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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

Venezuela Has Bitcoin Stash and Doesn't Know What to Do With It (bloomberg.com) 82

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Venezuela's central bank is running internal tests to determine whether it can hold cryptocurrencies in its coffers, Bloomberg reports. From the report: The efforts come at the behest of state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, which is seeking to send Bitcoin and Ethereum to the central bank and have the monetary authority pay the oil company's suppliers with the tokens, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations. Staffers are also studying proposals that would allow cryptocurrencies to be counted toward international reserves, now near a three-decade low at $7.9 billion. U.S. sanctions against Nicolas Maduro's authoritarian regime have largely isolated Venezuela from the global financial system, exacerbating one of world's most severe economic crises and forcing officials to use a patchwork of methods to move money around. While Maduro's prior efforts to start the world's first sovereign crypto largely failed, the continued efforts to use digital currencies shows how desperate the government is to come up with a way to skirt the restrictions.
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Venezuela Has Bitcoin Stash and Doesn't Know What to Do With It More

Venezuela Has Bitcoin Stash and Doesn't Know What to Do With It

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  • Over here (Score:2, Funny)

    by pak9rabid ( 1011935 )
    They can give them to me and I'll exchange them into bananas for them.

  • If bitcoin transactions are anonymous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @11:26AM (#59239436)

    then what"s the problem?

    Oh wait, they're not...

    • A while back about a billion dollars worth of bitcoins was moved, who dun it? Nobody seems to know and if it can't be figured out for a transaction of this magnitude it's anonymous enough.

      • A while back about a billion dollars worth of bitcoins was moved, who dun it? Nobody seems to know and if it can't be figured out for a transaction of this magnitude it's anonymous enough.

        Just because you don't know who moved them, doesn't mean it remains unknown. It's all about having the ability to trace the transaction as needed The NSA found satoshi [medium.com], and you think they can't trace this?

        • Let me get this right, your claim that Satoshi has been found is based on a blogpost that reads:

          Sources: Many readers have asked that I provide third party citations to ‘prove’ the NSA identified Satoshi using stylometry. Unfortunately, I cannot bla, bla, bla....

          There are tons of people who claim to know who Satoshi is or even that they themselves are Satoshi. Yet nobody has been able to move bitcoins that are actually known to belong to Satoshi. How the hell does anyone take a blogpost like this seriously?

          • I don't expect anyone to do anything. The point is that with enough resources you can unravel a lot of the blockchain, which is much easier than the text analysis shown in the blog post. You can also look at the sleuthing that was done after the collapse of Mt.Gox [reuters.com], or the company Elliptic [elliptic.co] that can trivially track laundering and does so daily for multiple exchanges, or BitPay's global fleet of nodes that analyzes the transaction pool to identify the pyhsical origin of a transaction. Again, the point is that
            • Bitcoin isn't anonymous because sooner or later the criminal will make a mistake? By that metric my pants are transparent because sooner or later I will make some mistake and everyone will know what color underpants I wear.

              • Bitcoin is based on a block chain. It can't be anonymous and never was supposed to be.

                Consider it like a paper check were each holder has to sign on the back side.

                • Yeah, I know how bitcoin blockchain works. But your identity is not attached to your signature and you can have as many signatures as you wish. Bitcoin itself does not identify you in any way, you yourself have to in some way leak out information that some particular bitcoins belong to you. You remember Dread Pirate Roberts? The guy who though it a good idea to make a mockery of US security apparatus for years while actually living in the country? Yeah he got caught eventually, but not though bitcoin. He wa

    • They were never supposed to be anonymous. That was the whole point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Njovich ( 553857 )

      The problem is that you will tank your asset if you dump enough of it on the market. Not sure what anonomity has to do with it, anonymous just means without a name, it doesn't mean anything magic or untraceable or something like that.

    • Bitcoin is very private with wallets like wasabi or lightning wallets
  • 3ETKbeiz4cg1bzCe8zVfUCuT3n5penA22S
  • For all of it's ups and owns, at least Bitcoin is more stable than Venezuela's own currency. To give credit to the industrious people of Venezuela, they have started to find other uses [miamiherald.com] for their own currency.

    At least the government won't be able to just print bitcoins and hyper-inflate them (the IMF estimated that the Bolivar will reach 10,000,000% inflation [reuters.com]), which would probably go a long way towards helping the country stabilize itself economically.
    • Would also help of countries like the United States and UK didn't seize Venezuela's assets,
      • Why should we trade and do open business with a brutal dictator? Which assets were seized that were not part of a loan that Venezuela didn't pay back? The only seizures I know of were loss of collateral for unpaid/way over due loans. That is how loans work.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          Why should we trade and do open business with a brutal dictator?

          I don't know. Why did we trade and do open business with so many South American brutal dictators over the years. We shouldn't have with them, and we shouldn't with Maduro - or with Mohammad bin Salman, or Putin, or Kim Jong-un, or anybody else in that ilk.

