It was a pleasure to write. And thanks for the comment. As a Venezuelan AND crypto enthusiast, El Salvador is definitely on my radar. A lot of the same problems that led to Bukele's decision are valid here. Our central bank is not independent from the national government and bad monetary policy has lead us to have the world's highest inf…
It was a pleasure to write. And thanks for the comment. As a Venezuelan AND crypto enthusiast, El Salvador is definitely on my radar. A lot of the same problems that led to Bukele's decision are valid here. Our central bank is not independent from the national government and bad monetary policy has lead us to have the world's highest inflation rate. We've had two "reconversions" that slashed some zeros from our currency; 8 in total. So 1 of today's Bolívares is worth 800,000,000 of the ones that were circulating in 2000. Even so, current exchange rate is about 3.200.000 Bolívares per US dollar. If you do the math, that's 320,000,000,000,000 old Bolívares. BTW, our highest denomination bank note is for 1,000,000 Bolívares (about 30 US cents). So, bad monetary policy leading to hyperinflation, check. The US dollar hasn't been officially declared as legal tender, but any store you go into will have their product's prices listed in US dollars. Finally, with millions of Venezuelans having fled the country, there are a lot of remittances flowing into families here. So we're in basically the same place El Salvador is right now. The difference is that we don't see president Maduro adopting Bitcoin. Especially since he insists on government-created Petro crypto token, which has been a complete failure. But adoption of cryptocurrencies could happen anyway, as more people and businesses are starting to use it. For the past month I've been able to shop at a local mini market that started accepting BNB.
It was a pleasure to write. And thanks for the comment. As a Venezuelan AND crypto enthusiast, El Salvador is definitely on my radar. A lot of the same problems that led to Bukele's decision are valid here. Our central bank is not independent from the national government and bad monetary policy has lead us to have the world's highest inflation rate. We've had two "reconversions" that slashed some zeros from our currency; 8 in total. So 1 of today's Bolívares is worth 800,000,000 of the ones that were circulating in 2000. Even so, current exchange rate is about 3.200.000 Bolívares per US dollar. If you do the math, that's 320,000,000,000,000 old Bolívares. BTW, our highest denomination bank note is for 1,000,000 Bolívares (about 30 US cents). So, bad monetary policy leading to hyperinflation, check. The US dollar hasn't been officially declared as legal tender, but any store you go into will have their product's prices listed in US dollars. Finally, with millions of Venezuelans having fled the country, there are a lot of remittances flowing into families here. So we're in basically the same place El Salvador is right now. The difference is that we don't see president Maduro adopting Bitcoin. Especially since he insists on government-created Petro crypto token, which has been a complete failure. But adoption of cryptocurrencies could happen anyway, as more people and businesses are starting to use it. For the past month I've been able to shop at a local mini market that started accepting BNB.