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Comment by gus_massa | Hacker News Reader

The people will not use Bitcoins wallets, because the transaction fees and confirmation time are too high. So the idea is that people will use account with Bicoins in some exchange and an app to make the transactions. So there is no difference between using Bitcoins or Dollars, and Dollars have a more stable price. There is no advantage of using a cryptocoin here.

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Have you looked at how you actually buy Dollars in Venezuela? Using an illegal black market and paying a large commission? And with US financial restrictions on the country, along with tourists bringing across high-denominations of dollars rather than change, the fact that they've had to develop IOU policies to cope with that too? And if they want to use an application such as Zelle, how do they set up a US bank account to sign up?

This is a much more complex issue than people seem to realise and it is a valid usecase for cryptocurrencies where you can create a wallet quickly and transfer small denominations cheaply, if not necessarily via bitcoin.

Edit: At a minimum, could you see the perks that a stablecoin like USDT might offer?

> Using an illegal black market and paying a large commission?

Buying any cryptocoin probably has the a similar big commission, nobody will sell you Bitcoins at the official exchange value of Bolivars.

> At a minimum, could you see the perks that a stablecoin like USDT might offer?

We had "Convertible" Pesos here in Argentina. 1 Peso = 1 Dollar. (And at some time, each province had also it's own local "Convertible"^2 money.) All the stablecoins are fully backed up, until they aren't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convertibility_plan

There are other cryptocurrencies than BTC, like Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Dash, which work well for any transaction, big or small, with low fees and fast confirmations.

Tell that to the people of Venezuela, of whom the article states that they are flocking to it to save their hides.

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