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I was having a conversation yesterday with someone from Venezuela. The new Soverign Bolivar is a weak desperate attempt at the Venezeulan government to combat
by Kagerjay 8y ago
I was having a conversation yesterday with someone from Venezuela.
The new Soverign Bolivar is a weak desperate attempt at the Venezeulan government to combat runaway inflation with its normal currency, the Bolivar. Its inflation is just as bad as Zimbabawe, although devaluation isn't occuring due to moneyprinting, but rather low oil prices in 2015, which the Venezula economy mostly relied on. Its cheaper to use Bolivars as toilet paper than actual toiletpaper most likely.
Venezula is currently making an attempt at introducing a cryptocurrency of its own, but without the technical infrastructure or trust to back it.
I have been told that US dollars are treated as the formalized currency over there. But its illegal to trade US dollars to bollivards and can only be done in the black market, getting caught lands you in jail. Resorting to cryptocurrency/black markets makes more sense, as transactions are more secure and less volatile. IIRC mostly everyone still has access to smartphones/computers and potentially VPN's so trading makes more sense. Potentially as well local P2P wallet trading as well
I have known friend's families who have had lost everything due to government takeovers on their small businesses when Chavez originally took over. Maduro isn't doing the country any favors either
- Jeff_Brown 8y agoHyperinflation cannot, although inflation can, be the result of a change in commodity prices. Commodity prices are (to much less than an order of magnitude) constant worldwide, and Venezuela is far from the only economy overwhelmingly dependent on oil, but those others are not seeing triple-digit inflation rates. Hyperinflation is the result of printing money.