I'm Venezuelan, for me, getting paid in BTC is orders of magnitude easier than any other alternative.
Paypal closes your account (after letting you deposit some amount which they will hold for 6 months before letting you wire it out to some other normal bank account) if you're Venezuelan.
Transferwise doesn't even serve Venezuelans and when they decided to stop serving us, a friend got his account blocked (he signed up before they banned Venezuelans) and unlike Paypal they just kept the money with no option to withdraw it.
Venezuelan bank accounts cannot receive international wire transfers.
Colombia/Brazil, the nearest countries (a round trip could cost you less than $200 pre-pandemic) don't let Venezuelans open up bank accounts unless they got a residence card.
This is in part due to USA sanctions, but the Venezuelan government is also at fault too (currency exchange controls, etc).
Ironically, USA is where it's easiest for a Venezuelan to open up a bank account. But pre-pandemic you had to spend more than $1000 (now it's more) in travel and accommodation to the USA to accomplish this. Not to mention you need a Visa.
It's also relatively easy and cheap (less than $1k) to remotely open up a business + bank account, again in USA, and do business through there which is what people are starting to do now (even though it's been possible since years ago if I'm not mistaken).
This is what I'm about to do in order to be able to do business (i'm a freelance programming contractor) with my clients easier, but it's still more expensive and harder than just set up a wallet + a localbitcoins account.
Yes, my aunt isn't going to buy bread with bitcoin, we all know that, but thanks to bitcoin her daughter can get paid as freelance Graphics Designer by her clients. Lots of remittance going on through bitcoin too.
Paypal closes your account (after letting you deposit some amount which they will hold for 6 months before letting you wire it out to some other normal bank account) if you're Venezuelan.
Transferwise doesn't even serve Venezuelans and when they decided to stop serving us, a friend got his account blocked (he signed up before they banned Venezuelans) and unlike Paypal they just kept the money with no option to withdraw it.
Venezuelan bank accounts cannot receive international wire transfers.
Colombia/Brazil, the nearest countries (a round trip could cost you less than $200 pre-pandemic) don't let Venezuelans open up bank accounts unless they got a residence card.
This is in part due to USA sanctions, but the Venezuelan government is also at fault too (currency exchange controls, etc).
Ironically, USA is where it's easiest for a Venezuelan to open up a bank account. But pre-pandemic you had to spend more than $1000 (now it's more) in travel and accommodation to the USA to accomplish this. Not to mention you need a Visa.
It's also relatively easy and cheap (less than $1k) to remotely open up a business + bank account, again in USA, and do business through there which is what people are starting to do now (even though it's been possible since years ago if I'm not mistaken).
This is what I'm about to do in order to be able to do business (i'm a freelance programming contractor) with my clients easier, but it's still more expensive and harder than just set up a wallet + a localbitcoins account.
Yes, my aunt isn't going to buy bread with bitcoin, we all know that, but thanks to bitcoin her daughter can get paid as freelance Graphics Designer by her clients. Lots of remittance going on through bitcoin too.