Bitcoin Can't Fix Venezuela

Today marks a week since I left my home in Venezuela.

In the last few years, Venezuela has become a favorite pop culture reference in crypto, where bystanders - usually from a privileged background and perspective - spout their ill-wisdom about Venezuelan socialism, economy and migration.

People armed with good intentions and misinformation about how Venezuela's economy works - or better said, how it doesn't work - spread their confusion and often diminish an extremely painful experience being shared by millions of Venezuelans.

As someone who used bitcoin to survive in Venezuela, clear up the misconceptions: Bitcoin can't fix the situation in Venezuela.

There are no official statistics of how many crypto wallets there are in Venezuela.

As we can see, the fact that Venezuela serves as a use case for bitcoin does not mean that it currently has the circumstances for broad cryptocurrency adoption.

So using bitcoin to get dollars, which is what many Venezuelans currently do, is still problematic and vulnerable to inflation issues.

Venezuela is famous for its off-the-charts rates of bitcoin transactions and mining activity.

Crypto donations are very popular nowadays, like in the case of AirTM, which has just announced that will be teaming up with MakerDao on its goal to raise $1 million to distribute between its users in Venezuela, with a goal of giving away $10 to each aid recipient.

I do believe that bitcoin has the capacity to influence Venezuela's financial landscape in a positive way.