The global coronavirus lockdown has put a strain on Venezuela’s internet, which could logically make crypto participation difficult. As much of the world hunkers down in quarantine, people logically turn to internet-based services for work, as well as a way to pass the time. This mass movement has put significant stress on available data usage capacities in Venezuela, Movistar told Bloomberg for its March 27 article. A daughter company of Telefonica SA, Movistar is the nation’s main telecom provider. Global precautions cause global strain In an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, much of the globe presently …

Several Venezuelan leaders recently came under fire for alleged criminal acts, although, contrary to initial impressions, the situation did not directly involve cryptocurrency usage. “Maduro and his co-defendants are not alleged to have been involved with crypto, directly,” Ashok Ayyar, counsel at Experience Legal, told Cointelegraph. A number of Venezuelan officials, including former president Maduro, faced a slew of charges from U.S. governing bodies, according to a March 26 statement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). Despite the press release announcing the charges touting the Homeland Security Investigations’ ability to track cryptocurrency transactions, a close examination of the DoJ’s …

Over 30 years ago, in a January 1988 cover story emblazoned with a phoenix hovering over a paper-money inferno, The Economist offered this semi-prophetic vision of currency: “Thirty years from now, Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and people in many other rich countries, and some relatively poor ones will probably be paying for their shopping with the same currency. Prices will be quoted not in dollars, yen or D-marks but in, let’s say, the phoenix. The phoenix will be favoured by companies and shoppers because it will be more convenient than today’s national currencies, which by then will seem a quaint cause …

Peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) trading has surged in Venezuela after shutting banks amid a nationwide quarantine to fight the spread of coronavirus. On March 17, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro brought a country-wide quarantine to slow the spread of COVID-19. With only 33 cases of coronavirus confirmed so far, the administration hopes that the emergency measures will prevent its health system from becoming overwhelmed by a rapid increase in infections. Venezuela’s banking sector shut down indefinitely Venezuela’s national banking system has been halted “indefinitely” as part of the sudden quarantine, sparking an increase in P2P cryptocurrency trading. After a three week skid …

Venezuelans are reportedly selling the state-launched Petro (PTR) cryptocurrency that was airdropped to them recently. Though the government claims to have fixed the value of one PTR at $60, the market price on LocalBitcoins is reported to be only half of that. According to a Reddit thread, Venezuelans are turning to LocalBitcoins to sell their airdropped Petro amid disastrous economic conditions. This follows an airdrop to a claimed 6 million people in December. The Reddit user claims that the government initially allowed the usage of Petro to buy products through a biometric app, but it soon shut it down as …

A Venezuelan team is developing Locha, a decentralized mesh network that doesn’t rely on the internet to transact with Bitcoin (BTC). The system, based on radio waves, was born in response to frequent electricity and internet outages in Venezuela. Locha Mesh is an open-source project led by Randy Brito, a member of the Bitcoin Venezuela organization. It is developing two devices, named Turpial and Harpia, that would allow anyone to connect to the Bitcoin blockchain using long-range radio waves. Turpial is the simpler version of the radio transmitter, reported to work over distances of one to two kilometers in urban …

Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, announced on Friday the opening of a new crypto-run casino in a battered country where betting halls have all but gone extinct. A casino for relief Maduro said Ávila National Park’s Hotel Humboldt will soon be home to an international casino that will operate with Petro (PTR), Venezuela’s state cryptocurrency, and that proceeds will fund the country’s public health and education sectors. The announcement comes less than a decade after Maduro’s mentor, former president Hugo Chavez, ordered the closure of all betting places as harbors of prostitution, drugs and crime. Since 2011, as the then-relatively-prosperous …

Venezuela will soon sell oil from reserves of a state-run oil and gas company for its national oil-pegged cryptocurrency, the Petro (PTR). Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has signed a decree to sell 4.5 million barrels of oil from the certified 30 million-barrel reserve maintained by Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA), the state-owned company officially announced on Jan. 14. According to PDVSA, Maduro announced the news in a speech before the Constituent National Assembly — an assembly elected in 2017 to draft a new constitution for Venezuela. Oil sales to be an exploration mechanism Once the initial sale of 4.5 million barrels …

For one week, the Iran–United States military crisis gripped the crypto community. It began on Jan. 3 with a U.S. drone strike on a convoy traveling near Baghdad International Airport, killing Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The price of Bitcoin (BTC) soared. As reported by Cointelegraph at the time, there is strong evidence to suggest that BTC’s price surge from $7,000 to nearly $8,500 is strongly linked to the tensions between the two nations. For example, the push toward $8,500 took place at the same time as mainstream media began to report on a …

Bitcoin (BTC) has come to Burger King in Venezuela as a new partnership opens up cryptocurrency payments at the fast-food chain. Confirmed in a tweet on Dec. 30, a single Burger King branch in the Sambil area of Caracas now accepts Bitcoin, along with altcoins Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Binance Coin (BNB) and Dash (DASH), as well as stablecoin Tether (USDT). Altcoins, Tether join BTC foray A total of 40 locations will follow suit in 2020, according to a blog post from Dash executives about the move. Cryptobuyer is a Panama-based cryptocurrency merchant gateway startup that also runs a fleet …

Bitcoin (BTC) weekly trading volumes on peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platform LocalBitcoins in Venezuela and Argentina have hit new all-time highs in their respective national currencies. Cryptocurrency data website CoinDance shows that LocalBitcoins trading volume in local fiat currency in Argentina and Venezuela have hit new record highs. According to the website’s data, the week ending on Dec. 21 saw over 32.6 million Argentine pesos (equivalent to about $544,905) traded on the platform, or 34% more than the record registered two weeks before. LocalBitcoins weekly trading volume in Argentina in Argentine pesos | Coindance In Venezuela, on the other hand, over …

The volume of Venezuelan bolivars traded against Bitcoin (BTC) on the LocalBitcoins platform another all-time high last week amid rampant hyperinflation in the country. According to Bitcoin statistics website Coin Dance, bolivar volumes on peer-to-peer exchange LocalBitcoins exceeded 209 billion during the week ending Dec. 14. The new all-time high comes after a sharp volume spike in the preceding week ending Dec. 7. According to Coin Dance, bolivar volumes have been gradually breaking new records in December, surpassing the previous all-time high of 205 billion bolivars. Weekly LocalBitcoins Volume in Venezuela (Venezuelan Bolivar). Source: Coin Dance Trading volumes in Bitcoin …