          • All true. During the Cold War I am sure you are aware of the phrase, "he's a bastard but he's our bastard". These days I see no reason to deal positively with that sort of country.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Agripa ( 139780 )

            Why should we trade and do open business with a brutal dictator?

            I don't know. Why did we trade and do open business with so many South American brutal dictators over the years. We shouldn't have with them, and we shouldn't with Maduro - or with Mohammad bin Salman, or Putin, or Kim Jong-un, or anybody else in that ilk.

            It is different when they are "our" brutal dictators.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fred911 ( 83970 )

          '' Which assets were seized that were not part of a loan''

            It's probably a reference when Exon/Mobile got all their international funds locked up when they nationalized and threw XOM out. They never got the funds back as the lost in court.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          Why should we trade and do open business with a brutal dictator?

          Willful dumbfuckery. If Chavez or Maduro were dictators, the traitors planning coups with foreign governments would have been drawn and quartered in the streets, not given amnesty for holding the president at gunpoint, or spend months parading [mintpressnews.com] themselves around as the "legitimate" president while trying to start coups and work with foreign nations to overthrow the government when you can't be bothered [reuters.com] to try to win at the ballot box.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      ''At least the government won't be able to just print bitcoins and hyper-inflate them''

      Bolivares Fuertes [when they make them stronger] are no longer able to be counted to purchase items. Their largest denomination is now traded by weight. Even 15 years ago the street exchange rate was 50 times the their banking systems rate.

        Regardless of what the means of trade is, a country that doesn't have sufficient food will always have runaway inflation.

  • When you can use control of international banking to strangle a countries independence and force its collapse.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      When you can use control of international banking to strangle a countries independence and force its collapse.

      The Chavezistas are doing just fine ruining the country themselves. You don't need to bring in outside groups like the CIA or IMF.

      • Nice try Potsy, but the United States is causing the economic hardships and killing people due to these sanctions. The Chavezistas aren't responsible for this mess.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          Nice try yourself. Chavez had a nice economy going but then decided he needed to spend all the loot. And then he spent loot he didn't have. Then he died, and the current bus driver took over and decided that Chavez's economical "miracle" could work for him as well, so he drove the economy further into the ditch. The U.S. was a late comer to the party and the Rube in the White House thought it would be a something he could crow about if he could manage to take out the Maduro. But he fanned on the shot and no

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

          Nice try Potsy, but the United States is causing the economic hardships and killing people due to these sanctions. The Chavezistas aren't responsible for this mess.

          So...the US is the one keeping Venezuela, a state with massive oil reserves, from putting any capital into maintaining and modernizing oil production facilities and key infrastructure such as the power grid? Oh, but Maduro and his gang are still living like kings. How's that Petro going by the way, since the article is about cryptocurrency?

        • No, this is on Maduro conducting an illegal, corrupt election in which no one in the free world recognizes the results [wikipedia.org]. When you have the EU, the UN, and the US all saying the election was bogus - it definitely was. Maduro refuses to recognize the election results, and chooses to maintain a stranglehold on power - this is all on him.

          • Re: The EU govt. declarations on recognising the 2018 Venezuelan general election, I couldn't find any mention of an observation mission by the main EU body, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). If you want to declare an election unlawful or unfair, these are the people that perform the observations and produce the reports under which those claims should be made, i.e. based on rational, systematically gathered evidence on the quality & nature of the elections.

            There are

            • Here you go [europa.eu] - EU's statement on Venezuela's election. Surprised you couldn't click on the links in the Wikipedia page I referenced. The EU is on-record as stating that Maduro manipulated the system such that free, fair, and open elections could be held.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gwolf ( 26339 )

            Well, and the USA is the only laughing-stock country in the world where a clown lost an election but still became president because of the backwards and illogical electoral system.
            Which, come to think of it, is very much like Cuba's multi-tiered electoral system the USA is so fond of criticizing. And with very similar results! Well, not single-party, but two-almost-identical-party, for even longer.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Uberbah ( 647458 )

            No, this is on Maduro conducting an illegal, corrupt election in which no one in the free world recognizes the results. When you have the EU, the UN, and the US all saying the election was bogus - it definitely was

            Too bad that's all imperialist horseshit. The opposition asked [reuters.com] the UN not send observers after they boycotted the election. The only reason to do that is if you know you can't win, but want to craft a narrative that the CIA and State Department can use to try and overthrow the government so you ca

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        The Chavezistas are doing just fine ruining the country themselves.

