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The Almighty Buck

The Coder and the Dictator (nytimes.com) 120

An anonymous reader writes: If you are a cryptocurrency enthusiast living in a brutal dictatorship, and you use cryptocurrency as a way to evade the restrictions and bad economic policies of that dictatorship, and one day the brutal dictator comes to you and asks you to design a cryptocurrency for him, do you think that designing that cryptocurrency for him will usher in a new era of freedom and wise economic policies? Or, you know, not? The answer is "not," of course, but I appreciated the naive idealism of Gabriel Jimenez, the designer of Venezuela's Petro cryptocurrency, in this story by Nathaniel Popper and Ana Vanessa Herrero. From the report: Mr. Jimenez was just 27, ran a tiny start-up, and had spent years protesting the dictator. Mr. Maduro had not just mismanaged his country into financial crisis -- he had detained, tortured and murdered those who challenged his power. But whatever Mr. Jimenez felt about the regime, he felt just as strongly about the potential of cryptocurrency. When the Maduro administration approached him about creating a digital coin, Mr. Jimenez saw an opportunity to change his country from within. If a national cryptocurrency was done right, Mr. Jimenez believed, he could give the government what it wanted -- a way to fight hyperinflation -- while also stealthily introducing technology that would give Venezuelans a measure of freedom from a government that dictated every detail of daily life. His friends and family warned him that working with the regime could only end badly. It ended badly.
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The Coder and the Dictator

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  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday March 23, 2020 @03:37PM (#59863796)

    Not that Maduro is a nice person or anything, but could this be any more lurid? I haven't seen this kind of phrasing since old Soviet Pravda closed shop.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:4, Informative)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Monday March 23, 2020 @06:50PM (#59864500)

        their country sits on one of the world's largest reserves of sweet sweet oil

        Venezuelan oil is high-sulfur "sour" oil.

        It is expensive to refine and thus fetches a much lower price than sweet oil.

        Sweet crude oil [wikipedia.org]

        • Surely the Tangerine Shitgibbon will mandate use of high-sulphur oil as soon as some of his corporate cronies get some production coming their way. It's not like those trees needed those leaves anyway.

          Besides, most of the acid fall out will land in Canada, and they woult dare to do anything about it. And making the North Atlantic more acid will drive some of the CO2 out of it, making everywhere warmer. Win Win Win! for the Orange Overlord [garfield.com]!

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      Yeah, no kidding. Gotta love how they claim that the economy is in its current state specifically because of Maduro, not because of almost two decades of attacks on its currency by the US gov't,, Wall Street, and the banking conglomerates.

  • Techie arrogance (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday March 23, 2020 @03:42PM (#59863808)

    It's ludicrous to think that somehow you, even being oh so smart, are going to be able to outmaneuver someone who's spent his entire life destroying his enemies.

    I suppose that XKCD five-dollar wrench [xkcd.com] comic is somewhat applicable, even though it's not directly analogous.

    • It seems to always come down to one of two fallacies: "I can't quantify/don't understand soft skills so they must not be very important" or "This person isn't intelligent in the way I am so I will obviously be able to outwit them at their own game". Both seem to involve a measure of arrogance combined with the inability to make the inferential leap that since so many are trying to attain power, a significant measure of ability must be required for those in power to keep it.
    • someone who's spent his entire life destroying his enemies.

      Maduro spent most of his life working as a bus driver.

      • Maduro spent most of his life working as a bus driver.

        Only if you believe his "working life" ended well before the year 2000 - that's when he was elected to Venezuela's National Assembly (and was soon pulled into Chavez's inner circle). And given he was a trade union leader before that, I'd say most of his working life has demonstrably been as a politician.

  • Is this an ad for a book? There's no way this is a news story.
  • He literally made the van Braun "nazi" decision. Join the nazi party, join the SS, as long as it lets me research and develop my favorite technology. Rockets for von Braun, cryptocurrency for Jimenez.
    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      Except that in this case the group that he joined is intent on improving the lot of the poor, rather than starting an unwinnable war and massacring millions. Just a little tiny difference there.

      • by drnb ( 2434720 )

        Except that in this case the group that he joined is intent on improving the lot of the poor, rather than starting an unwinnable war and massacring millions. Just a little tiny difference there.

        LOL - "improving the lot of the poor". I'm sure the party posters say that but deeds and results tell a different story.

        And von Braun told himself he was helping mankind by letting it move into outer space.

        It seems your "little difference" is a literal one, not a sarcastic one.

        • Well they did build that Nazi moon base after all.
          • by drnb ( 2434720 )

            Well they did build that Nazi moon base after all.

            Don't forget the antarctic base.

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          Prior to the election of Chavez over 90% of the income in the country went to less then 5% of the population, it was one of the most unequal economies in the world. Then they made the mistake of holding almost-honest elections, thinking that since they elites controlled all the press in the country that they could control the outcome. Oops.

          Even as bad as the US's financial attacks have made their living conditions the average Venezuelan is still better off today than they were in 1998. Of course the US p

          • by drnb ( 2434720 )

            ... the average Venezuelan is still better off today than they were in 1998 ...

            "The sustainability of the Bolivarian Missions has been questioned due to the Bolivarian state's overspending on public works and because the Chávez government did not save funds for future economic hardships like other OPEC nations; with economic issues and poverty rising as a result of their policies in the 2010s.[25][246][247] In 2003 the government of Hugo Chávez implemented currency controls after capital flight led to a devaluation of the currency. This led to the development of a parallel

            • by cusco ( 717999 )

              Yes, it's upsetting that they can't buy stuff because of artificial shortage created by the country's elite (which is why they occupied the toilet paper factory), but prior to 1998 they also couldn't buy toilet paper, except that the cause then was they didn't have the money to even purchase sufficient food. Of course they wouldn't have needed it then, since the poorer neighborhoods of Caracas didn't have water, sewer, electricity, schools, markets, etc. like they do now.

