Venezuela - A Prime Example of Bitcoin Usefulness.

As of my writing 5USD is equal to 1,319,015 VEF Venezuelan Bolivar...

2 Months ago, 5 USD was worth 545, 450 VEF..

Like in the USA, people used to buy groceries monthly or bi monthly. Now they are living day to day, buying enough food to be able to eat for that day, as they cannot afford to buy groceries for longer than that. On top of that, regulations on their food prevent them buying enough to last over a week, much less a month. The "basic goods basket", which is the amount of money required to buy basic goods for a month is priced at about 8-10 times more than one can make in a month.. So with minimum wage you are able to buy 6-10 meals in a month without waging in electricity, water, garbage disposal, cable, telephone, internet, school, clothing, etc.

People spend their days thinking what line are they going to be in tomorrow. You often hear "I have to go to [store] tomorrow, they are going to sell [item]." Every day, that's all that's in their minds. It used to be driving to the market, but now you cannot even drive to the stores needed to buy these items. Cars are defunct and cannot be repaired, as nobody has the money. Due to the regulations, a new group of people have come in and made money off the rest of the people. They find the goods at regulation maximum, and buy all the goods. Then they resell to the rest of Venezuelans at waay more expensive prices than needed. That makes the regulation prices (minimum wage for a month gives a week of food), into alot more expensive prices, and families have to ration to eating about one or twice a week maximum.

I was born in Venezuela, and as an 17 year old, through a quite harrowing experience, I was smuggled out with my mother and we built a small life for ourselves in the USA. My father, along with my other relatives and siblings stayed as they didnt want to leave the others but wanted me and mother to try surviving a better life.

Despite the fact I am out of Venezuela, majority of my family lives there and I had a hard time with that. I couldnt send money to them, nor could I send goods because the Venezuelan postmen are notorious for looking through packages sent and pocketing what they think is valuable. Then I was introduced to Bitcoin. Bitcoin was anonymous. The Venezuelan government couldnt intercept that mail, as it was a digital mail. I saved up and visited my family in Venezuela in October 2017 and set them up to receive bitcoin from me and taught them how to sell it. Whenever they could, they used some BTC i gave them and sold just enough through localbitcoins and bought plenty of goods as they could. 15 USD worth of BTC gave them enough to fund food and other goods for a month. (They are a family of 8). They sold just enough as they needed in a month as inflation made that money lose half of its value in a few weeks. Through the use of Bitcoin, I was able to send money to my family and they could actually USE it.

I, now 25 and still living with my mother, have a job that allows me to have a little extra than I need, even though not much. So whatever extra money I have expendable every 2 weeks after my paycheck goes to buy more btc. I am able to send enough and make enough money money out of altcoins to make my family and 6 other families survive and not completely starve themselves every month. (about 100-300USD) My family, the good but frustrating people they are, still dont use most of the money for themselves and give out money to others for them to survive too.

My whole point of this account is that you can hate bitcoin and cryptocurrencies all you want. You can call it a bubble or call me stupid for investing in to it. But the use of bitcoin and its "decentralized" nature allows my family and a few others to get VEF and survive, when they were scraping on the side and starving themselves. They can circumvent the governmental control and have a small living. And despite their situation, I thank Bitcoin, whomever developed it, and all its users for me being able to do this and pay forward my luck to other members in humanity.

Thanks for reading..

• EDIT; This was not and is not intent of writing this post, as I was planning on doing this myself, but a few PMs and comments inspired me to do this. I have placed a newly created bitcoin address. It is created with the intent of taking the btc and placing it Venezuela. I will not trade or do anything with it and will share pictures of what the effect of everything that is possible with your bitcoin donations (from food to education). Remember, even 5 dollars is more than a monthly salary for many of these people, so any little amount helps. If you want me to add a new address for another cryptocurrency, feel free to message me what you would like to donate. Not necessary nor urged, im already doing it with my own money, but if you feel like you want to contribute, even if i am a stranger on the internet, feel free to do so.

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Submitted January 26, 2018 at 04:56AM by ZeConfusedOneAgain http://ift.tt/2rLjnnR