2021 has been for Venezuela a year of noticeable and considerable changes at the microeconomic level where, even much more than in 2020, the results of a powerful catalyst for change such as COVID-19 were clearly seen.
In a more dynamic economy, with a greater volume of operations with foreign currencies and leverage in technology, cryptocurrencies played a very relevant role during this year for the South American country, that is why we have prepared a review where we describe what was the most highlighted of the crypto ecosystem of Venezuela in 2021 focusing on different related areas such as commerce, play to earn games, fintech, mining, regulation, and NFTs.
More people and businesses accepting cryptocurrencies
According to the firm Chainalysis, in the report published in the third quarter of this year, Venezuela ranks seventh in the Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index 2021, and it is generated largely – they point out – due to P2P activity.
A fairly notorious trend this year 2021 is the growing number of people and businesses accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment -even more than the previous year- to avoid hyperinflation and devaluation of the national currency, Bolívar (Bs), which has hit the South American nation in recent years.
In some of the main cities of the country such as the capital Caracas, Puerto La Cruz, it is increasingly normal to see people or merchants trading cryptocurrencies as a form of payment to access or receive payments for goods, products and services due to the facilities that They are achieved by operating with this class of assets from the platforms that allow it, which is also a very important element and perhaps the most important, given that the appearance and adoption of platforms such as Binance, Reserve, or even Valiú, which recently ceased operations Due to the “radical adoption of cryptocurrencies”, they have contributed to accelerate the adoption of a digital and more technological economy with cryptocurrencies as a pillar without the need for users with extensive knowledge on the subject.
In this sense, from the most micro levels of Venezuelan commerce, responding to a global trend as well as the cryptocurrency boom this year, but with its also particular applications. An example of this is the lack of change in dollars that existed in Venezuelan businesses. The use of these platforms and their p2p payment services provided the possibility of trading operations with more exact figures with decimals without the need for fiat money.
Rubén García, who is CEO of La Colina Tienda, a nationwide chain of online stores based in Lechería, a city where you can buy anything from a beer, laptop, electronic cigarettes and even a TV using Binance pay, shared with Cointelegraph en Español his vision of the Venezuelan situation with cryptocurrencies, and described this adoption of cryptocurrencies by businesses as a symbol also of dollarization in the Venezuelan economy that has pushed electronic payment platforms, even if they have the virtue of being linked to cryptocurrencies or not.
“It is very positive that platforms like Binance are a reference for processing payments in USDT or other cryptocurrencies. Now by virtue of how little or how much the user may know that he uses the platform to carry out transactions. The mere fact of facilitating the payment process when making a purchase represents a milestone in the technological experience of the people involved in the exchange. That to a greater or lesser extent they will be curious to understand a little more about the technology they are using. Which sets the precedent for a new era of technology adoption. On the other hand, it is much easier to understand with partners, franchisees or allies based on these digital payment methods, for reasons of security, easy portability, convertibility and transactionality. Especially in inflationary economies or those where banking regulations make payment processes difficult or more expensive for suppliers in other parts of the world. ”Said García.
In this sense and having said this, we can mention some notable news such as that the Simón Bolívar International Airport would accept cryptocurrencies according to the director of that facility. The same would be done by the Venezuelan supermarket chain Bio Markets in alliance with Criptobuyer, a fast food chain in Venezuela paying bonuses to its employees in Dash, P2P transactions in Bitcoin breaking historical records in Venezuela, casinos being inaugurated and accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment method , and even the largest cable TV operator in the country will accept cryptocurrencies.
Support for legal mining
Venezuela at the beginning of the year, according to a report from the University of Cambridge, ranked tenth in the top ranking of mining countries, this data made it the first Latin American country to be, and to a large extent this has been generated by having the position number one with the cheapest electricity price in Latin America since 2018. Which makes the Caribbean country look like a great opportunity due to its attractiveness for bitcoin mining and also for the creation of a regulatory framework that protects and guarantee the legal development of the mining activity of crypto assets.
During this year 2021, despite the existence of some infractions or measures against the mining of crypto assets in the country where mining equipment was seized, disconnections were made that seemed arbitrary and people who were mining illegally were detained, the Superintendency Nacional de Criptoactivos (SUNACRIP) has insisted on the call for miners to carry out mining activity legally, and also on the search for mechanisms to give guarantees of legal stability to those who want to participate in this economic activity. An example of this is that, by mid-September, a statement was made official as a direct order to the different strategic operational commands to refrain from making inspections, or carrying out operations related to supervision, seizure or of any kind that interrupt the cryptocurrency mining process, without the presence of the officials of the National Superintendency of Crypto Assets and Related Activities.
