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Nearly 68 billion Venezuelan bolivars were exchanged for Bitcoin last week on the over-the-counter trading platform LocalBitcoins – a record-setting figure that comes amidst Venezuela’s continued hyperinflation and economic collapse.
Coin.dance reports that 67,923,595,380 bolivars were exchanged in total, shattering the weekly record set last month of nearly 58 billion.
Bitcoin volumes in the country are spiking just as President Trump announces the signing of an executive order banning Americans from doing business with Venezuela’s government.
Reports the Associated Press,
“The Trump administration froze all Venezuelan government assets Monday in a dramatic ratcheting up of tensions with Nicolás Maduro that places his socialist administration on a short list of adversaries from Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran that have been targeted by such aggressive U.S. actions.
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While the order falls short of an outright trade embargo, it represents the most sweeping U.S. action to remove Maduro since the Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful leader in January.”
In July, numbers from the opposition-controlled National Assembly indicate that Venezuela’s 12-month inflation rate is 445,482%, down from 815,194% in May and less than the 2,000,000% reported earlier this year, the Financial Post reports.
However, other news outlets are reporting that the inflation rate has skyrocketed to 10 million percent.
Opposition leader Angel Alvarado tells the Financial Post that new measures taken by the country’s central bank aren’t helping, and a typical worker’s salary can buy “just 3.5% of the basic food basket.”
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