Electroneum, Venezuela, Bit-Tube And BtcMyk

Hey you, welcome back to the channel. And today I want to talk, uh, Electroneum. I want to talk about the country of Venezuela, uh, cryptocurrencies such as BitTube and Bitcoin MYK. Now it's very important that I chose, uh, not only this, uh, these cryptocurrencies, but countries that suffer from hyperinflation. Countries like Venezuela, I think at this point in time, can be used interchangeably with other countries that suffer a similar set of circumstances under hyperinflation. I think what is so significant about Venezuela and maybe why it got the spotlight is because the fall of Venezuela's economic situation from a vast amount of wealth in oil came so rapid and suddenly Whereas in comparison to many other nations, I think we had kind of become accustomed to them dealing with hyperinflation for years, decades. And with Venezuela, it was very, very much a rapid decline. And so I think that's why it gets a lot of the attention. But in retrospect, Venezuela can be used interchangeably with many nations that suffer from from hyperinflation and deal with these similar circumstances. Now, the reason that Electroneum is so important in projects like BitTube and even our project BitcoinMYK is because after studying cryptocurrencies, studying the space for a while, looking at these particular cryptocurrencies, they offer some of the easiest ways to obtain cryptocurrency. Where you don't need special skills or special equipment. And that's, that's very important because that's going to affect, of course, how people acquire the cryptocurrency. And on the road to mass adoption, you want to make it easy to get in the hands of people. And of course, electronic— through a mobile miner offers a way to do this without using the resources of mining rigs. BitTube uses something called the Airtime Extension Module, or which you just pretty much watch videos and a variety of things that you earn cryptocurrency. And there's these very easy, non-intrusive ways. And BitcoinMYK has very similar ideas as well, where you just kind of participate on the platform and it's very easy to obtain the cryptocurrencies, right? It's almost like they're just giving them away or airdropping them. And that's important to mass adoption because you're making it easy for people to get these cryptocurrencies, which begs the question, looking at the statistics of Venezuela in 2019, I don't know how many people know this, but the average salary of a Venezuelan in 2019 is $6 per month. And that's after it being tripled from last year from, from only $2. Now when you couple that with food stamps of about up to about another $6 per month, you get, uh, the Venezuelan people with an average monthly salary of about $12 per month. Now when we couple this with something like Electroneum, that in their model, ideally they're going to be giving out something around $3 per month. Of course it fluctuates and you might get a little bit more, a little bit less than that. Or not quite reached that. Even so, with these projects, if you imagine $12 per month, the amount of money coming out of cryptocurrency is quite significant. You're talking 25% of the monthly salaries of a person. To put that into perspective, imagine every month receiving an additional 25% increase to your monthly salary around the globe. Now the reason I'm, I'm discussing these things with you all is because when you look at it like that from perspective and you look at the Electroneum mobile miner, and honestly, I don't know what the numbers are right now because I haven't used my mobile miner in a while. I think I've used it like once since Uh, since the changes in the system and the gestures, but that's not why I stopped using it. But the thing is, um, you know, even in the West, I would use my electronic mobile miner to get whatever the cryptocurrency is called, a novelty thing. Uh, we don't know what the price is going to be in the future, so that's also something to factor into, to things like this, why you would mobile mine. Uh, but you know, also, we, I, you know, we come from a world where, uh, I grew up with a mom who loved to collect coupons. Funds. And, uh, you know, she, she did it for fun. And, uh, so, you know, the point I'm making is even in the West, people jump on opportunities to mine Electroneum and do a variety of things, or get, uh, cryptocurrencies like BitTube. You get them free just for watching, or BitcoinNYK, just surfing the net, sitting on a website doing things you, you do anyway all day online. Which you're getting a cryptocurrency for. Now, I understand why people in the West may not jump on such opportunities. You know, of course, our, the value of our salaries and economy is so much higher, we might see it as trivial to a great degree. And that's understandable. You know, 5 or 10 minutes of our time is probably worth more than what we're getting in these cryptocurrencies for a lot of us. And so that's quite understandable. But when you compare that to the statement of, and thus this equals like 25% of your salary, and I can tell you now, if you look at all three of these cryptocurrencies, you take a look at Electroneum, uh, you can earn monthly from them with doing nothing. BitTube, same thing. BitcoinMYK, same thing. And imagine if you combine all this together, you can get a BitcoinMYK token right now today go to an exchange and cash it out for your favorite cryptocurrencies. You can do that today, right now. If anybody don't believe that, you could test that theory with me today. I'll send you over some BitcoinNYK tokens. You go right on your cryptocurrency exchanges, cash it out for pretty much any one of your cryptocurrencies. Now here's the problem. Despite all of that, what we just spoke about, If you look at something like the Electroneum mobile miner, you're still only between numbers of 80,000, 100,000. And again, guys, I haven't looked in a long time, so, uh, you can correct me where I'm wrong on mobile miners. But let's say it's 100,000 to 200,000 people. I'm going to assume those numbers are accurate. 