Bitcoin Q&A: Remittances & Smuggling in Venezuela
Channel: aantonop
Date: 2017-01-26

Would countries reliant on remittances adopt cryptocurrencies? Price premiums providing an incentive for arbitrage in international transfers. To get money from the UK to India, Western Union will charge 5% in fees while Bitcoin will charge -20%. They can stop one person doing it, but they can't stop everyone or they're going to have to search a lot of luggage in the airports. If they start finding paper wallets, people will start memorising seeds and walk across the border with remittances. Mining factories and ant miner smuggling in Venezuela. Being involved with Bitcoin in Venezuela can put you in jail. If you live in the West - you think Bitcoin is hard, that it's too difficult to enter an 8-character password with symbols? Go talk to a Venezuelan about what they go through.

CLARIFICATION: At 2:26, I said that it was illegal to use bitcoin in to escape Venezuela's currency collapse. This is somewhat incorrect. There is still no law in Venezuela that is explicitly in favor or against the use of bitcoin itself; Bitcoin's status in Venezuela would be more accurately described as a grey market. Authorities have justified arrests based on accusations of "committing cyber fraud and power theft," or "money laundering" and "financing terrorism." Bitcoin miners are often subject to extortion by local police. Another charge has been "bypassing currency controls," which is what I meant to address in that statement.

This is part of a talk which took place on December 3rd 2016 at the Coinscrum {MiniCon}, hosted by Imperial College in London, England: https://www.meetup.com/coinscrum/events/235709468/

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