I've been running a project to support authors from Venezuela on the blockchain for almost two years. During this time, I had some insight in the daily struggle that Venezuelan people have with hyperinflation and a corrupt government.
The struggles of the unbanked
For somebody living in Venezuela a lot of things are simply not available like international credit cards, payment processors to name just a few. Venezuela is not alone. Many third world countries have a much more difficult access to the international financial system.
This has very direct implications on what these people can and can't do online. Pay something online with Paypal? Don't think so. Pay something with Credit Cards? Probably neither. It's almost impossible to purchase stuff online and at the same time it's very difficult to sell things online as well...
But this could be changing!
Imagine that instead of paying online with credit cards or paypal, you pay with Hive or whatever currency that you have on hive-engine? Let me present you the new payment processor Hivepay developed by @jongolson and @blainjones.
Create an e-commerce without banks or credit cards
Imagine you are a local grocery store in Caracas and in times of Corona you want to deliver goods to your customers over an online store.
The only thing you need is a working webspace where you install the free wordpress software. You then install the Woocomerce plugin. Probably the most popular e-commerce plugin for wordpress. Wordpress and Woocomerce can be downloaded for free. Once you have installed this on your website, you install the brand new Hivepay plugin for Woocomerce (at the moment it can be dowloaded for free in the channel #woocommerce on discord). Now your neighbours can go to your website, order food or any kind of products and pay with Hive, HBD, DEC or any hive-engine currency of your choice. You get the order and you deliver the goods to their doors.
No middle man. No government control. You only pay a 0.5% commission on the transactions.
Protect your business against inflation
A lot of Venezuelans are on Hive to make an income with blogging. At the moment they need to exchange Hive into the local currency to pay for products. Thanks to payment processors like hivepay, it is now possible to pay directly with Hive. The shop owner receives Hive and he can store hive and exchange it in bolivares only when he needs to. Like that he can escape the inflation by keeping a currency that is much more stable than the local currency!
Sell to the world
For unbanked people it becomes now possible to sell to the world. Create digital products like e-books, pictures, videos, software and sell them all over the world and get paid in Hive, Leo, DEC or any other hive-engine currency!
What we need now is to have hosting and webspace that can be bought with Crypto! Maybe this would be an interesting niche to develop.
Check-out my online store, to see how a woocomerce website with Hivepay looks like.