        Willful dumbfuckery. Even Fox News was touting Venezuela's economy before Obama decided it was time to crush it for daring to ditch the petrodollar.

        https://www.foxnews.com/world/... [foxnews.com]

  • sanctions only affect the poor (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swell ( 195815 ) <jabberwock@poetic.com> on Thursday September 26, 2019 @12:17PM (#59239600)

    Dictators and corrupt government officials can ride out sanctions and continue living a comfortable life. Ordinary citizens pay the price for their government. They pay through the cost of inflation and lost jobs and business, of course. They pay with their lives due to hunger and military crackdowns.

    It is the dictators that should pay for their corruption. Bomb them into oblivion.

    • So who determines who's considered a dictator? To many people Trump is a dictator. So the United States should be bombed?
      • Get over your lame TDS. This isn't high school. Adults are talking. Maduro lost an election and used the military to stay in power. That makes him a dictator. But you knew that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          Maduro lost an election and used the military to stay in power. That makes him a dictator. But you knew that.

          False, false and false, respectively. Maybe you knew that, or maybe you just eat up any old bullshit sundae served to you by the CIA. With a spoon. Maduro won re-election in a system called one of the fairest in the world by people who have actually gone there. In an election boycotted by the opposition party, who also asked the UN not to send observers. [reuters.com] The only reason you would want to do so is

      • Re:sanctions only affect the poor (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @01:43PM (#59239896) Journal
        Has President Trump ignored a judge's order? Has he held corrupt elections, and had his opponents terrorized or killed? No? Then he's not a dictator. Unlike Maduro, who's done all of those.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          Has President Trump ignored a judge's order? Has he held corrupt elections, and had his opponents terrorized or killed? No? Then he's not a dictator. Unlike Maduro, who's done all of those.

          Hey Lynn, I'm a CIA agent and I have some oceanfront property in Kansas that I'd like to sell you for a cheap rate. Since you believe any stupid BS cranked out by that organization, no matter how divorced from reality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      Yeah, but sanctions are not designed to impact the government officials, and the misery that they produce in the ordinary citizens is just a byproduct. Sanctions are tools of domestic policy, a way to reward your supporters by hurting someone they don't like and looking tough.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        Yeah, but sanctions are not designed to impact the government officials,

        Not true. In many cases sanctions are not put (or are weaker) on official government accounts and organizations but instead are put on personal or business accounts of senior government officials and/or their family, advisors, etc. Russia is a good example of this.

    • The poor, who are famously unaffected by bombing campaigns.

    • The U.S. sanctions are a prohibition on U.S. companies and citizens doing business transactions with the Venezuelan government. The Venezuelan government does not have a fundamental right to force a country to do business with it if the country does not wish to do so. If there's anything in the sanctions to complain about, it's that the U.S. is also trying to penalize foreign companies which do business with both Venezuela and the U.S. And up until last month, the U.S. was hypocritcally continuing to buy [eia.gov]

      • The U.S. sanctions are a prohibition on U.S. companies and citizens doing business transactions with the Venezuelan government. The Venezuelan government does not have a fundamental right to force a country to do business with it if the country does not wish to do so.

        If the country did not wish to do business with the Venezuelan government or private Venezuelan citizens then there would be no point in any prohibition. As you say, the Venezuelan government has no right to force anyone to do business with it, and more to the point has no power to do so outside its own territory. Rather, the countries would like to do business, and have a fundamental right to do so, but a small portion of onecountry (the U.S. government) has decided to prohibit the exercise of this right a

    • Venezuela is neither helmed by a dictator nor corrupt. It's sin is in selling oil in currencies other than the USD.

  • I thought that Bitcoin was supposed to free people from the sinsister currency manipulations of oppressive governments.

    But now it's being used to prop up the oppressive governments themselves.

  • You smoke it, otherwise, it might go bad.

  • Problem solved.

  • Hello. I am a Venezuelan prince ....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Hello. I am a Venezuelan prince ....

      Nope, more like "Hello, I am Venezuela baseball player recently signed big contract with New York Yankee. However I cannot get out of country to join team and collect signing bonus. Please send $5000 to help buy ticket to US and I will give you half of singing bonus worth over $5 million US."

    • Hey I wired you that money but haven't heard back. Do you still need help moving that Venezuelan oil money and a ride from the airport to your villa? I'm concerned they may have grabbed you! Please let me know you're ok and if my wire covered the fund transfer taxes! I await your next instructions.
  • So that's where all the malware unencryption payoffs are going ...
  • and use that to enrich the wealth of its dictator.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Uberbah ( 647458 )

      How many dictators do you know of who let members of an opposition party parade around the country for months, claiming he's the real president of the country, trying to start coup attempts, and working with foreign governments to overthrow the leader of the country?

      Idiot.

  • USA shame (Score:3)

    by bigtreeman ( 565428 ) <treecolin@@@gmail...com> on Thursday September 26, 2019 @06:59PM (#59241016)

    USA shame,
    Economic warfare is widely applied to "unfriendly" governments,
    often for decades, leaving generations in poverty,
    often socialist, or they just look different, not white enough

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