[2019-08-06] Venezuela Bitcoin Trading Hits New Highs Amid US Embargo

[Saint-loup]

I am not sure for how long the Venezuelan government will tolerate the Bitcoin trading in its territory. The national currency is losing value every day and people are using Bitcoin as a store of value (which further weakens the national currency). The good news is that I haven't heard of anyone getting arrested in Venezuela for using BTC or any other cryptocurrency.

Don't think that the Venezuelan government has become Bitcoin friendly all of a sudden. If they are tolerating BTC, then there is some solid reason behind it. The ongoing sanctions and embargoes have cut the flow of foreign currency to the country. The government may be using Bitcoin to circumvent these sanctions and bring in foreign currency.

Since the beginning of this year, inflation in Venezuela has reached 1600 percent. Of course, the inhabitants of this country are forced to hide their savings in bitcoin, which is not subject to inflation. However, in this country, first of all, it is necessary to solve the protracted crisis of political power, and then to solve their economic problems. The longer it drags in time, the harder it will be to get out of this very difficult situation.

Only 1600percent since the beginning of the year is rather a good score in fact. According to the Bloomberg VENEZUELAN CAFÉ CON LECHE INDEX which is tracking the price of a cup of coffee with milk, the inflation in the country over the last year is 45 000%... so only 1600% on a YTD basis it's rather correct. Maybe Petro begins to give results.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-venezuela-cafe-con-leche-index/

[timerland]

@timerland. Agreed. However, I reckon the government of Venezuela and others might only be tolerating it because they do not have the laws and the means to enforce regulations. The moment they do figure it out, let us hope adoption gas spread deep and wide and it would be too late for them hehehe.

For sure mate. They don't have enough power to be able to take away BTC, could you imagine if they tried to tax or even ban it? The people of Venezuela would go crazy.

If their economy ever recovers and they would be able to effectively use fiat for everything, I'd like to see what they'd do related to cryptocurrency. If the government is smart and willing to, they could become one of the most accepting countries for cryptocurrency, and turn their nation around with cryptocurrencies. We'd be able to see full adoption because most of the people there already use BTC anyway.

I really don't want to see them shoot BTC in the foot for their own Petro coin to do well, there's definitely room for both of the cryptocurrencies and a crypto-friendly Venezeual would be great to see.

[Harlot]

@timerland. Agreed. However, I reckon the government of Venezuela and others might only be tolerating it because they do not have the laws and the means to enforce regulations. The moment they do figure it out, let us hope adoption gas spread deep and wide and it would be too late for them hehehe.

For sure mate. They don't have enough power to be able to take away BTC, could you imagine if they tried to tax or even ban it? The people of Venezuela would go crazy.

If their economy ever recovers and they would be able to effectively use fiat for everything, I'd like to see what they'd do related to cryptocurrency. If the government is smart and willing to, they could become one of the most accepting countries for cryptocurrency, and turn their nation around with cryptocurrencies. We'd be able to see full adoption because most of the people there already use BTC anyway.

I really don't want to see them shoot BTC in the foot for their own Petro coin to do well, there's definitely room for both of the cryptocurrencies and a crypto-friendly Venezeual would be great to see.

I highly doubt that they would plan regulating any time soon as they would only just affect their economy badly just when some of their citizens have found a safe haven from their money. Only doing so would just put their position on a more bad place when they are personally killing their economy. The Venezuelan government must take advantage of this and accept the fact that the Bolivar won't be the preferred choice of their citizens. Another thing to point out is Venezuela is also accepting foreign fiat currency as legal tender in their country to somehow mitigate the inflation happening from their own currency so it's likely that they will just go pass through this and see it not as a concern for now.

[cr1776]

And how long did the people of venezuela use bitcoin as a refuge? Will use bitcoin as a refuge for a year? for 10 years? forever? Venezuelan people should stop supporting Maduro. they should ask for fair and transparent elections, they must demand democracy and freedom of expression. They cannot continue to accept the kind of life they have

One problem is that up until the late 1990s, they DID have fair and transparent elections.  What they did though was see the lure of "something for nothing" and "free <whatever>" without thinking about the consequences and then voted themselves into the slavery of socialism.  Remember, they voted Chavez in because he promised enough people that he'd take from one group and give to them that they voted him in.  Instead he took the entire country - once the richest in Central and South America - down the drain where now it is the poorest.

The world should take note of another example of socialists destroying a country, and take steps now to plan for it wherever you are.  Particularly Hong Kong (and China), but also places like the US where socialism is being sold as a panacea to people who are uninformed about the deaths and destruction it has caused everywhere it is tried.

Remember, they had free and fair elections and stupidly tried to vote themselves "free" stuff.

[1Referee]

Another thing to point out is Venezuela is also accepting foreign fiat currency as legal tender in their country to somehow mitigate the inflation happening from their own currency so it's likely that they will just go pass through this and see it not as a concern for now.

Did they? Bolivars and the Petro are the only legal tenders within Venezuela, unless they changed their law and now also accept foreign currencies (which I highly doubt).

People and businesses do accept fiat currencies such as the us dollar and to some degree others, but this doesn't mean they are legal tender because they aren't approved by the government as such, which is a requirement if you want something to be a legal tender.

Good thing is that people don't have to care about what their government deems legal tender. Venezuelans have been preferring us dollars over their own currency for many years now, and if they actually kept their dollars in a sock or whatever, they should have done well saving at least a portion of their wealth from becoming worthless.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Ryan Taylor (the CEO of Dashpay) once claimed that Dash was the most popular cryptocurrency in Venezuela and Bitcoin is far behind it in terms of popularity and acceptability. Now it looks like BTC has overtaken Dash. Anyway, it is good to see that the cryptocurrency market in Venezuela is consolidating behind BTC, rather than getting fragmented to large number of alts.