100,000 to 200,000 people. We have a country of millions of citizens, and you, you could potentially be offering them 25% increase in their cost of living wages and they don't take it, uh, there is something wrong with that picture, uh. And so I had to do a little bit more research on this, especially with my project being, uh, created in a UBI, uh, out of universal basic income being one of the main pillars of it. But in understanding that 80% of the world needs universal basic income. So it's almost like a no-brainer that you will have a lot of people registering and signing up. Very similar to the idea of what EOS is doing with its UBI. Uh, people like Dan Larimer recognize that if you're giving out these tokens, you airdrop these tokens, you're going to have a lot of people going in and getting them. You're going to create this economy from it. But sometimes it doesn't work like that and it doesn't quite happen. And, uh, I think, uh, we're kind of in a similar situation with many of our projects in that way. So I want to do a little bit more digging here and try to come up with some reasons as to why that is. Why is it that hyperinflated countries right now who know about Bitcoin, who know about these cryptocurrencies, and, uh, the article talks about, uh, the title has Bitcoin, but it mentions many other cryptocurrencies that airdrop, uh, money to these people. And there still aren't record numbers like we'd expect. So we need to try to figure out what's going on here. And I think I finally found an article that's going to shed a lot of light on that. So we're going to read it today. We're going to get into that and see what we can find out and get some answers as to what is going on and, uh, why maybe these nations and countries aren't exactly as of yet seeing cryptocurrency like we think they would see them. Uh, and I'll leave a link to the full article in the description. Opinion: No, Venezuela is not becoming a Bitcoin nation. In Caracas, these days Venezuela is featured in many headlines around the world, and not in a good way. The opposition politician Juan Guaidó wants to take power after declaring that the Maduro government is illegitimate, and a struggle persists between the two sides. All the stories about our economic, political, and social crises make it easy to forget that in Venezuela there is still life and movement. And in spite of all the chaos in the country, most people are not engaged in political conflict. They are just focusing their efforts on finding enough money to survive. Venezuelans work hard, even traveling from one city to another just to make enough money to eat every day. Others have succeeded in their ventures seizing the opportunities opened by the crises in the country. This is not to say that the government is taking clear action to better the lives of its citizens, nor do I deny that a great migration is happening. Many people I know have already migrated to other countries. And yes, there are more people living on the street and eating out of garbage— eating out of the garbage— than I have ever seen in my life. The public health situation is getting worse every day due to the costliness and scarcity of medical treatments. But sadly, Bitcoin is not going to solve those problems. And yes, it's certainly true that some of us are actively using cryptocurrency to help get through this crisis, leading to many articles about the power of Bitcoin in Venezuela. I personally wrote an article about how Bitcoin is a lifeline for some Venezuelans. But let's not overstate the popularity of Bitcoin in Venezuela. And please don't use our crisis to attract attention to your crypto campaign. I don't want to single out just one project, as there are many examples including the supposed more than 2,500 merchants who accept Dash in the country. An airdrop campaign from AirTM and a lesser-known crypto donation project from Coinbase. Some people like the idea of sending cryptocurrency to Venezuelans, perhaps by airdropping Bitcoin. These projects might sound harmless, and perhaps some are well-intentioned. The problem is that the Venezuelans able to receive crypto are generally not the ones in most urgent need of help. Cryptocurrency remains unknown to the vast majority of Venezuelans. I want to just stop right here in this article, and I'm glad this person wrote this article. I'm going to leave his name in the description in the article because I've had so many questions about this and it just didn't make sense to me. Why do people Uh, or I'm sorry, why have the Venezuelans not seized opportunities? And I know the first notion is for some people to go, oh, well, maybe they don't know about these particular projects. But the problem I have with that idea and that concept is, think about this for a moment. If you got cryptocurrencies going down to certain countries and they're airdropping these cryptocurrencies, they're hoping to set— helping them set up, when the natural next inclination be to, oh, okay, well, if you're doing this, how many other of you all are doing this? And, uh, if you guys are doing pretty good with this and I'm able to get money over here, uh, how come, uh, I don't just go and use this project and that project and together is making my life better, right? But according to the article here, it says the problem is that the Venezuelans able to receive crypto are generally not the ones in most urgent need in help. Now, this is kind of a big problem as well. I know from personal experience when I started several months ago the BitcoinNYK.com project, much