355 BTC were traded last week worldwide using LocalBitcoin, almost 10% of that was traded in Venezuela (34 BTC) where monthly minimum wage is 16 USD.

Hi, I usually post this in the cryptocurrency subreddit but as the main subjet of the post is BTC, I like to post it here as I did notice some people from this subreddit don't go there.

Hi guys, hope you are having a great sunday. I'm Venezuelan living here, been posting this since 2018 (I suppose that makes me a crypto veteran hahaha)

As always I like to post these stats. I know LocalBitcoin is not widely used anymore, but it has an API and you can see the traded amout each week.

Years ago over 2k BTC were were traded in ONE week here in Venezuela, now it is around 35 BTC weekly. Binance took most of the volume, same with AirTM, Reserve and others, sadly their stats aren't public so we don't know the traded amount (not only for BTC).

Binance even has P2P, so you can go Bolivares (Bs. national currency) to crypto back and forth.

Yes, monthly minimum wage is 130 Bolivares ( https://finance.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-minimum-wage-risen-18-115603945.html it says 126 Bs. but in the end it was set to 130 Bs. and at the time was 30 USD).

Right now exchange rate is around 1 USD = 8 Bs. so, around 16 USD monthly.

Average wage is around 80-120 USD. You need much more than that monthly to live.

One BTC is around 160,000 Bs.

People use crypto to send remittances to their relatives, savings (staying away from Bolivares), to purchase things (some stores accept crypto directly) and MINERS, a lot of miners here (even when in theory is legal, it's risky) even after the merge GPU mining is still profitable here because electricity is free!

Crypto has helped a lot here in the country!

https://www.reuters.com/technology/venezuelas-economy-regresses-crypto-fills-gaps-2021-06-22/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Venezuela

https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/VED/BTC

https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/VED

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2020/10/23/you-need-285-minimum-wages-in-venezuela-to-feed-your-family/

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2022/04/21/is-venezuela-doing-better/

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2022/04/20/the-bizarre-figures-of-venezuelas-economic-recovery/

https://localbitcoins.com/country/VE

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