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What do you think will be the future for the Petro (PTR) Venezuelan currency?
I have a very good friend who wrote an article about PTR.
I am copying and pasting it right here.
The link for the article is --> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-help-venezuelans-cryptocurrencies-petro-ptr-cordoba-otalora/?published=t
Let me know what do you think.
Feel free to share any thoughts.
"Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum founder) has asked several times what the [Suspicious link removed]munity is doing to help Venezuelans to bypass the strict regulations imposed by the dictator Nicolas Maduro.
This question comes as a result of seeing how more than 10% of the population in the South American country has fled in the past 10 years searching for better opportunities. Said question comes from the current state of their economy, in which people suffer from lack of medicines, food, electricity, and with high levels of insecurity.
This question is crucial because there is a humanitarian crisis that will define the future of Venezuela and Colombia. Many have argued that one of the ways impeding a total collapse of the economy has been the increasing volume of remittances sent to support the families of those living there.
The public policies created by Hugo Chavez and then followed by Nicolas Maduro have generated hyperinflation, the fail in competitiveness on established industries and the damage of the future of the country for the upcoming decades.
Since 2015 more and more Venezuelans have used Bitcoin to bypass the high remittances costs with more than 14M USD per month at the end of 2017.
The Venezuelan government is promoting the Petro (PTR) as the first state-backed cryptocurrency that could transform the country, but when reading the whitepaper, some things are of notice, specially these 4 red flags:
1. At the beginning there will be an ERC20 token based on Ethereum but if anyone wants to use it, they will need to perform the exchange process in the governments platform and not in a blockchain.
2. Their token is backed by the oil reserves, but that is not a valid backup since most of said reserves are owned by Chinese and Russian creditors.
3. The token is issued by the same government who led the country right into bankruptcy.
4. There will be a massive problem with the exchange rate. The value of the token will depend on the price of oil barrel along with the price of the official currency of the country. However, if you are familiar with the country, you will find out that the official price of the Bolivar Fuerte is at 710 per dollar and the actual price people manage is the price existing in the black market, which is 236,402 per dollar. Please take a moment to imagine the volatility of the PTR tokens price over time.
These red flags could have unintended consequences for the Petro (PTR) users and the Venezuelan economy as a whole:
1. If Petro (PTR) doesnt use the blockchain but instead other centralized system, then there will not be a proper way to understand the real behavior of the token. Similar cases of organizations using their own platforms and supposedly using cryptocurrencies have led to a total disaster for coin owners, see the Bitconnect scam. Therefore, the PTR needs to have a transparent system based on decentralization if they want the world to believe that they are not following the same centralized principles that had led the country to an economic disaster.
2. Basing the Petro (PTR) on oil reserves is part of a new trend to tokenize the economy. But for the case of Venezuela, even though they have the largest oil reserves in the world they have huge problems extracting them. Because they have lost their technical capacity to keep a competitive production level going from 2.8 million of barrels per day to less than 1 million in 2018.
3. Imagine that your monthly salary is 74 USD according to government rates but in reality, is 2.2 USD using black market exchange rate. Now think about what could happen when people will try to buy the Petro (PTR) and the unintended consequences of not knowing what is the real value of a good you are acquiring.
In conclusion, unfortunately, I believe the Petro (PTR) will harm Venezuelans in the long run.
But I believe in the power of cryptocurrencies to help Venezuelans. Cryptocurrencies are the new way to really make possible a peer to peer value transfer.
So, the question is, what can we do to optimize the remittance process coming from millions of Venezuelans trying to support their families?
Cryptocurrencies are the decentralized approach to counter-balance the centralized policies that have led Venezuela to dismay.
Therefore, we need to find cryptocurrencies with other ways to help Venezuelans and millions around the world to remit money.
But to make it mainstream, cryptocurrencies need to find a way to offer a stable price that grows over time. Cryptocurrencies volatility is the traders best friend but it also affects the user that only wants to send 50 USD so their brother is able to buy the medicines the government is not providing.
Therefore, lets unite to find newer ways to help migrants around the world and propose innovative ways to use cryptocurrencies to offer more bridges and opportunities for everyone.
We need more decentralized exchanges, more cryptocurrencies, and more efforts to expand its usage in our day to day life."
By Francisco José Córdoba
I am copying and pasting it right here.
The link for the article is --> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-help-venezuelans-cryptocurrencies-petro-ptr-cordoba-otalora/?published=t
Let me know what do you think.
