Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 18596. (Read 26656920 times)

Yeah, whole South America now is blaming leaders. But it is the people who choose them or who choose not to overthrow them. Venezuela is not a dictatorship, they elected their leaders.

We will see, but I am pretty sure that it will not be South America who will adopt btc first. It is really sad, because it makes perfect sense. But only in theory. The max what btc can do it that the digital elites in Venezuela will use btc as reserve currency (which is what is happening right now and also in Brazil that goes to shit as well [Brazilian turnover now is over 1K btc/day in local exchanges and much of those coins are I believe for hodling]).

Also, we are lacking the lightning network. So probably this won't be it. I don't know any real detail about the concept, but it seems to result in super much super fast transactions. Without that everyday use is not feasible. If we get that before Venezuela goes down for good, we might see a significant part of the economy migrate and some unforseen unforseeable but definitely good effects on the market.

If that thing actually gets implemented, it is just a matter of time before the first economy falls into bitcoin. It will be more convenient than dollar. Venezuela, in any case, is a proof of concept. Bitcoin is just not fully ready for it, very soon it will be though.
And there will be no altcoin which will impose the same respect and trust the network hashrate and conservative bitcoin community imposes. For now at least. If Segwit gets implemented via softfork and everything goes well, the lightning network should be able to be implemented without any further fork. I don't see why it wouldn't be implemented in real use cases. You just need a wallet-app supporting lightning network and everything is fine.

The future is bright, gentlemen

Heavy resistance, especially in China. If this goes sideways for another hour, it will start looking corrective...

You do not understand South american markets

1. There is also this Venezuelan exchange https://surbitcoin.com/
2. The fees in South America are so high, that there areno traders, the fees easily surpass 0.5% of volume, then something like 2% + flat fee for payout

So common sense from normal exchanges can not be applied.

I agree with everything you say, but I think you underestimate black market channels. USD were valued trice over their official exchange rate in 2008. I got that from an old news article, so maybe its not correct, but at least it shows an effect. Now bitcoin is a lot easier to smuggle into the country than large amounts of dollars. So for a potential "criminal" there is a lot to gain with minimal risk. A suitcase full of money is a lot more visible than a bitcoin wallet.

You can see the threat that bitcoin is building here
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/report-two-venezuelans-arrested-mining-bitcoin/

It hit miners, but those are a lot more visible and going for that reasoning to arrest little people who have just a small amount wouldn't work. In any case their intelligence agency is already hunting people who use bitcoin.

Down we go again..?

If just 1% of the world's population sent me a penny, I'd either be a multimillionaire or die under the weight of all them pennies.

Also: GDP is the value of goods/services produced in your country within a single year. It is not "money sitting around."
If I have an ice cream stand, and you got a hot dog stand, we got us an economy (you buy my ice cream, I buy your hot dogs).
If I sell you $1,000 worth of my ice cream, and you sell me $1,000 of your hot dogs in the span of the year (our economy's GDP=$2,000), though we may never have more than $10 between us.
Because velocity of money.

"Bleeding off" into Bitcoin may also not be as knee-jerk as it seems, since people could also "bleed off" into other currencies, like USD, which isn't inflating anywhere as fast as the Bolivar.

i agree with you here. welcome to the forum. 

The arguments regarding inflation are valid but finding bitcoin in countries with capital controls is very hard - unless the country is mining them.

You are a venezuelan. Where do you find bitcoins? You can't buy them online, you can't wire money abroad to buy them, so? You'll have to either find them from another venezuelan (who has the same problems as you in obtaining them), or start selling things or services abroad, for BTC. But if you are gonna go that way, you can also ask USD. It will be -for practical intents and purposes- equally safe from inflation compared to the local currency, and more accepted than BTC. Granted, BTC has greater upside potential, but that's where the arguments end.

At most a few "pockets" within the economy, surrounding extroverted sectors that are involved in cross-border trade and selling of services, can benefit from hard currencies, BTC, etc - and these alone are not enough to create a spillover effect to the rest of the economy.

BTC is better suited to countries like China which has trade surpluses, huge deposits but also experiences fears of devaluation and stock market crashes - so even if Chinese use it as a small percentage of their portfolio, they are ok. They can also mine BTC locally which means they are not handicapped even in a capital control scenario - as they have a big internal market all of their own in CNY.

Other countries that are good candidates for BTC, are those who don't have capital controls, have a good level of wealth and their currency is problematic in terms of devaluation. Good candidates are also countries which *might* impose capital controls - so you want to be ready there.

It's interesting to see, though the volume is only about 33k usd per week right now. Not much, but most likely a lot of these coins will not be sold in the short term. And this is definitely not the only channel where bitcoin flows into the country.
It's nice to see some hard numbers though.

Almost no volume, but you can buy/sell BTC for local funny money: https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/VEF, and interest seems to be on the rise (the chart is denominated in Bolivars, you can click top right to change to BTC).

Nevertheless it creates an interest. And I didn't say the whole economy moves over. It doesn't have to anyway. 10% Gross domestic product. 443B Dollar. There is value being created and circulating. You can offer services for bitcoin. I assume a lot of dudes there doing online business and any form of self directed creative work already do. Other people have commodities. And a currency with currently almost 500% inflation rate per year (the figures in the original post only go to dec 2015) doesn't cut it for almost anything. It's getting significantly less valuable if you don't spend it directly. Even bitcoins worst drop from 1200 to 200 is only as bad as that inflation rate. And now it is worth more again. So, whomever can get their hands on bitcoins down there will do so.

It wouldn't, because people don't have tons of USD to spend buying bitcoins.

Woke up to a price $40 higher then I went to sleep.

Good job boys, lets go to $800+ today  

So, everyone is speculating on what is going on. Where the price comes from.
And with all the stuff mentioned here, I have never seen this info coming together. You want to buy a rumor? Buy into this:

Venezuelas inflation rate
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi

Venezuelas interest in bitcoin
https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin&geo=VE

This, while retaining a search volume index of 27.

China on the other hand has a search volume index of 8, while moving on a similar interest level like the one during the 2013 rise.

Now think again on what is happening. It's just too sad that the lightning network isn't here already. If it had been, venezuelas economy would bleed off into bitcoin in no time. At least a part.

https://www.google.de/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=JYBlV9zaLoGq-wb896GwDA#q=venezuela+gross+domestic+product
443 Billion gross domestic product. If only ten percent of that move into bitcoin, the price will quadruple at least.

So, if that thing is actually implemented and working this summer, Bitcoin will be able to do what it was meant to do. It will be a form of reserve currency and black market money. With the difference, that it is a lot more convenient than the usual suspects gold and cigarettes or whatever.
And if it will not be this moment, another will come and by then the transaction problems will be solved. Longterm bitcoin outlook: phenomal as always.
Venezuela just proofs the whole idea. Now that people know of it, the takeover can start as soon as an economy starts to collapse.

Yup. And also this:

https://s31.postimg.org/kr4xy6fvf/Capture.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MO7fkZc5o 

So Bitcoin's rocket engines are being fueled by ETH/DAO tears?  

A lot of BTC's volume right now is due to the pricking of ETH's bubble.