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Venezuelan Developers Are Using Bitcoin, Rare Pepe Trading Cards To Fight Against a Dismal Economy (cryptoinsider.com)
According to Crypto Insider, Venezuelan developers have been selling "rare pepes" -- trading cards that contain unique illustrations and photoshops of the character Pepe the Frog. While the trading cards started out as nothing more than a joke, many of them have been traded for thousands of dollars on the Counterparty platform, which is built on top of Bitcoin, and have provided a way for many developers to sustain themselves in Venezuela's poor economy. From the report: The basic idea behind the issuance of rare pepes on top of the Counterparty platform is that it enables scarcity in a digital world. Each rare pepe card is linked to a little bit of bitcoin through a practice known as coin coloring. Whoever owns the private keys associated with the address where the bitcoins that represent a specific rare pepe card is located is the one who owns that particular trading card. Now, a group of developers in Venezuela are building games similar to Hearthstone and Pokemon where the rare pepe trading cards will play an integral role. If you go to rarepepe.party right now, you're mainly presented with a video of what the first game based on the Rare Pepe digital trading cards will look like. The concept is similar to Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering where players essentially do battle with their opponents via characters on trading cards, which have specific stats and features. In this case, the characters are various rare pepes. With many rare pepes already released (you can view them in the official rare pepe directory), the developers behind Rare Pepe Party are attempting to provide a use case for these new trading cards. While some rare pepe cards already have stats on them, the developer who chatted with Crypto Insider says those stats may not mean much when it's time to play the game. While rare pepes are nothing more than fun and games for much of the developed world, they're a matter of survival in Venezuela. "We're based in Venezuela, and our business has been saved by bitcoin many times," said the developer. The developer claims roughly 80 percent of the offices around the area where Rare Pepe Party is being developed have shut down over the past year. The biggest businesses on their street have also dropped as much as 90 percent of their employees.
n/t
I see Pepe's keeping steering clear of anything shady since his recent bad choices then.
Nullius in verba
because of a temporary drop in oil prices (we're a long way off from oil becoming worthless) why the heck are they doing so bad? I'm not gonna chuck if up to gov't corruption because _everywhere_ has that. Usually the rest of the world will send some aid to a country floundering like this. Heck even Greece got some. Did they piss everybody off somehow?
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This is a very interesting development, and use of the bitcoin/blockchain technology.
Hypothetically, it's difficult to collect works of art in media forms that are easy to copy. For example, it'd be hard to have a 500 print "limited edition, collectible" screensaver image.
But an artist could mint their own cryptocoin sell one with each registered copy of their work. The person who "owns" the official copy would keep the bitcoin safe, and be assured that only 500 of the limited edition versions were ever made. (Along with some security from the artist, publishing their crypto signature for provenance verification, and so on).
This wouldn't prevent people from copying or using the screensavers, but it could make certain forms collectible. This would eliminate counterfeiting in those forms.
The trading cards are just one example of this.
But I bet it's higher than ~3.5, which means this is a niche solution even if they're the only people in the world using Bitcoin. It's also stupid, but hey, a lot of things that people use to make a living are stupid.
And no matter what the ledger says, the person in physical possession of the trading card is the one who owns it, because the government isn't going to recognize Bitcoin as proof of ownership.
So really, we're talking about a barter economy because the Venezuelan bolÃvar is in the shitter, and a portion of people using a particular item as a substitute for currency tracking it (though it's not really currency since it IS the value, not a promissory note) with a blockchain.
Err... OK. Personally, I'd just keep the damn cards somewhere safe. Or, given that you're already hiding economic activity from the government by using something other than the official currency, I'd just use the USD everyone would ultimately exchange the cards for anyway. More reliable value, easier to subdivide, easier to spend if you get out of the country.
Venezuela's government thought they could print as much money as they wanted and got a hard lesson that the real worth of the currency is what you can buy with it, not unlike the hyper inflation in Zimbabwe. There's only so much oil & other stuff that users of Venezuala's currency can provide, so ever additional bit of currency dilutes the value of the rest of it. The fact that their economy is so dependent on oil is only part of that equation, though it is an important part that might have been mitigated if things were managed more like, say, Norway.
In part be because it's a horribly corrupt country run by crooks, and in part because it is a petrostate whose economy is largely dependent on oil sales, and because it's run by plundering thieves, there's no sovereign wealth fund, so low oil prices means economic collapse. Furthermore Venezuela cannot hope to raise money because their only friends are other poor Latin American countries, and wealthier investors wouldn't extend them credit.
With the exception of China, which will probably end up owning the country before it's done.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I cannot believe Pepe is the face of real currency now. Someone must awaken the God Emperor at once.
I orefer my pepes well done thankyou.
I see the value bitcoin skyrocketing right now....
It seems like a worthy successor to the Magic the Gathering Online eXchange (MtGOX) would be the Pepe Online eXchange
So the US is now the new OPEC? My how things change.
https://xkcd.com/512/
There's a different Pepe that's appropriate to Venezuela. He comes from Warner Brothers.
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than using bit of metal as currency.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
People are using Pepe Cards with Bitcoin. Pepe (The guy the media has tried to tie to Trump and Racism.) To help save the economy of Venezuela. (The country sitting on shitloads of wealth that they can not use cause the went commie and retard at the same time.)
Trump racism saves the lefts favorite government?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Capitalism made the same mistake when Ireland relied too heavily on potatoes because they grew so well and were profitable ... until they all got sick.
Lesson: don't put all your economy in one basket, whether you are commies, socialists, capitalists, or some mix.
Table-ized A.I.
Let's stop you right there. Food production in Ireland rose during the famine. The problem was that the English were more interested in acquiring land, and also in genocide. Why don't you go read the wikipedia article on the subject. Your platitude may or may not be sound but your example is seriously off base. It's like blaming the Shoah on capitalism: there may be some senses in which it could be considered true, but it mostly happened because the people in charge wanted it to happen.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
The story lost me after "developers", but I'm getting a distinct whiff of hype with undertones of scam.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They're fighting socialism with memes? What is this, the 2016 election?
Poor people trying to create a pyramid scheme to sell to others so they can get rich.