The Bitcoin Forum

Hi.

I'll be "hiding" some Bitcoin Cash paper wallets, loaded with a small amount of Bitcoin Cash, in public places. A special thanks to reddit user u/emergent_reasons for making a donation. I've decided to pay it forward in full in one paper wallet. It literally has your name on it: All other paper wallets have $1 BZ (1 Belize Dollar, about 50 cents) on it. So, the people who find the wallets won't find a lot of money. With a bit of luck, this gift will give them an experience that is worth more than money.

Did you find a paper wallet?

Congratulations! You are now the owner of a small amount of Bitcoin Cash. If you found the /u/emergent_reasons wallet, please head over to reddit.com/r/btc and thank him/her for the donation

To claim, install the Bitcoin.com wallet on your smartphone (Android or iPhone). Once installed, click on Scan, and scan the Private Key QR code. Choose to sweep the funds. You will now have Bitcoin Cash in your wallet.

To learn more about Bitcoin Cash, visit the main page at bitcoincashbelize.com (and thus this forum), reddit.com/r/btc or bitcoincash.org.

Sign up for Bitcoin Cash meetups. There isn't one scheduled yet, register your interest in this thread (just post a reply).

Hi.

I'll be "hiding" some Bitcoin Cash paper wallets, loaded with a small amount of Bitcoin Cash, in public places...

Hi arnoudk, very cool!!!

I've hidden the /u/emergent_reasons donation in a Christmas tree at a restaurant.

It was still there when we left, which was near their closing time. So it'll not be claimed today.
It shouldn't be too hard for someone to find it

EDIT - Here's the link to check if it has been claimed.

That looks great!

Please post your Bitcoin Cash (BCH) address and we will see if we can spare a small amount of BCH for your giveaway

Please post your Bitcoin Cash (BCH) address and we will see if we can spare a small amount of BCH for your giveaway

Sure!

You can send any amount of BCH to 19RQfjmUhdwYgyxnNzptQMMuPjvv1t6TB9. Thanks in advance.

Here's a QR code.

Please post your Bitcoin Cash (BCH) address and we will see if we can spare a small amount of BCH for your giveaway

Sure!

You can send any amount of BCH to 19RQfjmUhdwYgyxnNzptQMMuPjvv1t6TB9. Thanks in advance.

Here's a QR code.
qrcode.jpg

Thanks, i am following up now what we can do to help you little project

Can't promise anything but we should be able to help you even in just a small way.

Thanks, i am following up now what we can do to help you little project

Can't promise anything but we should be able to help you even in just a small way.

Sounds good to me! I'm having a lot of fun, having lots of great conversations, and don't mind spending a little bit of my own money on this at all. So even if you can't help out, I'll still go right ahead.

I'm really just testing the waters, as it were, here in Belize. I think the country has a good potential for using Bitcoin Cash, but there are some very Belize-specific issues that I am not sure I can solve for to-be merchants. Input on that would be useful, if you have some thoughts.

Let me explain.

An owner of a decent-sized business here in Belize is interested in Bitcoin Cash. She orders a lot of products from abroad and they get shipped in via a cargo container (by sea). She immediately got the benefit of sending a Bitcoin Cash transaction vs a bank transfer. A bank transfer is not only very expensive, but she told me that the Central Bank of Belize needs to explicitly approve all foreign transfers (unfortunately, I am not even kidding). So, it is expensive and slow. So of course using Bitcoin Cash would be a no-brainer from this point of view. However, then the container with goods will arrive in the port. Customs needs to clear it. And she told me that unless you can show that you sent money out of Belize, and show official Central Bank of Belize documentation certifying that you in fact had approval, they will not clear your goods. Of course, using crypto to pay, means no such approval will exist, and which means that customs won't clear your shipments. I can't see a way to make Bitcoin Cash useful for this use case. Can you?

Of course there are lots of other use cases for Bitcoin Cash. And there's plenty of interest. But the game is played using very different rules here.

This all sounds really good and definitely needed for a country were living wages can be so low.

Let's take this transaction i just sent on the BTC network as an example. This was sent from the Bitcoin.com wallet with a "normal" fee, not priority.
Tx: https://blockchain.info/tx/71b451e78518 ... 6d2b9a2efc

As you can see the transaction is very small at 223 (bytes) but still cost me $ 21.44 AUD to send. I could understand this on a transaction with lot of inputs, but 1 input and 2 outputs should never most this much. Small blocks = high fees.

