they say here, thanks to a dictator who along with the Cuban dictators have ended this beautiful country, a country that has the largest oil reserves on the planet, we are one of the Best Latin American countries to be a poor country like Africa is sad this really, and if as the internet is very economical I have a plan of 10 megs and pay as $ 0.50 a month, but a kilo of rice is worth more than A dollar, a crazy economy, thanks to the salary is so low, many people are working online, I am one, I work in surveys, coupons, and with calls, in this country you earn more with an application installed on your phone Working in a fast food store for example, thanks for your intentions to help, and sorry I do not speak English use the google translator

As far as I know the point of OpenDime is that you don't spend it once you get it. You're supposed to pass it on and basically make transactions that way if you get what I mean.

I don't disagree though that it's still not the most cost effective option.

What comes to the idea of helping Venezuelans I'm interested to see if we'll be able to get this going. Obviously there are a few concerns mentioned before but as far as I know nothing that wouldn't have a workaround. I'd definitely be open to helping once I have a chance and means to.

Yes. Not tons , but Yes.

Fantastic idea I have heard on this forum since I joined in.
Although I do not have pile of coins and all that I have is my earnings from forum signature but I would be very happy to give a part of it to this noble cause.
Please let us know where to send bitcoin to.I hope my small donation would help the needy

17 (US) cents probably is true, the situation there in Venezuela is getting desperate.  Venezuela probably is the most vilnerable country in South America: poorest and with the poorest prospects ahead.  They have more OIL than any other country in the world, go figure (ah, THAT counts as a failure of Socialism).

Yes, I would have thought that US$ would work!  Ecuador's official paper currency is the US$ (Panama too I believe).

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I like theymos's idea re Opendimes loaded up with varying amounts of BTC (still need a real BTC wallet though).  Opendime seems to be the cheapest solution.

But, how do you convince Venezuelans to accept a digital currency that would surely be the target of Maduro y Cia...?

Holy crapsteaks!  Is that seriously true?  I did not realize Venezuela was so poor--I ought to pay more attention to what's happening in the world, but the part of me that detests news won't let me.  Having said that, why not use another crypto that has lower fees?  I know a lot of them do, but I know me saying that is heresy around these parts.  But I know you can send DOGE almost for free.

Then again, I thought S. American countries were pretty comfortable using the good old USD when all else fails.  Is that not true anymore?  I thought I read somewhere that the only commercial use our current dollar coins get is in Mexico and parts south.

Doesn't matter what we do to help Venezuela now, it won't be enough, things only will change there, when that demon tyrant be removed from the command of the country. Unfortunelly, he has a legion of fools, that agree with all his actions. The bolivarianism is a sick that must be extirpated in South America, Venezuela is the most injured.

I think if donations start being send to trusted hands, soon the government supporters will know and arrest the one who is sharing the donations with an allegation of conspiration, for an example. The opposition leader was arrested and many others too without reason.

The economic situation on that country is almost blowing up, and venezuelans must solve it fast and bring a new age of prosperity to their country... Bitcoin can help them to rebuild their economy, but not now, not with this leader.

This is the exact problem we are facing in India.The government all of a sudden withdrawn the big currency notes of 1000 and 500 rupees on november 8th and still now we are facing big problems to get money out of banks as well as to  get change even if we get a currency from bank.The biggest comic part is that they introduced 2000 rupee note and the ATMs will only disperse a single 2000 rupee note per account and you cannot do anything with that note because no one can give you a change for this high denomination. The Venezuelanian people revolted and the governent held the ban is what i heard from news and what is the situation over there.

Judging by the last article I've read about Bitcoin in Venezuela, Bitcoin seems to be used only underground in this country. Using Bitcoin in the open is much too risky and would make people a target of harassment and prosecution. So you can rest pretty much assured, that anybody using Bitcoin in Venezuela is not pro-government.

While the idea is generally nice, I fear it will fail in practice because of the aforementioned problem. I'm also skeptical if foreign shipments make it into Venezuela that easily.

So in my opinion, donating Bitcoin to Venezuelans for food shipments is not really such a good idea. It would be better to help Venezuelans to self-organize in respect to grow their own Bitcoin community and establish a local market based on Bitcoin. So providing information and platforms regarding Bitcoin targeted at Venezuelans would be helpful. If possible, these information should focus on ways how Venezuelans can earn Bitcoin by providing products (possibly very difficult) and services (maybe easier) to the world market.

In that respect, donation shipments of old mining equipment could be an idea worth considering. If I'm not misinformed, electricity prices are relatively low in Venezuela because of the typical socialist subsidies, so mining on old hardware may still be worthwhile.

Improving the supply of coins to the Venezuelan market is a precondition for establishing Bitcoin as a currency alternative.

In my opinion it's much better to foster self-empowerment than to just donate and keep people in dependency.

ya.ya.yo!

