Venezuelan Developers Are Using Bitcoin, Rare Pepe Trading Cards To Fight Against a Dismal Economy (cryptoinsider.com) 93
According to Crypto Insider, Venezuelan developers have been selling "rare pepes" -- trading cards that contain unique illustrations and photoshops of the character Pepe the Frog. While the trading cards started out as nothing more than a joke, many of them have been traded for thousands of dollars on the Counterparty platform, which is built on top of Bitcoin, and have provided a way for many developers to sustain themselves in Venezuela's poor economy. From the report: The basic idea behind the issuance of rare pepes on top of the Counterparty platform is that it enables scarcity in a digital world. Each rare pepe card is linked to a little bit of bitcoin through a practice known as coin coloring. Whoever owns the private keys associated with the address where the bitcoins that represent a specific rare pepe card is located is the one who owns that particular trading card. Now, a group of developers in Venezuela are building games similar to Hearthstone and Pokemon where the rare pepe trading cards will play an integral role. If you go to rarepepe.party right now, you're mainly presented with a video of what the first game based on the Rare Pepe digital trading cards will look like. The concept is similar to Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering where players essentially do battle with their opponents via characters on trading cards, which have specific stats and features. In this case, the characters are various rare pepes. With many rare pepes already released (you can view them in the official rare pepe directory), the developers behind Rare Pepe Party are attempting to provide a use case for these new trading cards. While some rare pepe cards already have stats on them, the developer who chatted with Crypto Insider says those stats may not mean much when it's time to play the game. While rare pepes are nothing more than fun and games for much of the developed world, they're a matter of survival in Venezuela. "We're based in Venezuela, and our business has been saved by bitcoin many times," said the developer. The developer claims roughly 80 percent of the offices around the area where Rare Pepe Party is being developed have shut down over the past year. The biggest businesses on their street have also dropped as much as 90 percent of their employees.
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I see the value bitcoin skyrocketing right now....
Yes, skyrocketing down [marketwatch.com] is an apt description. It's lost roughly 20% of its "value" this month (see chart in article).
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Capitalism is obviously ruining Venezuela and making them poor. We must end capitalism now for a free future!
Now bitcoin (Score:2)
Given that Venezuela's economy is tanking (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Given that Venezuela's economy is tanking (Score:4, Insightful)
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And autocracy is the very definition of communism.
Or did you miss the lesson of the past 100 years?
Re: Given that Venezuela's economy is tanking (Score:4, Insightful)
You did miss the last 100 years of history. In fact you just missed history in general.
Communism does not make the people the owners of the fruits of their labors, it makes the bureaucrats the owners of the fruits of people's labor. Straight from the manifesto you find 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs' People are incentivized to be lazy and complacent, and just yell about how much stuff they need. Working harder than your neighbor does not get you more stuff and inventing new technology does not get you new stuff. Those two things can make you an enemy of your neighbors and get you jailed or killed.
Both Russia and China moved to a controlled form of a market economy. Stealing technology was not enough to keep them afloat, so they had to do something to incentivize people. The partial market is still the suck for people that live there, because if you do too well you are killed and the Government just takes your stuff anyway.
Re: Given that Venezuela's economy is tanking (Score:2, Insightful)
You did miss the last 100 years of history. In fact you just missed history in general.
Nope. I also attended philosophy class, and even read Marx, unlike some people, who just rant and rave as they have been indoctrinated to do.
Communism does not make the people the owners of the fruits of their labors, it makes the bureaucrats the owners of the fruits of people's labor.
You're thinking of a command economy, not communism.
Straight from the manifesto you find 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs' ,
Nope. You won't find it there at all. Try as you might, you can't.
You would have to look elsewhere in Marx's writings. Why do you make things up s.petry?
Besides, he didn't originate it, the sentiment came from elsewhere, and to be honest, it is just as applicable in any philosophy. Why would you not labor to you
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Wow.
Communism/socialism demand a "command economy" as a basic tenant of their ideologies. They cannot function even as poorly as they do without control of the economy and the means of production and distribution.
Actually, it is quite the opposite. By laboring, you can produce value, and own it yourself, not have it confiscated by a rent-seeker. There is no need to yell, there is no need to take, you own what you make. And you get what you need, without stealing from others.
This is anathema to communism and socialism. The State determines all that. The State tells you what you will work at, where, how long, etc. It tells you
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I'll just leave this here for you.
https://soundcloud.com/glennbe... [soundcloud.com]
Strat
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It seems the Middlemen are always the ones cashing in, regardless of the 'ism.
And here we thought a "man in the middle" attack was merely a hack.
But no, it's a pervasive part of human nature.
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You did miss the last 100 years of history. In fact you just missed history in general.
Communism does not make the people the owners of the fruits of their labors, it makes the bureaucrats the owners of the fruits of people's labor. Straight from the manifesto you find 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs' People are incentivized to be lazy and complacent, and just yell about how much stuff they need. Working harder than your neighbor does not get you more stuff and inventing new technology does not get you new stuff.
