Posted on 10/22/2017 9:32:58 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Caracas (AFP) - Inside a locked room in an office building in Caracas, 20 humming computers use their data-crunching power to mine bitcoins, an increasingly popular tool in the fight against Venezuela's hyperinflation.
In warehouses, offices and homes, miners are using modified computers to perform complex computations, essentially book-keeping for digital transactions worldwide, for which they earn a commission in bitcoins.
While practiced worldwide, Bitcoin mining is part of a growing, underground effort in Venezuela to escape the worst effects of a crippling economic and political crisis and runaway inflation that the IMF says could reach 720 percent this year.
Having no confidence in the bolivar and struggling to find dollars, many Venezuelans, who are neither computer geeks nor financial wizards, are relying on the bitcoin -- currently valued around $6,050, or other virtual currencies.
Caracas office worker Veronica says her boss installed the 20 machines in early 2015.
"These are machines that bring in $800 a month (more than 26 million bolivars)," says Veronica, who refused to give her full name because of fears of arrest....
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
You can still mine them but sheer demand for it relative to the limited supply means they “dig” harder and longer to get any.
This has also led to the creation of “alt-coins”, other cryptocurrencies like lite-coin, to meet the demand.
They estimate the last bitcoin will be mined in 2140.
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