like the author is saying, we've done this with the best of intentions. And although we're— we love the fact that people have joined, people from Venezuela have joined us and registered and are part of the project, there are Isn't this a large amount of people joining in like you would think? And you're giving them free money, right? You know, these cryptocurrencies aren't monopoly money. You can cash them in and you can go feed your family. You can go buy a loaf of bread for your children. So why wouldn't they jump on that? But the problem is it's starting to make sense now. And I'll give you another example. When I first started the project, I was speaking with somebody from Venezuela and I was like, you know what? Uh, you could do this with our project, and, uh, make sure you go out and tell the rest of the people from your country, uh, about this project because it could be helpful to you. And what happened was they didn't seem interested in any of that. They really— they just wanted money right then and there. They, you know, they, they— and that's understandable if you're struggling or maybe hungry or something like that, but I don't think that was the case. I don't think this person was hungry because it felt kind of scammy to me. And I think this goes well with what the author's saying here, that the people that many of them are inside this— darn notifications— the people that are— sorry, guys, about that— the people that are in these serious situations here, they may not be the, the exact people who need it the most, right? And in that example, uh, this person I spoke to, they didn't participate in the project at all, even though we were offering a free cryptocurrency. They didn't even take the time to go check it out, uh, and see if they can earn a few dollars off of it and try many other such projects which they could do the same thing with. And I'm starting to become under the impression that A lot of these people, uh, in cryptocurrency that we're engaged with and in contact with, they may not be the Venezuelans that really we're looking for, uh, to create the mass adoption and to be of help, uh, to the countrymen. And, uh, what's even more sadder than that is I would at least, at the very least, hope that they would spread the information and message to the rest of the people who need it so much. Uh, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening as brought out by this article, and it hasn't been what's happening seemingly in a lot of our personal experiences. Now, I also want to say I fully agree with the author when he says do not use your cryptocurrencies to exploit us or to try to make an opportunity off of us. And, uh, I think he's right in saying that, and I would approach that like this and just say it this way, that that I do believe there are circumstances and situations where a cause can be helped and other things can be helped in the helping of that cause. And I don't think anything is wrong with that, but I do think there's something wrong with a lot of cryptocurrency projects that are mainly for profit, right? Which many are. And, uh, they're down there trying to do that very thing, exploit. And that's how come we champion UBI so much, that's how come with our project, you don't even have to buy the cryptocurrency and the network itself builds value. And as long as there's value in the network, you are— it is open to you and it is available to you. But there are some projects that are just all business-driven and that's their only idea to make money off the exploitation of these people in these circumstances. And Arthur doesn't like it. Some of these Venezuelan countrymen probably don't like it. And that's understandable. Now, uh, it goes on to say how the crypto ecosystem in the country has changed since my last Long Hash article about Venezuela. The crisis in general has worsened. Now there's a new political crisis, and at an economic level, it continues to get worse. The currency of the country underwent a monetary conversion where 5 zeros were removed and it was renamed, uh, Bolivar subarano or the VES. At the time of writing, a coffee costs more of, um, 1,800 VES or more of, uh, 50 cents in the US dollar. With the constant devaluation of the VES and the repeal of the law of illicit exchange rates, people are already trading currency more openly, especially into dollars. It is Nonetheless, still difficult to get dollars since the government continues to maintain control over the currencies that are legally traded in the country. This encourages people to try Bitcoin and maybe other cryptocurrencies, with the most popular platform being the peer-to-peer trading platform LocalBitcoins.com. Venezuela ranks, uh, ranked in LocalBitcoins trade volume with Russia taking first place. Even now, Venezuela is the country with the most LocalBitcoins traffic. Now, didn't LocalBitcoins just close down? And you guys can help me out with that. I don't, I didn't use them, but the Venezuelan government is also trying to participate in the crypto fever, especially given international sanctions. The government recently has launched new platforms for currency exchange and remittances, where those using cryptocurrencies are burdened with high fees and unfavorable rates. The government is also promoting its own cryptocurrency, the Petro, even forcing people to receive their pension payments in Petros. The government has allowed the formation of several cryptocurrency exchanges, but they are still waiting for official regulation. Although crypto is no longer an underground topic the way it was a few years ago, There are still barriers to widespread dissemination and acceptance. Many people see crypto as a scam or don't have the connectivity to access it. Venezuela's internet continues to deteriorate as the government manages