[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.