Localbitcoins Venezuelan Volume Explodes to All-time High

 In the last week, the amount of  Bitcoin traded by Venezuelans via the LocalBitcoins peer-to-peer  platform exploded by 30%, to reach an all-time high. The trading by residents of the  financially troubled country, whose native Bolivar has been devalued by  long-term hyper-inflation, amounted to the equivalent of $8.9m over the  seven days up to February 8th. 

 The news comes in the wake of the weekend announcement of new restrictions  on the trading of cryptocurrencies for residents of Venezuela by its  government, with the South American country’s authorities - which  themselves have sought to raise funds to for ailing, sanction-blighted,  economy through the issuance of its own cryptocurrency, the Petro -  placing a levy of up to 15% on all cryptocurrency-based remittances. Such transactions will also be  limited to the equivalent of just $600 per month - a limit that relies  on the government’s own valuation for of fiat value of 10 Petros per  month, which effectively means the government, not the market is setting  the value for the little-seen-much-debated, controversial, coin.  

As if to point out just how  important the cryptocurrency is becoming to the economy of the  beleaguered country, one Twitter user highlighted the fact that  LocalBitcoins was currently trading at volumes 157-times that of its  largest stock exchange. Kevin Rooke’s (@kerooke) tweet shows a message  saying the Caracas exchange “presented a total volume of 26,585,787  Bolivar on February 8th. That may sound a lot, but equates to just says,  did $8,117 of trading volume on - by contrast, $1.28m-worth of  cryptocurrency changed hands via Local Bitcoins.   

 Venezuelans Prefer Bitcoin to the Petro While a recent report on the Petro alleged that there was little evidence of the government issued cryptocurrency being in use  in Venezuela, its residents have increasingly turned to Bitcoin as an  effective way of insulating their assets against the rigours of the  hyper-inflationary conditions prevalent in the country.  Ironically, given Bitcoin’s  considerable losses in value during the course of 2018, it seems to have  remained an attractive option for those with the ability to transfer  assets - a move for which the peer-to-peer trading platform LocalBitcoins appears to have become one of the main forums.  Indeed, even as the price of Bitcoin has more than halved, the monetary  value of transactions by Venezuelans has now more than doubled since  points in August 2018.