              • by drnb ( 2434720 )
                LOL -- 20 years later you still try to blame the 1998 elites. Like the last 20 years of marxist leadership has nothing to do with the problem.
                • by cusco ( 717999 )

                  You really don't know anything about Venezuela, do you? The elites still own the majority of the country and almost all its businesses and the vast majority of its press, they're just upset because they're only pulling in (last I checked) 60% of the country's income now instead of 95%. Without Chavez and Maduro (who are not communists, they're socialists, and no matter what your personal religion says the two are not the same) the people of Venezuela would be in the same state as the Hondurans. Want to s

                  • by alantus ( 882150 )

                    Want to see caravans of Venezuelans walking to the US border? Just let DC put Guiado in charge.

                    That's funny because Venezuelans have been leaving the country by the millions [wikipedia.org] thanks to Chavez and Maduro. I'm sure you will find a way to spin that around and blame the elites too :)

                    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
                    • by cusco ( 717999 )

                      Keep in mind that the rich still own the media companies and have no hesitation to lie to viewers. The Venezuelan guy that works in the stamping mill in Lima that my nephew owns was an engineer (mechanical, I think) in Caracas. The media tell them that Venezuelan professionals are in great demand in other countries of South America and will easily get visas and jobs anywhere they go. He was washing car windows on a street corner when my nephew hired him, now this guy with an engineering degree and severa

                    • by alantus ( 882150 )

                      This is not true, the Chavistas control the majority of the media through threats, fines, etc.

                      They closed RCTV, the most popular TV station at the time. They stole their equipment and launched a channel that praises the so called "revolution" in its place. They bought the main news channel, Globovision, in order to control the editorial line. The other important channels, Venevision and Televen were forced to change their line under threats of expropriation, turning them into a carcass of what they were

                    • by cusco ( 717999 )

                      You do remember why they closed that bunch of television and radio stations, don't you? Most of them had let their licenses lapse and refused to pay the pittance for renewal fees because in Venezuela the owners of the country had never had to do that. The rest were licensed under the names of dead people or names of people who didn't actually exist. They were given three frelling years to get their licenses in order.

                      Denied them access to foreign currency? That's what the US has been doing to the entire

  • by Tensor ( 102132 ) on Monday March 23, 2020 @05:37PM (#59864196)
    What Mr Jimenez saw is the same thing EVERYONE who supports this semi leftist semi dictatorships in South America... An easy way to make a buck out of the trillions being stolen from these economies.
    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      You do realize that it's the US who's currently stealing Venezuelan money? They've sequestered several hundred million dollars from Venezuelan petroleum sales that were in US banks and have given control of it to Guaido the Gusano, the guy who declared himself president after he couldn't even get elected leader of his own political party.

      • by alantus ( 882150 )

        The US recognizes Guaido as the legitimate president, and as such gives control of the assets of Venezuela to his government.

        Gaudio was declared interim president by the National Assembly, the constitution has an article saying that if the president is declared (by the National Assembly) as having abandoned his post, the president of the Assembly becomes president of the country temporarily, until new elections can be organized. But the army is controlled by Maduro, and bullets are more convincing than the

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          When a guy has been laundering money for the Colombian cartels for decades and finances an attempted coup most countries would put them in prison for a very, very long time. Lopez has been handled with kid gloves.

  • by Tom ( 822 )

    the political partisanship is strong with this one...

    Not that he has a clean vest, but neither has his opposition, and the amount of one-sided choice of words and phrases in the article is astonishing. It reminds me of Cold War propaganda or the tone of russian news. So clearly overboard that you wonder why anyone believes that.

    Again, not that he's a holy man. But by putting it on so thick, you actually make people wonder if maybe he's not so bad because you're really overdoing it and that usually means it'

  • Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mike Van Pelt ( 32582 ) on Monday March 23, 2020 @07:23PM (#59864630)

    It's amazing how a certain segment professes to believe without any question whatsoever the press releases from socialist dictatorships, and gushes "I have seen the future and it works!" Until the pile of bodies becomes undeniable, then their past support gets dropped down the memory hole, and "(Stalin/Lenin/Castro/Mao/Chaves/Maduro) was never a *real* socialist, oh, no, never, that has nothing to do with *real* socialism. This time for sure!" (enter next mass-murdering thug who mouths nicey-nice sounding platitudes.)

    • It's equally amazing how a certain segment is happy with government services they approve of and take them as something due by right - but if they don't approve of the service, then suddenly government services are "socialist". This same segment is equally clueless about the number of free and democratic countries around the world that somehow provide those "socialist" services without turning into dictatorships.

      • Very few, other than the more extreme anarcholibertarians, assert that all government services are "socialist." That canard is regularly trotted out by those trying to nationalize everything whenever anyone objects to being nationalized.

        The topic of this story was Venezuela. Venezuela. The country that has been destroyed by the socialist dictatorship of Chavez and Maduro, and which was praised (until the results became undeniable even by him) by a certain senator who proudly declares himself to be a "d

  • Thanks for reading The Times. Create your free account or log in to continue reading.

    I'm soooo looking forward to giving away some personal information to read this unbiased and informative article.

  • by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @03:04AM (#59865794) Journal

    It has been a common theme in history that when a King commissioned an architect to build them something the King would execute the architect on completion of the commission.

    This way the King was assured that not only would it be the architect's finest work and the crowning moment of the architect's career, it would be the last work they ever did.

    This is always a risk to be considered when approaching men of power.

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