A repetitive, boring but needed update from Venezuela, last week 32 BTC were traded here (only measured using LocalBitcoin) while monthly minimum wage drops below 19 USD!

Hi guys, Venezuelan "living" here!

This week we experienced some high devaluation exchange rate went up at least 10% in 5 days! Monthly minimum wage is set in Bs. (Bolivares) so it's automatically less USD. It's 130 Bs. and it started being 30 USD, 10 months ago!

When it comes to crypto, it has been the same there is a constant trade using LocalBitcoin around 30-35 BTC weekly, a step up from months ago when it was around 20 BTC, but NOTHING compared years ago when we were over 2k BTC weekly!

Reason? Severals. LocalBitcoin is not that popular anymore, there are other exchanges easier to use like Binance, Reserve and Airtm (among others), but they don't make public their stats.

Government could be behind that volume, impossible to prove but for sure normal people is using it! There is a big undeground minning community, considering electriciy at least at residential level is technically FREE (like 1 USD for 3 months of service for a house), but it's a risky operation even when it's in theory legal. Some people use it as a fast way of sending remittances from abroad to their relatives here.

One BTC is around 150,000 Bs., almost a year ago government removed by law 6 zeroes, so it would have been 150,000,000,000 "old" Bs.

Last month inflation (July) was "only" 7.5% according to the Central Bank, really good considering we had thousands % months ago. And, also months ago the monthly minimum wage was 2 USD!

Any question, let me know!

About my title, some people don't like this post, well have been doing it for years, so no point to stop now when it only takes me a few minutes and usually a lot of people like it. I like to make awareness about the Venezuelan situation and crypto adoption here, to me this post is more useful than others that get posted here, but that is my opinion and that is the reason behind reddit (you also have up and down votes, right).

Some sources,

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://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://localbitcoins.com/country/VE

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