most of the country's telecommunications concessions. Once you get far from the big cities, it's even harder to get, uh, a good internet connection. Smartphones, which tend to be priced in dollars, are even more expensive for Venezuelans now. And you might think that Venezuelans would be relatively aware of cryptocurrency since our government is promoting it, but even so, there is very little knowledge or trust. Even my own family would not dare to manage their own Bitcoin, so I manage their little funds for them. And yes, there are a lot of merchants who claim to accept cryptocurrencies, but if the owner is not there, they don't want to deal with crypto. Venezuelan cryptocurrency mining, uh, also— well, let me stop right here before I get to the mining part. And I think it's interesting that, you know, you know, even in Venezuela, they still feel like cryptocurrency is a scam and they can't trust it, right? And I get that. I really get that from the perspective of investing your money into it, or a lot of— even a lot of time and energy into it. But again, it kind of begs the question, the question, but what about the cryptocurrencies that they get airdropped for free? You know, like Electroneum, uh, or the ones they can earn for free like BitTube and BitcoinMYK.com. So maybe they just don't know about those, although I find it hard to believe they wouldn't know about Electroneum at this point in time. But you know, some of what they're, you know, what the author's saying, it makes sense to me. That, yeah, you would be skeptical of it provided you had to purchase it. But that is vastly different when you're getting this money when you don't have to mine with equipment and you're getting it free. But we're going to get into the mining part, which I think the author does, deals a lot more with, especially dealing with something like Bitcoin you'd have to mine. So maybe we're going to get some answers in this, in this next part. Venezuela cryptocurrency mining also, or has also, attracted media attention. But it's important to note that mining is heavily regulated. If you are private and you want to import mining equipment, you have to pay high customs taxes, which makes equipment unprofitable. Those who wish to mine legally, uh, so they have the protection of the government, have to navigate a confusing and ill-defined bureaucracy. There are public sales offices for mining equipment, which apparently have direct contact with the government. Still, police will sometimes seize mining equipment if they see an opportunity to do so, and these seizures are often not reported due to victims' fear of reprisals. Generally speaking, one of the best Bitcoin use cases is for moving capital across borders, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Some people use cryptocurrencies to send and receive remittances or to use as a store of value that is more trustworthy than the bolivar and easier to obtain than the dollar. It can also be used as a method of payment for freelancers. Some businesses that sell technological equipment have started to use Bitcoin as a form of payment, as a way to move currency without having to deal with international banks. So let's get into that a little bit because a lot of things are becoming a lot more clear for me, um, and I think many of you. And so in the, in the idea that Venezuela would want to mine this cryptocurrency or a variety of currencies, and you know, I, I tried to— we're again addressing Venezuela, but I'm going to go under the assumption that this might not just be limited to Venezuela, but this might be a kind of This might even be a type of universal thing for many other of these nations. So when this mine equipment comes in, it's taxed, and if you try to dodge and duck around the legal parameters, then you might have to deal with, you know, the state itself, police officers and a variety of things coming in, seizing your equipment. And, you know, like in many cases we've heard in these countries, you have the police getting rich and exploiting the citizens, right? And so the police are stealing everybody's items, and if you say something, they can probably take you off out back somewhere and take you down the road. And so people are afraid to say anything. So if it's registered with the government, then, you know, then you have the government's protection. However, if it's registered with the government, the taxes and customs on the equipment is so high that it makes it so it's not even profitable to mine. So, you know, these are huge problems. It's making sense now, you know, a lot of— like I was saying earlier, you know, again, this does make a lot of sense if you're a miner, if you got rigs and equipment, and under the ideas that this is the only way you can receive cryptocurrency. But through methods like Electroneum, uh, and, you know, other projects out there that airdrop and do a variety of things, and some projects they airdrop but it's— they don't do it on a regular basis like Electroneum. They don't give out cryptocurrency on a regular basis like BitTube or BitcoinNYK, none of these projects. And when they do offer up opportunities to earn crypto, it's usually based on some type of skill or being part of a community or system that selects who's going to get the cryptocurrency for whatever reason. And it generally doesn't end up working well in situations like this. So let's continue on. But again, all these use cases are limited to those who dare to use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Other Venezuelans simply do not understand Bitcoin or are not interested in it and would rather fight to find dollars or friends with international bank accounts to help them move funds outside the country. Bitcoin can play an important role for some people in Venezuela, but cryptocurrency adoption