Feel free to share any thoughts.
"Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum founder) has asked several times what the [Suspicious link removed]munity is doing to help Venezuelans to bypass the strict regulations imposed by the dictator Nicolas Maduro.
This question comes as a result of seeing how more than 10% of the population in the South American country has fled in the past 10 years searching for better opportunities. Said question comes from the current state of their economy, in which people suffer from lack of medicines, food, electricity, and with high levels of insecurity.
This question is crucial because there is a humanitarian crisis that will define the future of Venezuela and Colombia. Many have argued that one of the ways impeding a total collapse of the economy has been the increasing volume of remittances sent to support the families of those living there.
The public policies created by Hugo Chavez and then followed by Nicolas Maduro have generated hyperinflation, the fail in competitiveness on established industries and the damage of the future of the country for the upcoming decades.
Since 2015 more and more Venezuelans have used Bitcoin to bypass the high remittances costs with more than 14M USD per month at the end of 2017.
The Venezuelan government is promoting the Petro (PTR) as the first state-backed cryptocurrency that could transform the country, but when reading the whitepaper, some things are of notice, specially these 4 red flags:
1. At the beginning there will be an ERC20 token based on Ethereum but if anyone wants to use it, they will need to perform the exchange process in the governments platform and not in a blockchain.
2. Their token is backed by the oil reserves, but that is not a valid backup since most of said reserves are owned by Chinese and Russian creditors.
3. The token is issued by the same government who led the country right into bankruptcy.
4. There will be a massive problem with the exchange rate. The value of the token will depend on the price of oil barrel along with the price of the official currency of the country. However, if you are familiar with the country, you will find out that the official price of the Bolivar Fuerte is at 710 per dollar and the actual price people manage is the price existing in the black market, which is 236,402 per dollar. Please take a moment to imagine the volatility of the PTR tokens price over time.
These red flags could have unintended consequences for the Petro (PTR) users and the Venezuelan economy as a whole:
1. If Petro (PTR) doesnt use the blockchain but instead other centralized system, then there will not be a proper way to understand the real behavior of the token. Similar cases of organizations using their own platforms and supposedly using cryptocurrencies have led to a total disaster for coin owners, see the Bitconnect scam. Therefore, the PTR needs to have a transparent system based on decentralization if they want the world to believe that they are not following the same centralized principles that had led the country to an economic disaster.
2. Basing the Petro (PTR) on oil reserves is part of a new trend to tokenize the economy. But for the case of Venezuela, even though they have the largest oil reserves in the world they have huge problems extracting them. Because they have lost their technical capacity to keep a competitive production level going from 2.8 million of barrels per day to less than 1 million in 2018.
3. Imagine that your monthly salary is 74 USD according to government rates but in reality, is 2.2 USD using black market exchange rate. Now think about what could happen when people will try to buy the Petro (PTR) and the unintended consequences of not knowing what is the real value of a good you are acquiring.
In conclusion, unfortunately, I believe the Petro (PTR) will harm Venezuelans in the long run.
But I believe in the power of cryptocurrencies to help Venezuelans. Cryptocurrencies are the new way to really make possible a peer to peer value transfer.
So, the question is, what can we do to optimize the remittance process coming from millions of Venezuelans trying to support their families?
Cryptocurrencies are the decentralized approach to counter-balance the centralized policies that have led Venezuela to dismay.
Therefore, we need to find cryptocurrencies with other ways to help Venezuelans and millions around the world to remit money.
But to make it mainstream, cryptocurrencies need to find a way to offer a stable price that grows over time. Cryptocurrencies volatility is the traders best friend but it also affects the user that only wants to send 50 USD so their brother is able to buy the medicines the government is not providing.
Therefore, lets unite to find newer ways to help migrants around the world and propose innovative ways to use cryptocurrencies to offer more bridges and opportunities for everyone.
We need more decentralized exchanges, more cryptocurrencies, and more efforts to expand its usage in our day to day life."
By Francisco José Córdoba
If you could create your own altcoin, what features/applications would you it have?
Would it be mainly for speculation or would it have a very specific application in the real world?
Is there any existing altcoin that is similar to the one you have in mind?
Would it be mainly for speculation or would it have a very specific application in the real world?
Is there any existing altcoin that is similar to the one you have in mind?
