To prevent the devaluation of the bolivar, the Venezuelan government wants to monitor all peer-to-peer transactions with cryptocurrencies.
Venezuela will monitor in real time who uses cryptocurrencies. #venezuela #Criptomonedas #cryptocurrencies pic.twitter.com/qIo9JDsjkK
— O Minimalista Cripto (@OMCRIPTO) December 28, 2022
Money controls
Sudeban, Venezuela’s banking watchdog, came up with news last week with Sunacrip’s support. Sunacrip, in turn, is the country’s cryptoregulator. They have developed a system to track financial transactions in real time.
At the same time, hardly any details have been shared about the platform, so it remains guesswork what exactly it is. The organisation says they wanted to combat “the irregular practices affecting our currency and the stability of the currency market”.
The government therefore wants to map how much money changes hands in the crypto market. And how that compares to the value of the US dollar versus the Venezuelan bolivar.
The bolivar lost about 75% of its value against the US dollar last year. And that was little compared to the years before. As a result, many Venezuelans are fleeing to harder currencies, including bitcoin (and thus the US dollar).
President Maduro’s government wants to institute capital controls, which is why the Subedan and Sunacrip are coming up with a monitoring system.
According to Legalrocks, since the end of 2021, more than 75 bank accounts have been banned due to suspicious behaviour related to cryptocurrency transactions. It is not inconceivable that this will happen more often in the future.
Meanwhile, the value of the bolivar continues to fall hard. Whereas last month you needed 12 bolivars for one dollar, it is already 20 bolivars per dollar.
Peer-to-peer platforms like localbitcoins are popular as a result. Around 30 BTC are traded per week, although this was much higher in the past.
