Venezuelans turn to Bitcoins to bypass currency controls

Re:Venezuelans turn to Bitcoins to bypass currency controls by FloresHernandez on Wednesday October 08, 2014 @09:14PM (#8430319)

Actually, is the other way around. It is cheaper to pay in Bolivars than Dollars. Right now is 9000 Bolivars (Around 90 Dollars) vs. 130 Dollars a night at the Marriott in Caracas.

It used to be crazy before, if you paid in Bolivars it was only 100 dollars vs 600 dollars if you paid in USD. Fun fact, even if you were paying in Bolivars way less, you still used to get Marriott points as if you were spending 600 dollars a night, so the quickest way to get a lot of points was staying at the Caracas Marriott.

Having said that, I have yet to hear about anyone bypassing the regulations by using bitcoins. Is still not that hard finding someone selling dollars.

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Re:Venezuelans turn to Bitcoins to bypass currency controls by josu on Thursday October 09, 2014 @12:17AM (#8430804)

According to the Marriott page, the exchange rate that they apply is 1USD=50VEF [1]. This is 7 times the official exchange rate, on par with what I was saying. But I haven't been to Venezuela, so I might be missing something.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/D1wLoQM.png

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Re:Venezuelans turn to Bitcoins to bypass currency controls by hopeee on Thursday October 09, 2014 @12:22PM (#8433359)

this also used to apply for airlines miles, it used to be awesome :D

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