> If I understand your situation correctly, you are working in Argentina, but not paying income tax because you are a non-resident, and the source of your income is outside Argentina.
Very nearly—I'm working in Argentina, and the source of my income is outside Argentina, but I am not paying income tax because AFIP refused to issue me a CUIT without a work visa, but I'm not a non-resident; I'm an illegal immigrant.
> In that situation, I would look into setting up an offshore corporation with a bank account to hold the income, and then get a debit card that could be used in Argentina.
I have no idea how to do this, particularly without being able to leave Argentina. Also I don't think it's really a practical solution for the vast majority of people in either Argentina or El Salvador. (Also, most people bridle at taking the 38% haircut from the fake exchange rate, which at times has gone as high as 50%. In Venezuela it's sometimes been over 90%.)
> get cash from strangers, which I personally would be a little hesitant about, since there is a non-zero chance you are accepting dirty money and/or helping people circumvent currency controls
Any time you handle money, whether from a bank or anywhere else, you are accepting dirty money and/or helping people circumvent currency controls. The nature of money is that it is dirty and circumvents currency controls. That's the advantage money has over a gift economy: I don't have to worry whether the person I'm selling my car to, writing software for, or selling Bitcoin to is a good person or a bad person, whether when they return the favor it will be in spades or stintingly, or whether they will die or leave town before returning the favor. Of course I would like my money to fund good activities like education, family remittances to Venezuela, and abortion rights†, rather than bad activities like factory farming of livestock, constructing nuclear weapons, or exploitative garment sweatshop labor; but the nature of money is that it grants each individual the autonomy to make their own moral choices about how to direct their resources, rather than submitting each innovation for community assent. Sometimes they make the wrong choices, but that is better than not having the choice at all.
Similarly, the ice cream shop down the street has no duty to inquire whether the young woman buying ice cream earned that money from masturbating in front of a webcam for strangers on the internet, which I think is an occupation in which bitcoin is now very popular. Indeed, it would be unacceptable for them to make such inquiries.
I'm hesitant about getting cash from strangers for a different reason, which is what I thought you were going to say: they might shoot me or rob my house and take the cash back. With banks and Western Union this is a much larger risk.
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† Abortion was illegal in Argentina until December. One of the things I did with my money in the past was to buy abortion manuals and give them away in the park. (It turns out there were legal drugs in Argentina which could produce safe first-trimester abortions.) Probably many people considered that money "dirty", but because we live in a money economy, the people who printed the books didn't have to worry about being turned out of their homes or going hungry as a result. Free abortion took a really long time to gain community assent.
> [offshore corporation] I have no idea how to do this, particularly without being able to leave Argentina. Also I don't think it's really a practical solution for the vast majority of people in either Argentina or El Salvador
It’s fairly easy, but agree, it is not a practical solution for most people.
But then, most people do not get their income from abroad, so bitcoin isn’t practical either, for example you yourself exchange the bitcoins for cash, to use them locally (rather than use bitcoins to pay for your ice cream).
There is a market for “cash for bitcoin” (I think) because Argentina has capital controls, i.e. people making money in Argentina, that they want to get out of the country, and can’t go through the regulated system, are willing to buy your bitcoins, possible below market rate.
So bitcoin primarily solves the problem of getting money out of a country with capital controls, but most people living in a country with capital controls do not regularly face this problem.
You can say that for you, it solves the problem of getting money into the country, but there are plenty of alternatives, sure, some may have downsides, but bitcoin is not without downsides.
For spending money day-to-day, bitcoin does not solve that problem, the bitcoins have to be exchanged to cash first, as no-one wants to pay a 4 dollar fee to buy an ice cream, or have to wait up to an hour for reasonable assurance that the transaction is final.
> Any time you handle money, whether from a bank or anywhere else, you are accepting dirty money
While this may be true, I was alluding to specific anti-money laundering laws. For example, in the U.S. you have to report cash payments of $10,000 or above. So your ice cream shop, accepting a few dollars in cash, do not have to report this, and would not be liable if it turns out that these money were from selling drugs or what have you.
But if a car dealership accepts $25,000 in cash for a car, and they do not report it, then they are complicit in laundering money (to the best of my knowledge).
I don’t know if such laws exist in Argentina, but they exist in the U.S. and Europa, and I believe they would also apply to accepting cash for bitcoin (although the U.S. reporting threshold is quite high, in Denmark the reporting threshold was around $500, last I checked).
> I'm hesitant about getting cash from strangers for a different reason, which is what I thought you were going to say: they might shoot me or rob my house and take the cash back
My concern was twofold, the regulatory issue, as mentioned, but certainly also, that the people showing up to give you money for bitcoin may indeed be “gagsters”, but I was afraid that this would come off as prejudiced, as I don’t know Argentina, so I shouldn’t make assumptions, but I do know another developing country fairly well, where there is drug trafficking with foreigners involved, and capital controls makes it hard for them to take their profit out of the country, so they have turned to bitcoin, and I really would not want to get involved with these people (i.e. show up and accept their dirty cash for bitcoins).
Very nearly—I'm working in Argentina, and the source of my income is outside Argentina, but I am not paying income tax because AFIP refused to issue me a CUIT without a work visa, but I'm not a non-resident; I'm an illegal immigrant.
> In that situation, I would look into setting up an offshore corporation with a bank account to hold the income, and then get a debit card that could be used in Argentina.
I have no idea how to do this, particularly without being able to leave Argentina. Also I don't think it's really a practical solution for the vast majority of people in either Argentina or El Salvador. (Also, most people bridle at taking the 38% haircut from the fake exchange rate, which at times has gone as high as 50%. In Venezuela it's sometimes been over 90%.)
> get cash from strangers, which I personally would be a little hesitant about, since there is a non-zero chance you are accepting dirty money and/or helping people circumvent currency controls
Any time you handle money, whether from a bank or anywhere else, you are accepting dirty money and/or helping people circumvent currency controls. The nature of money is that it is dirty and circumvents currency controls. That's the advantage money has over a gift economy: I don't have to worry whether the person I'm selling my car to, writing software for, or selling Bitcoin to is a good person or a bad person, whether when they return the favor it will be in spades or stintingly, or whether they will die or leave town before returning the favor. Of course I would like my money to fund good activities like education, family remittances to Venezuela, and abortion rights†, rather than bad activities like factory farming of livestock, constructing nuclear weapons, or exploitative garment sweatshop labor; but the nature of money is that it grants each individual the autonomy to make their own moral choices about how to direct their resources, rather than submitting each innovation for community assent. Sometimes they make the wrong choices, but that is better than not having the choice at all.
Similarly, the ice cream shop down the street has no duty to inquire whether the young woman buying ice cream earned that money from masturbating in front of a webcam for strangers on the internet, which I think is an occupation in which bitcoin is now very popular. Indeed, it would be unacceptable for them to make such inquiries.
I'm hesitant about getting cash from strangers for a different reason, which is what I thought you were going to say: they might shoot me or rob my house and take the cash back. With banks and Western Union this is a much larger risk.
______
† Abortion was illegal in Argentina until December. One of the things I did with my money in the past was to buy abortion manuals and give them away in the park. (It turns out there were legal drugs in Argentina which could produce safe first-trimester abortions.) Probably many people considered that money "dirty", but because we live in a money economy, the people who printed the books didn't have to worry about being turned out of their homes or going hungry as a result. Free abortion took a really long time to gain community assent.