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I'm not starving (for now), but the situation is very frustrating.
I around 30 years old,engineer with a work that is well paid here in Venezuela (I earn about 15 USD per month, mind you…..) I really believe in Litecoin and in cryptocurrency in general (I don't believe in the Petro, government backed up currency which I think it's a scam)
My mother and father worked as teachers years ago (they are retired right now), the amount of money they get after they stopped working is around 4 USD per month! I understand that in some countries the relationship between parents and son is not that close (all the latin american countries are like this), but I just cannot do anything seeing as they quality of life lowers day after day, they made possible that I went to the uni (here the uni is free, but you still need money for transportation, printings, food, books and a scientific calculator, here you get (or used to get before the situation had worsened) that money from yourself in a mid time work or from your parents, not from the banks like in the US)
So I have to pay for everything for them, they use their money to buy some vegetables and pay for the public services (which have a price that match these wages, I mean electricity, tap water, gas for cooking and phone) and that's all. They suffer for blood pressure; they too taken meds which is around 10 USD per month (name are ibersatan, carvedilol and valsartan)
I'm currently spending all the money I earn and each day it lasts me for less time (yes, there is inflation in USD as well, because yet most of the prices in USD and under the international price you should be paying in a country similar to Venezuela) I don't know how can I keep it more. I'm saving "something" of course in LTC (I have around 0,1 LTC), I use mostly Airtm (A webpage that lets you change LTC to Bolivares (Bs.) and back forth), I could explain more about that if you want.
About leaving the country, I'm trying but it's not easy. I cannot save money I need to do a lot of burocreatic things for my documents, so I need time, if I leave my work no money with any savings, I’m also worried about leaving my parents alone. I have a girlfriend in the exact situation than me (they parents are older and they didn’t studied), she was thinking in Chile.
People sometimes ask why am I using internet? Well, because it's really cheap (0,1 USD per month 4Mb), my computer? Everything was "ok" in this country 5 years ago, same happens with clothes, cars, cellphones and so on.
I mean, if I stoped using internet to use that money to buy food maybe I could buy some eggs more, so it doesn’t worth it. I prefer pay for it and have some kind of entertainment.
I'm going to put some prices in USD and Litecoin so you have a reference of how is everything here:
Concept (Bs. / USD / LTC) (1 USD = 200.000 / 1 LTC = 200 USD, used this to make calculation simpler) This prices could be 5% higher tomorrow!!
Minimum Wage 1.300.000 / 6,5 / 0,0325 * (See below) Really good professional Wage 4.000.000 / 18 / 0,09 30 eggs 600.000 / 3 / 0,015 one pound of meat 200.000 / 1 / 0,005 jam 1.500.000 / 7,5 / 0,036 chesse (yellow) 1.000.000 / 5 / 0,25 meds for my father and mother each month 2.000.000 / 10 / 0.05 a tire for a car 15.000.000 / 75 / 0.0375 a battery for a car 8.000.000 / 40 / 0.02 (If you want to know any price let me know)
Remember, these prices could seem very cheap to you but remember that are the wages you get paid here. I’m not in the worse situation some friends are really passing bad time and starving, and you cannot help and just help a little because you don’t have enough money, weeks ago we did a soup with some friends a handed them for free to people opening and checking the trash bags for food. We handed like 50 portions, mostly for kids.
What is the current state of the use of cryptocurrencies here in Venezuela? 3 months ago the government started talking about that because they created their own crypto called “Petro”, it’s a way to avoid getting “banned” by the US (They argue that Venezuela is under an economic block and ban) now everyone asks me about that (and you have to be careful, because here crypto means FIAT (USD) which means a lot of money) even my parents! Before that people didn’t know much about that.
Localbitcoin works, I know people have used that, but some people say that you can get in a “trap” by the government if you are selling BTC there, they “simulate” a purchase and after they have all your information, they know you have BTC and it’s possible that you are a miner. They steal them and make them produce for them. Even after the petro, they say minning is ok, but people cannot trust the government.
Known cryptos are BTC, ETH and LTC. Very few places accept cryptos, so you have to change them to fiat money (here USD are almost illegal) so you have to convert it to Bs. From localbitcoin (with its risks) or airtm.
There are two exchange rates from Bs./USD one is the official SET by the government which is around 35.000 USD per each other one is "illegal" but it's the one you can get at the street is around 200.000 Bs./USD
By the way as prices go up, there is not enough cash at the streets and cash worth more than it's same face value at the bank. It's really hard to explain, but for example let's talk about sugar, if you want to buy one kilo of sugar, it has two prices if you pay in cash it's 60.000 (0,3 USD) if you pay with debit/credit card using a POS it is 120.000 (0,6 USD). It's crazy, I could explain more if you want to. If you have cash you can "sell" it, I give you a 100.000 banknote and you transfer me to my account 200.000 Bs. (Yep, that is 100%)
Banks (government and private banks like BBVA) give only 10.000 Bs. per customer per day. Not because they don't want to, it's because they don't have money in cash.
Government can create Bolivares easily from the Central Bank accounts, but money is created electronically and doesn't have support even in it's own cash (Bolivares banknotes)
*: You don't get all the 1.300.000 Bs. in money, you get only around 400.000 in your bank account the 900.000 left are pay in food tickets (something like that) made by companies like Edenred and Sodexo.
Thanks!
This is a proof and also 0.004125 LTC in Bs. (165.000)
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