[firekvz]

Hey there, another venezuelan here.

if you want to help this person PLEASE dont send any money without asking for verification first, I have seen so many people lately using this "please help me im venezuelan and i am in need" to scam money, there has been at least 5 sucessfull scams on r/btc, r/bitcoin and other online forums.

Also Please note that:

1- it's harder to change BTC for VEF than change USD for VEF

2- this domain it's registered at godaddys servers, meaning that what the OP claims here: "Venezuelans cannot accept USD without a bank account. You can use paypal but its hard to exchange from paypal USD to the venezuelan currency (Bolivares)" is half incorrect and does not really applies to him, he had to use either paypal or an international debit/credit card to pay for this domain.

[smallnamespace]

To add to this to this point:

1. USD is the de facto world currency, and many (most?) banks in the world let you open an account in the local currency, plus another account denominated in USD which is absolutely necessary for doing any sort of international business

2. Venezuela's currency collapse is a problem mainly because it needs to import goods (medicine, machine tools, etc.) from the international market, which must be paid in USD, and which Venezuela now can barely source because their oil industry (main source of foreign earnings) is falling apart [1]

3. In most cases, USD is superior (more liquid, more easy to transact in, a more stable store of value) to any cryptocurrency. View 'I'm Venezuela ergo crypto' claims with skepticism, especially when they could be paid in USD to a foreign account instead. Not sure what the exact situation on the ground is in Venezuela, maybe it's very hard to receive USD because the government will seize it, but that's the a situation a foreign bank account can solve.

OTOH, if the goal is to use BTC to pay for living expenses by converting to bolivars, it's probably even easier to use USD.

[1] https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13803

[jjeaff]

That's not even close to an accurate assessment. Yes, you can technically have a bank account in Venezuela denominated in USD. However, it would be completely useless for a few reasons.

You cannot withdraw USD in Venezuela. Only Bolivares. And when you withdraw Bolivares from a USD denominated account, the bank must do so at the official rate.

The official government rate is a complete farce and has no bearing on reality. If you were to pull out $1 USD from any bank in Venezuela, you would get about 10 Bolivares. The real rate on the street right now is about 3 million Bolivares to 1 USD. https://dolartoday.com/

In other words, with your USD denominated bank account, you would have to withdraw about $300k usd to buy a bottle of coke.

As for getting an overseas account, that is extremely difficult if not impossible without physically being in that country. In the US you cannot get a bank account without some type of US id, either a SSN or TIN/EIN.

There are very few ways to get money into venezuela. One is to be lucky enough to already have a foreign account or overseas family or friends with an account. You can then transact with other locals who also have a foreign account by transferring money to them electronically.

The other method is Western Union to an adjoining country like Colombia. They go across the border get the cash and come back to Venezuela. Crossing the border with cash is fraught with danger right now. The other option is simply to travel outside the country but getting a travel visa to fly is exceedingly difficult for most Venezuelans. Venezuelan officials have stopped issuing passports to most. And countries like the US are not quick to grant a visa considering the fact that the great majority of tourists from venezuela are going to stay in the US permanently/illegally.

As for crypto... you still have to find someone else with money that is willing to pay cash for a crypto currency. But at least the barrier of entry for crypto currency is much lower right now that the difficulty of getting an overseas bank account.

Things are very, very bad in Venezuela right now. Of course, that doesn't mean scammers won't scam. But if the person is truly still in Venezuela, it is very likely they are in dire straits.

[smallnamespace]

The thing is, I don't see how crypto helps solve any of those issues you enumerated.

I did specifically mention that regardless of whether you try to take crypto or USD, if your goal is to immediately convert into bolivares for survival spending, neither is easy or simple, since the government presumably wants to seize any USD it can get its hands on (the extortionate 'official' conversion rate just being a particular method of doing so).

> But at least the barrier of entry for crypto currency is much lower right now that the difficulty of getting an overseas bank account.

I don't see how that is the case, unless you have a specific example? Sure, you can get a crypto account and perhaps get someone to pay you, but you can equally well get a PayPal account denominated in USD, if you didn't already have a foreign bank account.

Neither of those can directly translate into bolivares, but at least the PayPal account can be be easily used to buy physical goods and perhaps get them into the country if you can bypass or bribe your way through customs.

[datalist]

Slow down, "de facto world currency" and "most banks" is somewhat exaggerated.

The dollar is still a very strong currency and in many areas the leader, but it is still not the world currency. Equally, banks do offer sometimes accounts denominated in USD but this applies mostly to larger banks, is typically a special kind of package, and is a classic foreign currency account you can open for GBP, EUR, SGD, and many other currencies too.

[jjeaff]

It is most definitely the most used currency for international trade worldwide. It also makes up 64% of all known central bank's foreign currency reserves. If we were to declare a world currency, it would most definitely be USD. Hence why the poster used the term "defacto" I suppose.

