Quote from: Pursuer on April 25, 2018, 06:00:01 AM

Quote from: stompix on April 21, 2018, 02:21:05 PM

Which was another round of fake news with no support.
Those claims about Zimbabwe using bitcoins for purchases appeared when the average tx for a bitcoin transaction was over 10$. How could somebody in a country that has a media wage of 300$ pay 10$ for a purchase?

but about this I have to say the way I have heard Venezuelans are using bitcoin is to use it to import stuff like food to their country. they mine bitcoin with cheap electricity and in some cases underground and then use the rewards to purchase goods and have them sent to a place nearby and them bring it in their country and sell it to people.
$10 or even more fees don't matter for them because the profit is good enough to cover that.

good catch on the volume thing by the way but it is worth mentioning that this volume has grown from 0-20 bitcoin in one week at 2017-12 to 500-800 bitcoin per week in past 4 months. that is a huge growth.

Common, underground?
This is too Mad Max even for Venezuela.

There might be cheap energy but it's only cheap below a certain number of kwh, plus there are so many blackouts and problems with the grid that will burn your miner in a couple of days.
Besides, how could individuals buy miners if the cost is in $ and their bolivar is useless, the average wage is well below 100$ a month, how could they dream of buying a miner?
The only ones doing this are those able to get $ and have friends at the customs, or ....exactly the people that are to blame for the situation the country is in right now.

And although trade in bitcoin really exists it is blown out of proportion.
Venezuela has 31 million inhabitants, if each of them would make one single TX , it would mean 150 days of full blocks:D, so the at current capacity it means itx per person every 6 months, and that if they book the chain for themselves and give the middle finger to the rest of the world.

ps.
I can see that for the last week the volume in bolivar has gone up by 16% but the volume in BTC down by some other 16%, while in USD terms the BTC has gone up only 11% during that period.
That currency is really getting down the drain...