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I'm not OP. I looked and Chainalytics claim Venezuela is world number 3 in bitcoin use. But it's not clear what they're basing that on. My (very limited) under

I'm not OP. I looked and Chainalytics claim Venezuela is world number 3 in bitcoin use. But it's not clear what they're basing that on. My (very limited) understanding is that they can't directly see the country of origin of a bitcoin transaction. So they must be relying on figures from exchanges or apps? https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/venezuela-cryptocurrency-market-2020 https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/venezuela-cryptocurrenc... Does anyone know if you can tell country of origin of a transaction request? Maybe the IP sending the request is public to the network?

AlexCoventry 6y ago
> Does anyone know if you can tell country of origin of a transaction request? Maybe the IP sending the request is public to the network? In this kind of setting, where the transaction is illicit, you wouldn't go through an exchange, you'd publish the transaction directly to the bitcoin network, and organizations like chainalytics do track the origin IP addresses.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  That makes sense. Not to criticise but... Isn't the IP of a transaction initiator being public a bit of a design flaw? Is it just assumed that users will obscure their own IPs (vpn, tor, etc)? Otherwise my isp/government can see my transactions and infer wallet ownership and I'm suddenly very un-anonymous...
  - gruez 6y ago
    Transactions are relayed to all the nodes in the network, not broadcast. That means when a node sees a transaction from another node, it's impossible to know whether the node was the originator of the transaction, or was merely relaying it from another node. AFAIK bitcoin core also has some mitigations such as delaying broadcast to a subset of the nodes, to make it look like your node wasn't the first node to learn about the transaction.
  - sneak 6y ago
    Last I looked, bitcoin p2p connections are not encrypted by default, so your ISP/government can see any transactions you initiate yourself. I implored the bitcoin developers to add this functionality about five or six years ago for this exact reason. That said, someone who isn't in a position to monitor the L2 network can't know if you are initiating a transaction or simply rebroadcasting it.
  - literallycancer 6y ago
    There are wallets that support schemes like Dandelion, intended to make it harder to deanonymize users: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0156 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0156 Edit: apparently this has been delayed so you likely can't use it at this point https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/81503/what-is-the-tradeoff-between-privacy-and-implementation-complexity-of-dandelion/81504#81504 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/81503/what-is-th...
firekvz 6y ago
Bitcoin adoption in venezuela is Absolutely fake/nonexistant Bitcoin is only used as a bridge for exchange VES:USD a.k.a money laundering from corruption and drugs, with some remittances transactions caught in the middle of those laundry waves. there is absolutely 0 adoption for bitcoin in Venezuela, Im a bitcoin enthusiast since 2011 and I hold bitcoin and I live in Caracas (capital) and move around all tech communities and yet to see a real crypto transaction. Some people used the “get rich quick” schemes from DASH and other silly alts and tried to make a big media (international media) about Venezuelans using bitcoin to try to money grab international money into their scams, they manage to convince some stores and local food chains to “accept” their silly cryptos but of course no one uses, yet they got the money from their international sponsors trying to force adoption in the country.. there is hillarious threads on DASH forums about it You can read my other post on details on the only use for bitcoin in venezuela, that big money laundery called localbitcoins
- lawrenceyan 6y ago
  How do you deal with the ongoing devaluation of the bolivar currently?
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Truthfully? There's no good answer, period. The government needs to be replaced. This is the false promise of bitcoin. As long as the government needs to be replaced you have much bigger problems than the currency. As soon as the government is replaced, you no longer have to worry about the currency. Bitcoin always has been, and always will be, a solution in search of a problem. Forget Venezuela for a second and ask yourself how Bitcoin is helping the North Koreans.
    - ric2b 6y ago
      How is the USD helping the North Koreans? No one claimed that Bitcoin is useful in NK so I don't get the point of the question.
      - 6y ago
sibbdojo 6y ago
Most Venezuela Bitcoin statistics are based on information published by localbitcoins.com I wouldn't trust anything published by Chainalysis. Their accuracy is much lower than their reputation Venezuela is often painted as a "Bitcoin solves this" poster child. Yes, Bitcoin is sent from the USA and other countries into Venezuela, mostly by Venezuelan expatriates to family. It's useful for buying USD in Venezuela. But USD liquidity in Venezuela is very weak, so Bitcoin doesn't really solve much at all there. You can't buy groceries in Venezuela with Bitcoin >Does anyone know if you can tell country of origin of a transaction request? You can not > Maybe the IP sending the request is public to the network? If the sender is using his own Bitcoin node, the sender's IP is known only to the other nodes the transaction was broadcast to. If the sender is using a third-party service, that service records the IP addresses of its customers in the same way as any Web site does, just as my IP is known to ycombinator when I submit this comment

AlexCoventry 6y ago

> Does anyone know if you can tell country of origin of a transaction request? Maybe the IP sending the request is public to the network? In this kind of setting, where the transaction is illicit, you wouldn't go through an exchange, you'd publish the transaction directly to the bitcoin network, and organizations like chainalytics do track the origin IP addresses.

