After several weeks of organizing ideas, today we are pleased to present the official launch of a project that was born with the idea of promoting the massive adoption of Blockchain technology in our country.
Project Venezuela - Blockchain for everyone
Efraín Pineda Jaimes | @efrageek
May 2017
SUMMARY
Venezuela, despite being a country with immense potentialities, has lived for many years in a constant cycle of crisis-recovery that has never allowed us to exploit all the positive we have as a society. Firmly convinced that Blockchain technology is here to stay and that it offers a large part of response of the world seeks to solve its economic and social problems (like corruption). We have set out to promote the massive adoption of solutions derived from Blockchain among our people.
Achieving a goal of such magnitude requires a joint work, harmonious, constant, consistent and with a long-term vision. It is precisely this premise, which has led us to formulate objectives in the short, medium and long term; Always trying to be as realistic as possible about it.
The possibilities are infinite for our country if we start working to rebuild the foundations of our economy and society, "infiltrating" in a constant way and in all areas of national life what could be the piece that we were missing so much for, finally, to reach the goal of achieving an improvement in the quality of life of the Venezuelan.
INTRODUCTION
Venezuela is experiencing one of its worst economic, political and social crises in a long time, however, it is not something completely new. For a long time our country - along with other underdeveloped countries - has lived in a constant vicious cycle of crisis-recovery-stagnation-crisis. Public entities have failed to respond to the needs of our society. They have built an economic and social "monster" that is difficult to tame and that is receiving the quality of life of all those who inhabit this corner of the Earth.
There is an urgent need to rebuild our country from the grassroots with the help of all the really talented people, supported by the Blockchain technology which, at last, can help us not to rely entirely on "blind faith" in entities controlled merely by human beings, but would be a robot, difficult to manipulate and corrupt, which would give us the guarantee that everything done will be done in a clean and transparent way.
It precisely for this reason that Project Venezuela is born as an independent and decentralized movement that will serve as platform and main promoter of Blockchain technology to be adopted in a massive way in all areas of daily life of the Venezuelan.
We firmly believe that, even in the short term, we can achieve an acceptable improvement in the quality of life of many Venezuelans, which will lay the foundations for a community that emerges from the "darkness" in the not too distant future, Of the network to put to the order of the "Venezuelan of foot" (common people) the goodness of all this ecosystem that so many lives is changing around the world.
Achieving such a project will require a lot of work, commitment and time spent by a large group of people with a high degree of ethics, humanism and detachment.
We will need help from all those who with their knowledge can contribute to the cause of our project, because Project Venezuela, belongs to all who put their grain of sand.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
Since 2013, Venezuela has been plunged into a deep economic and social crisis leveraged by the sudden drop in oil prices, which accounts for about 95% of the country's exports. This collapse revealed the erroneous administration carried out by the competent authorities, because the lack of income generated by oil began to decline imports of essential products that, although having the potential to do so, are not produced here . From food, toiletries and medicines; to the raw material so that the main industries of the nation continued working. All scarcity and much of it is still scarce.
In addition, our economy that always managed high inflation - of the order of two digits - in a matter of months fell in what is known as an inflationary spiral, with the consequent devaluation of our currency and the deterioration of the quality of life of all the citizens.
Some data:
- Recession: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that Venezuela ended 2016 with a contraction of -12% of the economy and that by 2017, the numbers will be around -6%.
- Inflationary explosion: By 2016 there was a monthly inflation of over
50% and daily inflation of 4.0%. Prices doubled by an average of 18
days (Hanke et al). The 2017 does not seem to improve, the IMF
projects that we will close with 1600% annual inflation. - Poverty: According to the latest study conducted by Venezuelan
universities - since we lack official statistics - 84% of Venezuelan households are in Poverty and 51% in extreme poverty. Of course they
are data that must be contextualized, but they do not stop approaching the reality.
To give a better understanding of the current economic situation in the country, as of 05/30/2017, one US dollar (USD) costs at a parallel dollar rate (our central bank maintains a fixed exchange rate, by this the market does not follow up) 6080 Bs / USD. Using this rate, the salary of a university professional is around 400,000 Bs (approximately 65 USD) and the minimum salary in Bs 200,021 (about 33 USD), to contrast it with the cost of living in the country, the group of basic products (for a family of 4 people to live well and comfortable for a month) by April 2017 costs about 1,214,020.20 Bs (about 200 $ approx), so a person living on minimum wage has a deficit of 5 minimum salaries and a professional person working in his area of at least 2 salaries to be able to support his family.
Although this data may show a bleak picture, Venezuela remains a country with immense potentialities, both for its wealth of natural resources and for the talent of its people.
In addition, in the area of cryptocurrencies, the crisis has meant an opportunity for this market to germinate which is only surpassed in Latin America by Brazil, although some affirm that we have already surpassed the latter in the number of transactions.
For these reasons, we have the firm assurance that Venezuela can become the cradle of the massive adoption of Blockchain technology in Latin America for the medium and long term.
WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO?
This movement was born with the vision of being the first decentralized organization in the country that serves as a platform for the massive adoption of blockchain technology, promoting the use and creation of tools that empower citizens.
We believe in decentralization as the basis for any organization to be as transparent and participatory as possible.
We are sure that the most effective and efficient decentralization is supported by an autonomous mechanism, difficult to manipulate or corrupt as is blockchain technology and its derivatives, smart contracts.
It means that Project Venezuela will seek, through all possible means, to become an Autonomous Decentralized Organization (DAO) to guarantee the transparency, participation and proper use of the tools that derive from the joint work. In addition, in this way we will avoid that the movement depends on a single person, thus achieving that the goals set and tasks entrusted are never left unfulfilled.
It is important that for a massive adoption of blockchain-based applications or technologies, these are acceptably user-friendly, so in Project Venezuela we believe that Steem and the entire platform around it is the one that offers the greatest potential and the lowest learning curve in what adoption by the user is concerned, this means that it will become the main blockchain platform that we will promote; Though not the only one.
Based on the economic experience within the country and the achievements of initiatives similar to ours in the world, we believe that the realization of the following objectives should govern our actions and guide all the enterprises that are born within our movement.
Short Term (1 month - 6 months)
- Create a strong presence in Steemit and in the main centralized
social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.). - Create with the help of the project participants, the necessary
material - guides, tutorials, videos, online courses - totally
directed to the Venezuelan public to facilitate the adoption of
blockchain technology and its different applications. - Launch creative advertising campaigns both on the Internet and in
physical media to make known the Steem platform in the country. - Organize events / contest within Steem to motivate and encourage
quality Venezuelan content creators. - Launch a curation project with which to promote Venezuelan quality
content. - Build a solid base of members of the movement committed to the
progress of the movement and meet the ethical profile required.
Medium Term (6 months - 2 years)
- Crystallize the transformation of our movement into an organization
based on the tool of intelligent contracts, that mean, to become a
Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) or its equivalent being
the case that in the elapsed time technologies are developed that
better adapt to our Principles and objectives. - Organize the first events that allow us to interact with other
members of the movement or spread the use of blockchain technologies (meetings, festivals, conferences, seminars, etc.). - Promote the establishment, of the most important communities of the
country around blockchain technologies (writers, musicians, artists,
scientists, professionals of different areas, entrepreneurs). - Serve as a germinator for the creation of Venezuelan start up
companies and / or initiatives of any kind that use any variant of
blockchain technology. - Become the first fully Witness Established in the country in order to be
able to support the Venezuelan users of Steem and to finance the
projects and activities that we propose. - Promote the creation of payment systems in cryptocurrencies -
preferably STEEM or SBD - and the first exchange that accepts STEEM
and SBD in the country.
Long Term (2 years - 10 years)
- Impulse the creation in Venezuela of a legal framework conducive to
the use and proliferation of initiatives based on blockchain. - Achieve that at least 10% of the operations of payment of goods and
services in the country are done with digital currencies (preferably
STEEM or SBD). - Motivate the founding of the first physical establishments such as
schools, universities, health centers, businesses, companies and
community centers in which preference is given to the use of
blockchain technology for different areas of life and to cultivate
the values of decentralization, freedom and participation. - Achieve the economic restructuring of the country around healthier
and decentralized financial processes that generate well-being and a
decent quality of life, all supported by blockchain technology that
guarantees the full participation of all.
CONCLUSION
It is imperative that our country, whether by public or independent initiative, consolidate the use of Blockchain technology in a massive way, as it has shown to have an incredible potential to change and / or improve things with which societies have been struggling for decades or even centuries.
Corruption, inequality, poverty, unemployment, brain exodus from underdeveloped countries to developed because of the poor quality of life in the first, among thousands of other reasons, make us find in the blockchain missing piece to solve the problems that afflict us.
At the same time, we consider that isolated efforts will never have the necessary impact to generate definitive changes, it is the synergistic power of joint and harmonious work that will help us to develop and achieve the goals we have set ourselves.
We are realistic, we know that it will not be easy or immediate what we have drawn, but it is precisely that which leads us to want to work tirelessly from now on so that all this stops being a simple utopian dream. We are sure it is possible. It will be the constant work and joint what, in the end, will give us the reason.
We do not believe in "short cuts", if we want deep changes, it will be the long-term north work that we will set.
Project Venezuela, not only becomes an alternative to improve the quality of life of many, but an opportunity for new business niches in the Venezuelan market be conquered by companies that are born within the project.
Finally, it is our sincere wish that those people, companies or organizations that wish to support us, feel that the money invested will be used in the right way, so it will be a priority for us to become a Decentralized Autonomous Organization that will guarantee our transparent operation.
Under the values of perseverance, effort, decentralization, cooperation and solidarity, in addition to much responsibility and commitment, we know we can achieve even more than what we have set ourselves.