I wouldn't try to open new altcoin. What I will do is not be greedy and try to help the development of some altcoin that I think is worth puting my energy and time in. It is hard to start from scratch and there are already to many altcoins out there. If we say that I "invent" another protocol that no alt uses right now guess then I'll opt for making my own, but as long as my imagination have some well known features well most likely will try to participate in development of an existing one.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts ManaMan!
If you could create your own altcoin, what features/applications would you it have?
Would it be mainly for speculation or would it have a very specific application in the real world?
Is there any existing altcoin that is similar to the one you have in mind?
Would it be mainly for speculation or would it have a very specific application in the real world?
Is there any existing altcoin that is similar to the one you have in mind?
Tell me your #1 BTC prediction for 2018?
How will it start changing the financial system during 2018?
Are more countries going to ban it?
What new uses/applications will it provide?
Lower/higher transaction fees?
How will it start changing the financial system during 2018?
Are more countries going to ban it?
What new uses/applications will it provide?
Lower/higher transaction fees?
I believe that BTC is both an asset and a currency. Some people use it for their everyday payments as a currency and others to hold value (asset).
I also think when more merchants start to accept BTC or any other altcoin as a form of payment, people in general will be more comfortable to use it as currency and eventually BTC will replace fiat.
I also think when more merchants start to accept BTC or any other altcoin as a form of payment, people in general will be more comfortable to use it as currency and eventually BTC will replace fiat.
Second choice! 
I understand why many people are betting on short-term profits. In today's world, such opportunities are great when you are struggling from one day to another.
But as long as I am concerned... Well, first I guess that I am not so gifted for making short-term profits, and then I really think that the technology behind crypto and all that can be held within it, is far more important than just individual profits.
Bitcoin is indeed an opportunity to get rid of banks. Today, everyone has an account in a traditional bank and that's... completely crazy and utterly unbearable if you think about it! Banks are charging fees for things that are free for them, they completely control your money... That's unfair.
Thanks to new tech, we can now get rid of that. I say YES, let's do it!
I understand why many people are betting on short-term profits. In today's world, such opportunities are great when you are struggling from one day to another.
But as long as I am concerned... Well, first I guess that I am not so gifted for making short-term profits, and then I really think that the technology behind crypto and all that can be held within it, is far more important than just individual profits.
Bitcoin is indeed an opportunity to get rid of banks. Today, everyone has an account in a traditional bank and that's... completely crazy and utterly unbearable if you think about it! Banks are charging fees for things that are free for them, they completely control your money... That's unfair.
Thanks to new tech, we can now get rid of that. I say YES, let's do it!
I most certainly agree with you m0gliE.
Re: Can anyone explain the "Lightning Network" to a 5 year old
Well, very, very, very, very dumbed down and simplified, the lightning network is basically something like this:
Person A opens a payment channel with person B. Person A funds the channel using an on-chain transaction of (for example) 10 BTC.
Person A can now send (for example) 50 offchain transactions of ~0.1BTC to person B (for example, person A has a ipTV subscription with person B, and he pays 0.1 BTC/month for his subscription, every month). Everytime, the status of the channel gets adapted with an offchain transaction.
If, in the end, the channel gets closed, the final status gets recorded into a transaction and broadcasted to the network.
So, in this case 48 on-chain transactions were avoided, only the funding and withdrawing transaction were on-chain.
Now, imagine person C. He opens a channel with person A.
He can now send 0.1 BTC to person B, since person A has an open channel with person B, and the channel is still funded. So in reality, person C sends 0.1 BTC offchain to person A, person A sends 0.1 to person B, so person B receives the 0.1 BTC that was sent by person C. Person's C available funds are reduced by 0.1 BTC, person A still has the same amount of funds as before the transaction, person B has 0.1 BTC more than before the transaction (fees were not taken into account with this very simplistic example)
When sufficient people have open (funded) channels with eachother, you can basically send funds over the lightning network to any person that has at least 1 or 2 open channels. Each node in the network can add a tiny fee, but it is also possible to minimise the fee by calculating the optimal path between 2 nodes/wallets/people.
Person A opens a payment channel with person B. Person A funds the channel using an on-chain transaction of (for example) 10 BTC.
Person A can now send (for example) 50 offchain transactions of ~0.1BTC to person B (for example, person A has a ipTV subscription with person B, and he pays 0.1 BTC/month for his subscription, every month). Everytime, the status of the channel gets adapted with an offchain transaction.