LatteLazy 6y ago
That makes sense. Not to criticise but... Isn't the IP of a transaction initiator being public a bit of a design flaw? Is it just assumed that users will obscure their own IPs (vpn, tor, etc)? Otherwise my isp/government can see my transactions and infer wallet ownership and I'm suddenly very un-anonymous...
- gruez 6y ago
  Transactions are relayed to all the nodes in the network, not broadcast. That means when a node sees a transaction from another node, it's impossible to know whether the node was the originator of the transaction, or was merely relaying it from another node. AFAIK bitcoin core also has some mitigations such as delaying broadcast to a subset of the nodes, to make it look like your node wasn't the first node to learn about the transaction.
- sneak 6y ago
  Last I looked, bitcoin p2p connections are not encrypted by default, so your ISP/government can see any transactions you initiate yourself. I implored the bitcoin developers to add this functionality about five or six years ago for this exact reason. That said, someone who isn't in a position to monitor the L2 network can't know if you are initiating a transaction or simply rebroadcasting it.
- literallycancer 6y ago
  There are wallets that support schemes like Dandelion, intended to make it harder to deanonymize users: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0156 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0156 Edit: apparently this has been delayed so you likely can't use it at this point https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/81503/what-is-the-tradeoff-between-privacy-and-implementation-complexity-of-dandelion/81504#81504 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/81503/what-is-th...

firekvz 6y ago

Bitcoin adoption in venezuela is Absolutely fake/nonexistant Bitcoin is only used as a bridge for exchange VES:USD a.k.a money laundering from corruption and drugs, with some remittances transactions caught in the middle of those laundry waves. there is absolutely 0 adoption for bitcoin in Venezuela, Im a bitcoin enthusiast since 2011 and I hold bitcoin and I live in Caracas (capital) and move around all tech communities and yet to see a real crypto transaction. Some people used the “get rich quick” schemes from DASH and other silly alts and tried to make a big media (international media) about Venezuelans using bitcoin to try to money grab international money into their scams, they manage to convince some stores and local food chains to “accept” their silly cryptos but of course no one uses, yet they got the money from their international sponsors trying to force adoption in the country.. there is hillarious threads on DASH forums about it You can read my other post on details on the only use for bitcoin in venezuela, that big money laundery called localbitcoins

lawrenceyan 6y ago
How do you deal with the ongoing devaluation of the bolivar currently?
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Truthfully? There's no good answer, period. The government needs to be replaced. This is the false promise of bitcoin. As long as the government needs to be replaced you have much bigger problems than the currency. As soon as the government is replaced, you no longer have to worry about the currency. Bitcoin always has been, and always will be, a solution in search of a problem. Forget Venezuela for a second and ask yourself how Bitcoin is helping the North Koreans.
  - ric2b 6y ago
    How is the USD helping the North Koreans? No one claimed that Bitcoin is useful in NK so I don't get the point of the question.
    - 6y ago

sibbdojo 6y ago

Most Venezuela Bitcoin statistics are based on information published by localbitcoins.com I wouldn't trust anything published by Chainalysis. Their accuracy is much lower than their reputation Venezuela is often painted as a "Bitcoin solves this" poster child. Yes, Bitcoin is sent from the USA and other countries into Venezuela, mostly by Venezuelan expatriates to family. It's useful for buying USD in Venezuela. But USD liquidity in Venezuela is very weak, so Bitcoin doesn't really solve much at all there. You can't buy groceries in Venezuela with Bitcoin >Does anyone know if you can tell country of origin of a transaction request? You can not > Maybe the IP sending the request is public to the network? If the sender is using his own Bitcoin node, the sender's IP is known only to the other nodes the transaction was broadcast to. If the sender is using a third-party service, that service records the IP addresses of its customers in the same way as any Web site does, just as my IP is known to ycombinator when I submit this comment