This is broadly true about US style capitalism as well. The only guaranteed path to success under any form of government is to be someone who takes advantage of others and doesn't play fair. The method of "not playing fair but not getting into trouble" varies depending on the government and the available options, but those who use these tactics are almost always successful.
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Capitalism has made similar mistakes (Score:2)
Capitalism made the same mistake when Ireland relied too heavily on potatoes because they grew so well and were profitable ... until they all got sick.
Lesson: don't put all your economy in one basket, whether you are commies, socialists, capitalists, or some mix.
Famine (Score:2)
Let's stop you right there. Food production in Ireland rose during the famine. The problem was that the English were more interested in acquiring land, and also in genocide. Why don't you go read the wikipedia article on the subject. Your platitude may or may not be sound but your example is seriously off base. It's like blaming the Shoah on capitalism: there may be some senses in which it could be considered true, but it mostly happened because the people in charge wanted it to happen.
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The potato disease was still the PRIMARY cause of the famine according to your source. If their society were well run perhaps they could have re-allocated quicker, but society rarely rapidly overhauls itself quickly and well at the same time. That's asking too much of humans.
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FTFY,SID,SAB.
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I believe you misspelled both "corrupt dictatorships" and "damaged into non-sustainability"
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Did you type that on iPhone or android or PC? You would have none of that relying on communism, which institutionalizes the dictatorship you lambaste.
There is no such thing as real communism that has never been tried. It is a dictatorship at its core. People are not free to satisfy the needs or desires of others, so it will always lag and fail at even the basics.
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Because they're socialist.
They didn't WANT "evil capitalist" capital.
They wanted to show socialism for the win.
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why the heck are they doing so bad?
Because, when oil prices were high, instead of saving for a rainy day, they squandered the windfall on import subsidies and giveaways while destroying every other part of their economy.
I'm not gonna chuck if up to gov't corruption because _everywhere_ has that.
Not to the same degree. On the Transparency International Corruption Index [wikipedia.org] Venezula is a near rock bottom 166/176.
Did they piss everybody off somehow?
Yes, starting with their own people. Maduro is one of the least popular leaders in the world (although he beats President Hollande of France). Venezuela has few international friends. Even Cuba has backed off
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Not really applicable here: pointing out that the problem isn't about a certain ideology but general corruption and mismanagement doesn't even touch the subject if it is a true X ( X = whatever).
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Re:Given that Venezuela's economy is tanking (Score:4, Informative)
The most successful countries in the world are socialist so it seems a strange statement. Norway has been rated the happiest country in the world with Denmark second. Both socialist.
Neither is socialist. Socialism: Government ownership of the means of production. Both Norway and Denmark are, by many measures, more capitalist than America. For instance, the Danish post office is privatized. If you at add in health care, America actually has a about the same government footprint as either. Social programs do not make a country "socialist".
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The concept of socialism doesn't even require a government to exist...
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Classifying Norway as socialist is a bit like classifying the USA as capitalist. Neither nation is fully socialist or capitalist -- they both have significant elements of capitalism and socialism -- but they differ in the amount by which they embrace, for example, socialism. Actually, I would argue that, while Norway is more socialist than the USA, it is nonetheless more capitalist than it is socialist.
Also, why is it that every time some nation tries to completely (or predominately) adopt socialism or it'
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Neither Norway or Denmark are socialist. You wouldn't be able to find a successful socialist state to point to, because they don't exist.
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What's happening in Venezuela is no Socialism, although they call it that, is not Communism, is plain old Fascism or tyranny of the state
You don't think socialism *is* tyranny of the state?
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You realize that the (socialist) anarchist dream world doesn't even have a state? Or that communism as defined by Marx doesn't really have a state?
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You realize that the (socialist) anarchist dream world doesn't even have a state? Or that communism as defined by Marx doesn't really have a state?
Of course it requires a state. How else do they get to enforce the communal rule? It's COMMUNist for a reason, and requires an enforcer to ensure that each only get what they require and no more.
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This is glossed over too much. Part of the problem is that Venezuela implemented price controls on a lot of things including staples - price controls that in many cases are or were lower than the cost of producing those goods/crops. They then used oil money to subsidize imports, but local producers and farmers had no reason to produce because they were going to lose money, much like a saying that's been around in the USA for years ("Interviewer: 'What are
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last part is false, Venezuela has still lots of friends, even powerful ones like China and Russia, because we send them cheap oil.
Cuba defended us as recent as few days ago. Look it up.
Granted, we have lost some friends, such as Peru, Chile, Brasil, Paraguay, Argentina and Colombia, since they have mostly switched to right wing governments. And we are going down the drain at an alarming rate, as yesterday the Supreme Court basically legalized a coup d'tat.