I wonder if any Venezuelan is actually reading this to provide their side of the story...

socialist systems do work.. its when capitalists suck the socialists dry that people then blame socialists.. when its the capitalists that caused it.
however socialist systems can work without governments. and bitcoin is proving that with bitcoins consensus network.

governments are capitalists in sheeps clothing.

take the rhetoric that "the worlds citizens" are indebt to a combined few trillion.... um no. corporations/agencies are in debt. yet them corporations/agencies are trying to pass the debt on... meaning capitalism has failed people

Do we really need to help governments, when they failed their citizens? We pick up the pieces and support these governments and once they

are back on their feet, they spit on the people that helped them. They believe a socialist system can work, and then when it fails... they want

1st world countries to support them. Hugo Chávez and Maduro has destroyed that nation, and we have to pay for their mistakes? I believe in

teaching people to fish, not to feed them... The first step should be for them to change their believe that a socialist system can work. 

lol do your research
1. you dont need a full node to use bitcoin.

2. those that want to be a full node obviously have enough money to pay for landline internet and a computer. so a food donation is not needed, thus this topic is not for them.

3. for those in need of food wont have a computer so a $15 usb device wont feed their stomachs

4. LN in its blockstream concept has a ~$4.70 (0.006btc) prepay fee and lots of penalty fee's. again not what developing countries can afford because stupidly its programmed by americans with america 'pricing'

my biggest gripe is the american mindset of economics rather then a world wide mindset of using code to reduce problems. fee's are not a solution to spam. code is.

5. LN is useless for people that buy things irregularly. its great for and has a niche for faucets/daytraders/gamblers who do LOADS of transactions a day. but not the average spender. because. the fee's LN are dreaming up dont outweigh the utility.
eg average stats of people using atms and visa to buy real life daily things in the real world is 42 times a month.
$4.70/42=~11cents which is still near an hours wage for developing countries. well more then an hour for some.
again LN is great for daytraders/gamblers/faucet raiders/adsense stuff.. but not real peoples lives. especially in developing countries.

please atleast be realistic and dont overhype bitcoin/LN...
bitcoin has lost its footing in regard for the 'unbanked' developing countries

6. segwit is not extending bitcoin. its instead circling back round to the 7tx/s expectation whereby we only actually achieved 3tx/s.. yes blockstream can shout out 14tx expectation. but thats only IF 100% of usrs use LN and 100% of users do a 1in 1 out.. so dont expect 14tx/s as the norm. just have a more realistic mind that we will probably get 7tx/s finally. even blockstream gesture of fee discount is not going to bring fee's down to 2009-13 levels. but instead back to 2015 levels temporarily.. basically a roll back to prices at segwits first announcement. but then the new 'tx fee average' mechanism is pushing the fee's forward and avoiding a reactive pricing due to demand.

7. you do know that 2mb base 4mb weight is still under the 4mb total bloat amount that blockstream/core are now happy with. but because the ratio is 2mb base instead of 1mb base. more transactions can be accepted without having a spare 2mb empty gesture to poke the bear.

8. if you think LN is the end goal. then you need to research that CLTV and CSV combined to become a real world end user perception of funds locked in a maturity delay (unavailable funds) and funds revoke(chargeback) ability much like credit cards, paypal and bank accounts. thus the 'settlement period' makes LN no better than paypal

I don't think that the government will permit the usage of Bitcoins. Right now, they have almost zero tax revenues, and they are paying the government servants by printing as many banknotes as they can. With BTC, they will not be able to do this.

Bitcoin would be useless with a big block size for venezuelans too since the nodes would be too centralized and they would be prone to government control.

The only way to make bitcoin viable in massive scale is lightning network, and for that we need segwit. You can thank those that block segwit for bitcoin not scaling faster.

it is a good idea, but I guess it takes a lot of bitcoin to help Venezuela. Well, before doing that, we need to know, if they know how to use bitcoin. Well, if they had indeed been able to use bitcoin, it would probably be a very valuable aid for them. Well, it may be very many people who will provide support on this matter.

it sounds good, of course. but the thing is I do not have so many bitcoins to donate because I need it for a business and college needs.

why do not promote bitcoin to Venezuelans anyway? because I think many of Venezuelans are rich. you can impress them by your words above. if this forum has local section of Venezuela, you can repost this thread there in Venezuelan.

Sound like the great plan. But how can we able to convince the Government. I mean, the Government have the authorities to do whatever they want. If they figure out there are some people using Bitcoin, they might arrest them no reasons. We still need a big adoption from Venezuelan in order to start this project. A group of people can not do anything, and they can be killed, instantly.
But, if this campaign succeeds, no doubt that it will cause a big impact on the world ecosystem as well as many other countries. People will start to reshape their mind about what Bitcoin is and how it really affect our life. Bitcoin is not some kind of ponzi scheme. Bitcoin is an innovation

Well,this is a good idea for rising the popularity of bitcoin and also helping the economy in Venezuela. I've just looked up on numbeo.com and saw that the average monthly salary is around 40 bucks there. It's hard even to pay their utilities with that kind of remuneration. They can't even buy a pair of jeans with the monthly wage.. This is another reason why the low bitcoin transaction fees would help them a lot. I'm sorry theymos but I don't have any connections there,but overall its a good idea/project.