

Bitcoin: Argentinean fever for the digital money machine - opinologo
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lanacion.com.ar%2F1596773-bitcoin-pasion-argentina-por-la-nueva-maquina-de-hacer-billetes-digitales

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rubyrescue
Having just recently lived in Argentina, I can say the bitcoin community is
really active. The biggest problem is that it's still really small so you're
dealing with a few hundred pesos at a time. To take a subway across Buenos
Aires and meet up, for say, $300 ARS ($37 USD at the unofficial rate) is a
huge hassle.

I had the idea of bringing in say a few thousand USD/month (I have an office
and a number of things like random office lunches, office rent, nespresso
capsules, snacks, etc are for various reasons not payable via a check from a
business account.) I could buy say $1500 USD in bitcoins but then I couldn't
find people who are not miners to take the other side of the transaction that
had enough bitcoins to buy $8000 to $12,000 ARS in one transaction.

WHY would that be useful? Well, if I have $1500 USD of bitcoins, I can get the
"blue" rate of 8.05 * 1500 = $12,075 ARS. If I wire myself $1500 USD from
outside Argentina, I'll get $8092 ARS. So, imagine I could use bitcoins to do
the transaction. I'll get about 40% more money if someone properly values the
bitcoin to the peso.

What we need is the coinbase of Argentina, but then being "legal" would kind
of defeat the whole value of bitcoins in such a warped economy. Just check out
[http://dolarblue.net/](http://dolarblue.net/) for the TWENTY different ways
to convert ARS to USD/EUR, etc. Argentina is not a place you are going to
setup a legal bitcoin exchange and have it last very long.

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mehwoot
I don't really think people should be promoting auto translated pieces like
this. It doesn't provide much content other than "Somebody writing in spanish
is introducing bitcoins".

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znowi
Would "somebody writing in _English_ is introducing bitcoins" be of greater
value? :)

I think it's a nice way to expand our bubble a little.

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jacobhansen
We did a short documentary on Bitcoins in Argentina not to long ago which
should give an idea the situation in Argentina.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e__m-w4N7NI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e__m-w4N7NI)

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hazov
Must be a different Argentina, I was there these days and although some guys
that works in the Argentinian branch of the bank I work were very tech-savvy
and were complaining the restrictions of moving money out of the country they
did not cite Bitcoin, at all, some were venturing with buying gold and moving
it out of Argentina but that was all.

For me it was odd, bitcoin appears a good way to move money from there to the
other side of the River Plate.

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dublinben
As the top commenter notes, it is probably impossible to actually buy enough
BTC inside Argentina to support the transactions those bankers are looking to
make. There is almost always plenty of gold for sale everywhere, and plenty of
buyers at your destination.