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Their economy was almost entirely reliant on high oil prices. They never really tried to diversify their economy so when oil prices plunged so did their economy. On top of that their oil needs specialized refineries requiring them to send their oil to other countries to be refined. The main country providing refinery services are located in the US. At prices under $50 per bbl they are almost losing money on any oil they do manage to export. They also shot themselves in the foot trying to nationalize the ass
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because of a temporary drop in oil prices (we're a long way off from oil becoming worthless) why the heck are they doing so bad? I'm not gonna chuck if up to gov't corruption because _everywhere_ has that. Usually the rest of the world will send some aid to a country floundering like this. Heck even Greece got some. Did they piss everybody off somehow?
As I understand it the main problem is that the shortages and massive inflation means that most people spend most of their day standing in line for the scraps rather than do anything productive. And when they do get to buy some subsidized goods they overbuy and go to sell them on the black market, which means even more time is wasted on finding places to buy, places to sell and bartering. Running any kind of shop is pretty hopeless because you can't get reliable supplies or reliable customers or pay reliabl
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Nobody will give a country loans without concessions and Chavez won't give any.
Kinda hard to do when you're dead.
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True enough, but Maduro's hardly any better.
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If you want to understand the situation in Venezuela you must first understand basic economics. It's a fascinating subject really, worthy of your study. However, to answer your question in a nutshell, the Venezuelan economy is failing because of government imposed wage, price and capital controls, expropriation of private property and restrictions on freedom of speech, press and assembly. In short, it has become a tyranny and people have simply given up working because anything they produce can and probably
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It's beyond pricing. Their production is down to just over 2m barrels a day, lowest in 13 years. That combined with the facts that oil is basically the only thing they export, they can't produce a sufficient food supply, an inflation rate of 1500% and at least 1/3 of the population's occupation is thief makes it a little tough to overcome.
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because of a temporary drop in oil prices (we're a long way off from oil becoming worthless) why the heck are they doing so bad? I'm not gonna chuck if up to gov't corruption because _everywhere_ has that. Usually the rest of the world will send some aid to a country floundering like this. Heck even Greece got some. Did they piss everybody off somehow?
Venezuela's over-reliance on oil and low global oil prices may be the spark that started their economic fire, but they made a many other really bad economic decisions before and after the oil price drop that made things much much worse. Mind you there are other oil-dependent countries with economies that may be hurting, but they aren't spiraling into economic collapse like Venezuela...there's a lot more bad stuff going on there. I highly recommend listening to NPR's Planet Money podcast about Venezuela's cu
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In part be because it's a horribly corrupt country run by crooks, and in part because it is a petrostate whose economy is largely dependent on oil sales, and because it's run by plundering thieves, there's no sovereign wealth fund, so low oil prices means economic collapse. Furthermore Venezuela cannot hope to raise money because their only friends are other poor Latin American countries, and wealthier investors wouldn't extend them credit.
With the exception of China, which will probably end up owning the c
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The story lost me after "developers", but I'm getting a distinct whiff of hype with undertones of scam.
Very interesting! (Score:3)
This is a very interesting development, and use of the bitcoin/blockchain technology.
Hypothetically, it's difficult to collect works of art in media forms that are easy to copy. For example, it'd be hard to have a 500 print "limited edition, collectible" screensaver image.
But an artist could mint their own cryptocoin sell one with each registered copy of their work. The person who "owns" the official copy would keep the bitcoin safe, and be assured that only 500 of the limited edition versions were ever made. (Along with some security from the artist, publishing their crypto signature for provenance verification, and so on).
This wouldn't prevent people from copying or using the screensavers, but it could make certain forms collectible. This would eliminate counterfeiting in those forms.
The trading cards are just one example of this.
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But why honor that collectibility? I mean, this isn't like counterfeiting physical paintings, where counterfeiting only produces something very similar to original artwork; this allows for counterfeiting wherein the counterfeit art would be, bit-for-bit, indistinguishable from the original, save for a cryptographic signature that doesn't actually contribute anything artistic to the piece. In essence, the scarcity doesn't derive from the actual artwork; it derives from the signature for the artwork.
Maybe the
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Because the collectibility is what they're using for fiat money, and the value in fiat money is in the consensus in the population that the value exists. You can make a bit-for-bit copy of that image if you want, but nobody is going to give you a chicken in trade for it.
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It goes beyond art. They've implemented Bitcoin banknotes.
I don't know how many tps happen in Venezuela (Score:2)
But I bet it's higher than ~3.5, which means this is a niche solution even if they're the only people in the world using Bitcoin. It's also stupid, but hey, a lot of things that people use to make a living are stupid.
And no matter what the ledger says, the person in physical possession of the trading card is the one who owns it, because the government isn't going to recognize Bitcoin as proof of ownership.
So really, we're talking about a barter economy because the Venezuelan bolÃvar is in the shitter,
Rare Pepe ? (Score:2)
I orefer my pepes well done thankyou.
Pepe (Score:2)
That makes more sense (Score:2)
than using bit of metal as currency.
Let me get this straight. (Score:2)
Trump racism saves the lefts favorite government?