Slashdot Mirror
Venezuelans Flock To Cryptocoins Amid Spiralling Inflation (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg:
Demand for digital coins is soaring in Venezuela amid an escalating political crisis that has protesters demanding that President Nicolas Maduro step down. Inflation has spiraled to the triple digits, debasing the bolivar and depleting savings, while citizens struggle to find everything from food to medicine on store shelves. "If you're going to be in something volatile, you might as well be in something that's volatile and rising than volatile and falling," says Ryan Taylor, chief executive officer of crypto currency Dash Core, the third-largest digital coin by number of transactions... Bitcoin trading volume in Venezuela jumped to $1.3 million this week, about double the amount that changed hands two months ago, according to LocalBitcoins.com...
Venezuela's currency has become nearly worthless in the black market, where it takes more than 6,000 bolivars to buy $1, while bitcoin surged 53 percent in the past month alone. But it's not just about shielding against the falling bolivar, as some Venezuelans are using crypto currencies to buy and sell everyday goods and services, according to Jorge Farias, the CEO of Cryptobuyer.
Venezuela's currency has become nearly worthless in the black market, where it takes more than 6,000 bolivars to buy $1, while bitcoin surged 53 percent in the past month alone. But it's not just about shielding against the falling bolivar, as some Venezuelans are using crypto currencies to buy and sell everyday goods and services, according to Jorge Farias, the CEO of Cryptobuyer.
It's only a matter of time now. Maduro has armed tens of thousands of militia gang members. The criminals are also armed and looting and killing at will. People are starving to death and will eventually face a choice between a slow lingering death or going down fighting. It will happen quick once it gets started. Mobs will break into the arsenals and loot the weapons. Military units will face a choice of whose side to join, as they did in Syria. Maduro has made many enemies who will take the opportunity to settle scores and lots of hungry young men with nothing to do and no prospects will relish the chance to bleed the elites. All that's needed now is a spark and Maduro is sure to bungle into one sooner or later.
No, this is the point where you use basic political science definitions and point out that the thing that shitty governments tend to have in common far more than economic leanings is being authoritarian. Venezeula isn't shitty because they have universal healthcare, they are shitty because they have a dictator, and with a dictator, you tend to not actually fall within the ideals of any popular economic model.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Right now a lot of people use Bitcoin as a gold substitute. It's valuable because it's (relatively) secure and rare, exactly why people used gold for so long. But like gold, it's not actually practical for using as an everyday means of exchange.
Currency exchanges take too long to verify (half an hour or more), cost too much to do so (minor transactions can cost more to verify than exchanged hands), and the whole system sucks up a lot of power. While cryptocurrency as a valid backstop against incompetent governments is a great idea, a more technically proficient cryptocurrency, better designed for everyday transactions, would be a huge boon.
Except authoritarians ruling capitalist countries tend to do far better economically than authoritarians ruling communist countries. Examples: Pinochet's Chile, Nazi Germany, modern day China.
Authoritarianism is bad.
Communism is bad.
But the combination is even worse.
You are talking about Communism when you say Socialism. There are less extreme versions of socialism that aren't dictatorships. Having the government build and maintain roads is socialism, so is a government run police department or army. Having the government subsidize farmers and the "War on Drugs" is classic Socialism straight out of Karl Marx but Republicans have no problem with those.