[datalist]

Hence I wrote "strong" and "leader in many areas".

"World currency" implies more than a dominant use in international transactions though.

My overall point is the statement as-is (currency and banks) is somewhat exaggerated.

[smallnamespace]

Currency has three main uses: as a unit of settlement (medium of exchange), unit of account, and as a store of value.

USD is by far the leading currency for all three use cases, and you can tell it's the de facto world currency because even international transactions between non-USD-using parties use USD by default.

Whenever a Japanese bank and a Chinese bank transact, it's in dollars. Whenever Venezuela and Cuba transact, it's also in dollars. Whenever international business happens, also in dollars.

This pattern repeats to the tune of 95%+ of the nominal value of all world transactions. Many countries also peg their currency to the USD, e.g. HKD is basically the US dollar.

That's clearly not true for any other currency, and certainly not crypto. I mean, at what point would you agree that it's really the world currency — only when every single transaction is actually denominated de jure in dollars?

[petraeus]

the Usd is the de-facto reserve currency of the world, its how america is able to export its inflation and keep printing money without diluting the value of the dollar.

[1996]

I wont help, as in give money against nothing, but if I have things to translate I will consider their services.

And if their prices are competitive, I have no problem giving them my business.

Commerce is the best help system there is.

[thepumpkin1979]

op is not the Venezuelan behind the service, explained here[0].

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17512031

[firekvz]

that makes it even more suspicious.

The venezuelan in question, could just use any other freelancing site or a service like fiverr just like any other venezuelan or person from another country.

There is countless way to get paid even if you are Venezuelan living in venezuela, you can normally have a paypal account and use tons of others services like neteller, paxum, payoneer, etc, etc.

I am just warning everyone to be carefull if they feel the need to help the person behind this site in a different way, the site looks like a really smart idea but please be sure that its legit :)

[EnderWT]

http://whois.domaintools.com/cointotranslate.com is showing: Registrant State/Province: Florida Registrant Country: US

Registered today with GoDaddy.

If you inspect the source, you'll see javascript from www.unbounce.com, which charges a minimum $79/month for marketing. Minimum daily wage in Venezuela is $0.26/day according to https://panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2018/01/04/new-monthly-...

[thepumpkin1979]

It seems like you know your away around getting paid in the country, any chance you can get in touch and explain it to them? I wish I could, I'm also Venezuelan but I left in 2010 so I have no idea.

[firekvz]

Having a paypal account with an Venezuelan adress allows you to receive payments and to spend the USD of those payments within the paypal network (any site that takes paypal payments).

You can also have other services like payoneer, paxum, skrill, neterller, etc...

Plus, as you should know since you are expat, around 20% of the population has left the country so everyone knows or have a close family/friend who is living outside who can perfectly handle payments for a person in need to receive payments.

[Grue3]

If he really does the job and the price is fair (I have no idea how much BTC or ETH is worth right now) then does it really matter if the person is Venezuelan or not?

[julionav]

Venezuelan here. I have to disagree. Changing BTC to VEF is way easy than USD to VEF. I have to exchange my USD to BTC to be able to get VEF.

[rorykoehler]

Can you not directly spend USD in Venezuela (like what happened in Zimbabwe before they switched officially)?

[firekvz]

You actually can, there is some ways you can do it:

1. Sellers of "normal" stuff will take USD if you "deal" with them, for example if you need to buy a motherboard, most likely the seller will instantly say yes to an USD offer before getting paid in VEF because the money wont get devaluated in USD, if you check mercadolibre.com.ve (ebay equivalent in venezuela) you can see alot of people offering USD.

2. USD is used for properties such as cars, houses, land, etc. If you want to purchase/sell some of theses you pretty much have to pay/get paid in USD, not in VEF. Of course this is because devaluation is so big that if you sell something in VEF next day you can just lose 5% out of nowhere.

3. If you own a USD debit or credit card, you can use it within Venezuela payment networks, you just wont get the black market rate, you will get the dicom rate that is currently 119.850,00 VEF per 1 usd.. while the black market rate is around 3.200.000 VEF per 1 usd, so you definetely can, just that you wont get a good rate.

And last, it takes some 10 minutes or less to deal exchange of VEF to USD at black market rates, you just need to have the most minimal social interaction, as everyone has friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers, etc who is changing this, it's just such a natural thing to do, dont let the name of "black market" make you think that is some shaddy thing that you need to do where you risk your life, its just some natural exchange of currency that most venezuelans know how to deal with.

[whymauri]

This is on point. If you need to change USD -> VEF or back you hit up a cousin on WhatsApp. I actually met someone recently who ran an informal alcohol delivery service back in ~2013-14 who offered discounts if you paid him in USD.

[whymauri]

I mean, depends on what you mean by directly spend. You can definitely exchange USD for goods and services from individuals and small companies.