In addition to this, this goodwill could also be observed when in mid-November, the 5th mining meeting of the country was held in which the SUNACRIP met with more than 150 miners from the region, companies linked to the digital mining sector, personalities crypto from the Venezuelan ecosystem and also the exchange Binance.
It can be seen that with respect to the use, adoption and mining of crypto assets in Venezuela, which is a public and well-known fact, that there is a clear interest on the part of the government for the calm, harmonious development and above all within the legal framework of the activities. with crypto assets in the country, with the intention that the activity has a greater growth, and this consequently generates an expectation of tranquility among the entire community.
Craze for play to earn games
For the last four months of the year 2021, ten of the fifty most visited pages in Venezuela were related to cryptocurrencies according to data from Similar Web, which could be confirmed with the rankings of Amazon Web Services (AWS) at that time. It should be noted that among those ten there was a notable trend for those related to famous NFTs games, such as Axie Infinity and Plants Vs Undead, which caused a furor in Venezuela, and were able to involve both people with extensive knowledge of cryptocurrencies and those who do not. .
These NFTs and play to earn games landed in Venezuela as a clear catalyst to encourage crypto adoption, starting from the interest that most of them all generated good dividends, which for many Venezuelan families resulted as an economic salvation given the low salaries that exist in the country and the boom they had at the time since the middle of this year, also when Venezuela was ranked as the second country with the most active users in the Axie Infinity NFT game, only behind the Philippines.
That said, such was the furor in Venezuela that many businesses and chains began to accept the SLP token of the Axie Infinity game due to the growing adoption of the game and the usefulness of its token, which could be taken advantage of by attracting more activity and users, such as This is the case of Reserve, which enabled transactions with SLP and AXS. Binance for its part enabled the P2P exchange of the SLP token in its application, and even a candidate for governor of the ruling party, in the recent regional elections of the nation promised to deliver Axie Infinity scholarships if he was the winner.
Educational proposals and academic interest in teaching about blockchain, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies
The turn that the Venezuelan economy has been presenting is that of digitization, with clear interests since the end of 2017 when the National Government launched the Petro, and this year with the initiative of the digital Bolívar.
This shared vision, which also has education as a pillar for adoption, has been raised by many Venezuelan citizens and organizations that in their interest to see opportunities to teach and learn from new technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies, have sought to develop educational projects for teach and disseminate knowledge.
Similar and perhaps with greater weight turn out to be the educational proposals of the related subjects, raised by houses of study in the national territory. Case of this we have the Andres Bello Catholic University of Venezuela that this year incorporated blockchain and crypto assets, cryptocurrencies, fintech as compulsory subjects and also elective -as can be seen on its website- in careers such as Business Administration and Public Accounting .
There is also the case of the Universidad Nacional Experimental de las Telecomunicaciones e Informática, which incorporated the Master’s Degree on Blockchain, and finally, the case of the Universidad de los Llanos in Venezuela, Unellez, which revealed plans to incorporate an undergraduate degree focused on Engineering. Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies by 2022.
Appointment of a specialist in cryptocurrencies, fintech and blockchain as the new president of the largest bank in Venezuela
A safe adoption of cryptocurrencies and the technology on which it is built, in any country is given by the ability of its citizens to understand the change, but more by those who are in positions of influence. In Venezuela, a connoisseur of cryptocurrencies and new technologies, the official Román Maniglia, was appointed by the government of the president of Nicolas Maduro at the end of September as president of the largest bank in that country, the Banco de Venezuela.
In this sense, the appointment of an official who describes himself in his Twitter biography as a specialist in Finance, Cryptocurrencies, Fintech and Blockchain, makes clear the interest of Venezuela in jointly articulating traditional financial systems with crypto, or rather with the new generation offered by technologies such as blockchain.
Promotion of Venezuelan NFT art
This year 2021, as we have already mentioned, had a strong cryptocurrency boom and its adoption at a global level, which was also partly due to the fever of non-fungible tokens or NFTs, and in Venezuela it was not a separate case. . In addition to the NFT games that came to have a great boom, the development of this technology for the benefit of art also had a part, for example we saw this year SUNACRIP launch an NFT for auction in commemoration of the country’s independence and the bicentennial of the Battle of Carabobo. Also a flagship company of many years in the nation of the liquor sector, such as Ron Carúpano from Venezuela, launching its own NFT collection in the decentralized marketplace of OpenSea for charity purposes, and finally a smaller community of artists Venezuela, such as The Tokenía, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by new technologies for the elaboration of its digital art, hold exhibitions of it.
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