If, in the end, the channel gets closed, the final status gets recorded into a transaction and broadcasted to the network.
So, in this case 48 on-chain transactions were avoided, only the funding and withdrawing transaction were on-chain.
Now, imagine person C. He opens a channel with person A.
He can now send 0.1 BTC to person B, since person A has an open channel with person B, and the channel is still funded. So in reality, person C sends 0.1 BTC offchain to person A, person A sends 0.1 to person B, so person B receives the 0.1 BTC that was sent by person C. Person's C available funds are reduced by 0.1 BTC, person A still has the same amount of funds as before the transaction, person B has 0.1 BTC more than before the transaction (fees were not taken into account with this very simplistic example)
When sufficient people have open (funded) channels with eachother, you can basically send funds over the lightning network to any person that has at least 1 or 2 open channels. Each node in the network can add a tiny fee, but it is also possible to minimise the fee by calculating the optimal path between 2 nodes/wallets/people.
Thanks for your explanation mocacinno!
Re: Can anyone explain the "Lightning Network" to a 5 year old
In my own opinion it won't possible that you can discuss it especially with a 5 year old. Networking is broad and hard to tackle or understand, but if you will open your heart and mind to understand it, possible that you can but for a 5 year old no i don't think so.
Thanks Rhegz,
Would you be able to give me a basic explanation of LN?
Are you interested in BTC for the mere fact that the price has been going up since its inception and you think it will enable to make a huge profit or you are interested because you know that the technology behind BTC (blockchain) will change the way the financial world works?
I am more interested in the technology. Technology itself creates profits for us humans. The concept of blockchain is very good and the evidence is even banks look at the cryptocurrency market as a threat.Like you said, banks look at cryptos as a threat, but eventually they will have to start adopting it or die. The next couple of years will be interesting for the financial sector.
Blockchain technology is a revolution in our century. Even if the price of bitcoin plummets down to the very bottom I would still be interested to use it. Real life scenarios where you can use bitcoin without showing your identity are a lot. In this age that we are living full of technology safeguarding your identity is top priority as if not safeguarded as you should hackers can get it and use it for evil purposes. Whenever you enter your email in every website you register for a service there is a high risk your email is immediately send to spammers who have paid for collecting email addresses. Blockchain technology and bitcoin does this, give you a upper hand in safeguarding your identity while transacting with bitcoin and cryptos that are based on blockchain technology.
Calling it a speculation looks dumb to me after this technology has been proving itself during these last 8-9 years.
Calling it a speculation looks dumb to me after this technology has been proving itself during these last 8-9 years.
I agree that calling it speculation looks dumb at this stage but most of the people that got in since last Dec are in for pure speculation purposes.
Both. Even tho I've been here since before the price rocketed up.
And as they say that Bitcoin is a "revolutionary" online currency that, instead I want to be the first one to know, understand, and use it. Frankly, the profit part doesn't actually affect me on my interest to this world. I mean despite the fact that price has always been going up, what can you really expect from it?
And as they say that Bitcoin is a "revolutionary" online currency that, instead I want to be the first one to know, understand, and use it. Frankly, the profit part doesn't actually affect me on my interest to this world. I mean despite the fact that price has always been going up, what can you really expect from it?
Thanks Jeremy! What if the price of BTC plummets down, would you still be interested in learning more and more about the technology behind it? Also, what other industries do you see BTC taking over?
Are you interested in BTC for the mere fact that the price has been going up since its inception and you think it will enable to make a huge profit or you are interested because you know that the technology behind BTC (blockchain) will change the way the financial world works?
In my opinion, Bitcoin is here to stay. I believe that we will see many ups and downs during the next couple of years but always in an uptrend. As the transfer fees decrease and more more application/businesses start accepting Bitcoin, we will see a sharper bullish curve 
Hello every body.I am a Newbie. I joined Crytopia about two months ago. I hold CMT and TRX in the Binance and now i want to trade with some coin about: ADA,ETC,... Please help me give some idea i should trade or not? Thank lots of for all. 
Since you are new I would suggest you to learn first. Learn how the market works. Learn about the coins. Do researches on the charts. Get to know more about the coins you will be investing on. Use your own instinct and try to figure out how the coin is going to be different from others. And always keep this in mind - invest what you can afford to lose. Great advice Adzino!
"Invest what you can afford to lose"