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Comment by thatguyagain | Hacker News Reader

Any sources on how many Venezuelans actually moved their money into crypto?

Usually this is where someone from Venezuela comes along and tells us that this is a tiny minority, and most people want US Dollars because they can actually use those.

The government controls the traditional US Dollars remittance systems. They can force absurdly bad exchange rates. Crypto shines where the government is messing with banking and currencies.

I'm from Argentina, people who want to trade US dollars usually do it on illegal unofficial markets with better rates. I think it's likely that it's the same in Venezuela.

> Crypto shines where the government is messing with banking and currencies

but isn't any cryptocurrency still directly tied to some fiat currency? Unless everyone uses crypto then at some point it gets exchanged for dollars at which point the low value of the dollar in a place like Venezuela is realized and you're stuck in the same situation but with more hassle.

That's nice, but you appear to be bringing up theoretical conditions as a counter to actual observed behaviour.

Crypto might well potentially shine under such circumstances, or under your view of what such circumstances might be, but the truth on the ground is apparently different.

Cited this article in another response: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research bitcoin adoption in Venezuela is more than theoretical and is being used to send money into the country.

I was under the impression US cash apps like Zelle were far more popular than cryptocurrency: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-11-11/zelle-has...

Volume for p2p bitcoin exchanges in July 2019 was 20million a month: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research

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