Do you know if there is a big market is Belize for remittance payments?
If there is then you need to find people that can accept BCH for local currency. What's the point of sending your hard earned cash back home if 25-50% is going to be taken up in fees on the BTC network, people may as well use Western Union.

I will try get the team here to help you as much as possible.

Do you know if there is a big market is Belize for remittance payments?
If there is then you need to find people that can accept BCH for local currency. What's the point of sending your hard earned cash back home if 25-50% is going to be taken up in fees on the BTC network, people may as well use Western Union.

I will try get the team here to help you as much as possible.

Yes! There is indeed a big remittance market.

Belize has a small population (about 400.000 people). And, I am told, there are about the same number of Belizeans living and working abroad (mainly the USA). There is a lot of money being sent, but I can't quite get my finger behind this yet. I know many people use Western Union, but I can't help but sense that there is something else going on too.

Yesterday, I learned that there are a "lot" of people from Guatemala who work in Belize. They will send their money back to Guatemala. From the perspective of a Guatemalan, Belize is a wealthy country. From the perspective of Belizeans, Mexico or the USA are wealthy.

Then there is the issue with Central Bank approval for transfers. I spoke at length with a real estate agent / business owner about a year ago, about using Bitcoin (at the time). He had some foreign clients that had sold their property, and needed to move the money out of the country. And that was a multi-month process. And it wasn't some crazy amount of money, a few hundred thousand US Dollars. The Central Bank would then approve a 5000 dollar transfer here, and a 10000 dollar transfer there. And then he'd have to wait to sent the rest. (This is actually a very interesting topic, according to rumors the Central Bank doesn't have the foreign currency it needs for its commitments. May or may not be true. But these stories do make sense if you make that assumption). Last year, that was really only a problem if you had a buyer that used Belize Dollars for the transaction, so many foreigners planning to leave the country opted only to sell to other foreigners, and never have the money enter the country. Now, that has changed, and the Central Bank is again causing friction. Now, if you want to buy a house, the transfer has to be done in Belize Dollars, again the Central Bank needs to give its approval, and then the Lands Department can register the property you bought in your name. If the Central Bank doesn't 'see' the money, they won't approve, and you can't register. I still need to double-check (I recently got to know a senior government official working in the legal department of the Lands Department - I must check with him if this story is true (he loves Bitcoin Cash!)). But if it is, then today, every single foreigner selling real estate (and leaving the country) has issues getting the money out.

Anyway, I'll end the rant here Just a glimpse into the machinery of this country.

Just FYI, I'm learning a lot of this stuff myself. I am not a Belizean myself. I moved here about three years ago.

I will try get the team here to help you as much as possible.

There's something that you might be able to help with. In the bitcoin.com wallet, when I sweep the funds, it charges a 0.0001 BCH fee, for a 1 input 1 output transaction. That seems steep. For comparison, when I send a 1 input 2 output tx in the wallet (regular method), it charges a 0.000002 BCH fee.

There doesn't appear to be a good reason for 50x higher fees for sweeping Bitcoin Cash wallets.

Another thing I noticed, was that I had to change the source code for the cashaddress.org page (specifically, how it handles the Private Key QR code generation) to make it compatible with the Bitcoin.com wallet. The Private Key QR code was prepended with 'bitcoincash:', and that caused the wallet to not recognize it. I simply changed the code to only put the bitcoincash: text on the address QR, and not the PK QR. But it would be more flexibile if the wallet recognized both.

Thanks!!

This is a pretty cool idea, at least people can actually USE IT like it was supposed to be.

This is a pretty cool idea, at least people can actually USE IT like it was supposed to be.

Thanks

I expect people will start doing this for Christmas. Sending BCH presents to friends and family.

Interesting info about the Central Bank. I was considering Belize as a retirement destination but this has dissuaded me. The place sound pretty disorganized.

This all sounds really good and definitely needed for a country were living wages can be so low.

Let's take this transaction i just sent on the BTC network as an example. This was sent from the Bitcoin.com wallet with a "normal" fee, not priority.
Tx: https://blockchain.info/tx/71b451e78518 ... 6d2b9a2efc

As you can see the transaction is very small at 223 (bytes) but still cost me $ 21.44 AUD to send. I could understand this on a transaction with lot of inputs, but 1 input and 2 outputs should never most this much. Small blocks = high fees.
.

I always use a custom fee of 2 sat/byte which is less than a cent. Never had a problem.

hi, im very new to crypto currencies. what is the best way to buy those currencies with belizian credit card? or is there a better way? i dont have any idea, could you light me please.