is not massive and should happen in a more organic way. A lot of foreign crypto enthusiasts simply don't understand our country. Don't try to fit Venezuela's crisis into your favorite crypto narrative. So let's stop right there. Uh, well, let me finish. I guess that's the end of it. It was written by a gentleman named José Rafael Piña. Gollum is the Caracas, uh, base editor-in-chief of Crypto Noticias. So, uh, he said a great deal there, and, uh, I, I, you know, I, I have definitely a great deal more insight and understand to what part of the adoption problem is, uh, and as he spoke about the, uh, rather the— that some Venezuelans just don't understand it, don't have time to understand, you know This kind of as well goes back to when cryptocurrencies are difficult to use, right? So let's, let's kind of put this into perspective, uh, or paint— let me paint this picture rather. You're, you're, you're struggling in one of these developing nations or countries suffer from hyperinflation. You're trying to get by, trying to eat every day, uh, and the easiest thing probably for you to do, in your mind at least, is try to get dollars from somebody else or have them send it out of the country so the government doesn't steal it or move it around so it doesn't lose its value. So now you get out of country, maybe put into something else, and then you got somebody on the outside send it back, or you got a friend or family member helping you, or maybe it's just easier to just go around the internet and just ask people for money. You know, whatever the case is, it's become a much more easier option for them than to try to figure cryptocurrency out. And so I think the only workaround for something like that is going to be— is something I've been saying all along, and that is you got to make cryptocurrency so easy. It's already integrated things that these people and all the new people who are going to mass up already use. You know, that's why I like social media so much. You know, they're probably already used to using social media interfaces and a variety of things, and that might be why a lot of them like to use Steemit.com. It's a lot of Venezuelans using Steemit.com. Now, of course, the problem with Steemit.com is, although in some cases it might kind of feel like an airdrop, it is not that, and it is based on skill. But a lot of them are hard workers, so they don't mind working and writing blogs and a variety of things. But there's a lot of things broke with the Steemit system, and that's the whales, and that is the Steem Power that is awarded to whomever they see fit. So in many cases, if the Venezuelans can't afford to buy Steem Power and a variety of things like that, they're probably not going to do that well on Steemit.com. Come, uh, but I can understand their attraction to it because of the social media interface, the wallet connected to the social media and all that, uh, and so that's a big problem what's going to have to happen when they go into many of these hyperinflated lands to make that happen. I think Electroneum's doing a good job of that with this mobile miner, making it very easy. I think BitcoinNYK.com doing— just doing a great job. But, you know, at the end of the day, with all these problems factoring into it as well, there is going to be this slow process of mass adoption in this, right? And, um, you know, this author doesn't seem very happy about cryptocurrency or what it's doing for his countrymen, and I think he seems very sincere. But, uh, I think it just suggests we got to do a much better job on how to implement that you know, into their projects and into their systems, right? That when they get this cryptocurrency, they're gonna try to liquidate it for something, and they're gonna need ways to do that. Now we know Dash is on the ground down there, and they supposedly, as they say, have a lot of businesses, a lot of infrastructure down there with Venezuela. But if that's the case, I guess I'm a little confused here as well. Why wouldn't they then just If it's so hard to get this cryptocurrency out and functioning in their system, why then just convert it to something like Dash and then use Dash to buy your bread and whatever these local vendors have for you and move the money back and forth? That way they can still take effect of a lot of this cryptocurrency value that's available to them and out there for them. But I would like to say, and this does help for me, for this to spread a lot of light on the situation, and I hope it does for you all as well. That we're gonna have to adjust to that and make some needed changes. Because there's been a huge part of the crypto narrative is, as this right, right, Arthur says, it's our favorite crypto narrative that our biggest use case is helping these people. And he's saying it's not really helping them the way it's going. And the way some cryptocurrencies are set up, and we got the explanation with Bitcoin, Bitcoin certainly is going to work for them. I think Electroneum is going to work good for them. I think BitcoinNYK.com is going to work work good for them, and something like BitTube might work good for them. But it is clear that Bitcoin is 100% out of question in this. And this guy is saying, uh, it's, it's our favorite narrative. Maybe it's our favorite narrative, but maybe we need to change it to fit them better. But I just want to share that with you all, and I love your, you guys' opinions about it. Let me know what you think in the comments section. If you like content like this, don't forget to like, subscribe. Don't forget to join projects like BitTube and BitcoinNYK.com that I think offer some similarities to Electroneum as well. And I think you're gonna enjoy all these projects about on the same level. But that's all I got to say in this video. Until next time, take care.