I have never bought bitcoin with the allowance. In case anyone is wondering, the government sells each Venezuelan $300 per year at the official exchange rate. This is the only amount that we're given without having to go through a lengthy process that typically involves having 'friends' within the government to pull strings for you. People usually buy Amazon gift cards with the money.

It's too scary to put your money in another volatile currency - I suppose people prefer dollars because they are stable and can be spent on popular e-commerce sites.

Are there no alternative currencies in Venezuela (like the Palma in Brazil)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banco_Palmas

I don't know if they have an alternative currency but there are some community banks similar to that one operating there (http://www.bankomunales.com/ (in Spanish)).

Cool, thanks for the link. For anyone else interested...

"Fundefir created a model of self-managed financing called Bankomunales con K, based on the exclusive use of funds from members of community groups, as a source of financing."

"Currently, there are around 150 groups, or Bankomunales, in 9 Venezuelan states."

Does anybody there take out loans in Bolivar, use the Bolviar to buy $300 at the official exchange rate, then sell a few of those purchased dollars in the black market to repay the loan immediately?

ye this is a pretty common practice, in fact, this is mainly the reason of why we have such high inflacion (because there is people, who, of course are gov related but also anti-gov, who only care to make free money from exchange corruption and they have alot of intentions to keep this going on).. also there is a 3000$ allowance to expend in travels wich you pay at 11 Bsf per USD, wich made a huge business for your average joe people since you pay the gov 33k Bsf but once you "cheat" the system, you get a return of 270k BsF after paying the gov. This is the major reason of all those flights problems in our country, because in order to get this 3000$ quota, you need to buy a plane ticket, airlines also want their cut on the huge bussiness so they sell overpriced tickets that people who will "cheat" will still buy, also note that the "big debt" that the gov has with the airlines is because when airlines sell a plane ticket in BsF they take the 100 Bsf Per USD rate, but then they expect the gov turns all those BsF into USD at official 6,3 rate, thus the gov "owes" the airlines billions of billions.

Anyways this is just a resume to see how everything is related, anyways as alot of people says here, bitcoin wont help at all. Sorry for mistakes in english . :) Edit: BsF = Bolivar

"Have you ever tried to buy bitcoins with our annual internet allowance ($300 per year on online purchases with credit card)?"

Wait, what ? What is an "internet allowance" ? How would one credit card issuer know if you had already spent $300 using a different credit card ?

How can this possibly be a thing ?

The govt created this central organism that controls your annual foreign currency allowance (it was called Cadivi, now called cencoex). You need to submit a bunch of docs to the bank you want your allowance at. So you can only spend your money using the credit cards issued by that bank.

For example, I sent in my papers to my bank at the beginning of the year. They activate my cards with that bank to be used online. You cannot use any other bank for online purchases.

We also get a $2500 yearly allowance for spending outside the country (if you travel) under a similar, more bureocratic mechanism.Unfortunately, since the govt has a MASSIVE debt with international airlines, most of them have cut most of their flights and you cannot get a flight out of Venezuela unless you are rich and can pay in dollars.