although Venezuela had modern cell phones three years ago.
Well then sounds like you DO have the technology for cryptocurrency! What you lack is education as to its usefulness! For that the people of your country are dependent on those such as yourself!
Venezuela was really modern and advanced a few years ago. Phones -imported form abroad are realatively expensive and now most money goes to food. That said those with money can get stuff imported, it is just most people without jobs that can be done online or sell internationally don't have access to foreign cash. That said, phone operating systems change quickly so not all those phones support it. Phone theft in the streets is a problem.
Hi, I live in Venezuela and I see this era as a witness and actor. I have read this posts and I am happy to see countrymans clear in the situation we live, and I am happier to see people from around the world learning about this crazy history story. The financial situation here is bad for many (people earning in BSF - bolivares fuertes) buecause the inflation(I calle it devaluation better) is huge. an example 12 months ago the exchange rate Bsf/us$ was 1600:1 today nov 7, 2017 is 48400:1 , in the same period the minimun wage was around Bsf 27.000 today Bsf 450.000. Just calculate bsf7us4 increase vs minimun wage increase. And it a ¨good¨ situation for a few, those who understand the magic formula is earn in us$ and expend in Bsf, How? In my particular case crytocurrencies, freelance online jobs and steemit are a good option, and they work for me and my family.
The products available here in Bsf are far too expensive for many, 1 kg of meat is between Bsf 60k and 120k (minimun wage is bsf 450k)...but if you exchange the value in us$ is really cheap... 1kg of meat is around us$1,2 .
Anyway this was only to show my vission about Venezuelan prices...but the solution? I think the solution is as complex as the problem, curruption at all leves, no punishment, no production, external debt enormous (some say minimun us$150 billion,some say it could be twice that)...
My prediction? this country is going straight yo the abbyss, it is going to be a hard road but it is the only way to get out of this, and I not talking about election or politics, I am talking about economics, debts and starving people....I love this country and I am sure we will stand up stronger but not now, we are still learning in the hard way. Thank you for reading and support us here, every dime counts for us here, belive me. God bless us all
Thanks for sharing. My heart goes out to all the people who suffer. It really is needless. Some things work and some things don't. Free markets work and communism doesn't work. Your prediction of the country in bad shape and getting worse is really accurate.
I love this country, the people (the real one) is the nicest in the planet, but the oil and the corruption brought us to this point. Today in NYC started a trial against father and son, campany owners in Florida, they helped to transfer us$ 100 millions for some in the venezuelan goverment, if we think we have a minimun wage in us$10 a month, these money in trial is about 10 million minimun wages not pais to 10 million people in Venezuela. The non official numbers show a furtune worth us$10 -15 billion in just 3 persons in the former and actual goverment...it is inhuman. Thank you all for readindg and understanding our situation
One of the issue with this is that there's very few people who want to sell Bitcoin for bolivar. As the purchasing power of the bolivar goes further down this situation is exacerbated.
In this case it's up to merchants actually creating an economy for the alternative driven by it's stability over that of the "normal" national currency. There will always be the option of conversion, that is normal and should be expected. In the situation of a rapidly devaluating currency the relative stability of Bitcoin can be an asset to it's use of a currency ( but it is depreciating so this is why my suggestion of SBD with it's peg can be of a further increased utility). The stability of crypto over rapidly inflating national currencies is a strength for pricing of goods as 1 SBD will hold its value much longer then a Venesuelan bolivar.