Venezuelans traded more bolivars for Bitcoin (BTC) than ever before last week, but the statistics say more about fiat than cryptocurrency. Yet another Bitcoin volumes record for Venezuela Data from Coin Dance, which tracks trading activity on P2P exchanges Localbitcoins, Paxful and Bisq, confirmed the seven days to July 20 were Venezuela’s biggest on record. During that period, users on LocalBitcoins alone generated volumes of over 57 billion bolivars, beating the previous all-time high of 49 billion, which appeared in the previous week. Weekly LocalBitcoins Volume (Venezuelan Bolivar) Courtesy of Coin.dance As Cointelegraph reported, Venezuela’s currency continues to suffer from …

For the entirety of cryptocurrency’s short history, Venezuela has been seen to be among the most striking example of the need for the utility. The South American country has hosted escalating political tension for years, as skyrocketing hyperinflation, electricity blackouts and shortages of vital food and medicine intensified popular discontent. Venezuelan trade volume dominates P2P markets Venezuelan peer-to-peer (P2P) markets have long been a leader in terms of volume, in part owing to widespread geo-blocking that targets Venezuelan citizens on the part of cryptocurrency exchanges. Recently, Binance announced that as of July 1, 2019, the residents of Venezuela and 28 …

A group of Venezuelans has filed a lawsuit with a Florida Federal Court in connection with a Ponzi scheme. The scheme purportedly involved $30 million in cryptocurrency promoted by Canadian investment radio host Harold Seigel. Payment and commerce news outlet Pymnts.com reported today, July 16, that seven Venezuelans claim to have been lured into a $30 million worth digital currency Ponzi scheme conducted by companies such as Eagle Financial Diamond Group Inc. and Argyle Coin. The cryptocurrency involved into the fraud was reportedly pegged to diamonds. The frauds allegedly used raised funds to pay back earlier investors The plaintiffs accuse …

The American Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) has assembled an assessment of current and future risks of cryptocurrency use by countries adversarial to the United States in a report published on July 11. In the report, the agency outlines possible future scenarios that would make blockchain technology sanctions resistance a larger threat. Specifically, the FDD analyzed how countries such as Russia, China, Venezuela and Iran are deploying digital currency technology, and in what way this phenomenon could influence United States sanctions in future. In the report, the FDD warns against a scenario in which one of the above countries …

Trading volume on Finnish peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin (BTC) exchange Localbitcoins hit a high not seen since November 2018, reveals data shown on cryptocurrency analytics website CoinDance. According to data from CoinDance, LocalBitcoins global weekly bitcoin trading volume hit $65.6 million in the week ending on Sunday, July 7. This is the highest level since November last year when the weekly trading volume of the platform hit $67.7 million in the week ending on Sunday, November 24, 2018. LocalBitcoins Global Weekly Trading Volume | Courtesy of CoinDance In some countries, last week represented an all-time high LocalBitcoins volume. For instance, in …

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro ordered the country’s leading bank, Banco de Venezuela, to accept the nation’s cryptocurrency, the Petro (PTR) at all of its branches, the country’s Finance Ministry tweeted on July 4. According to the tweet, Maduro gave “the express order to open Petro desks in all the branches of the Bank of Venezuela.” The announcement apparently came during an event celebrating the tenth anniversary of the nationalization of the bank in question. On June 19, Maduro announced that 924 million bolivars (over $92.5 million) were allocated to the Digital Bank of Youth and Students to open one million …

Accounting for almost 40% of bitcoin tweets worldwide, the United States looms large over crypto twitter. According to a new thread of tweets, published July 3, by crypto data and infrastructure provider The TIE, overall 38.9% of total bitcoin tweets come from the U.S. Another 10.5% come from the UK. The top five countries generating bitcoin discussion on Twitter are the U.S., U.K., Canada, Turkey and India, the TIE reveals. In an analysis of how far that social media sentiment is positive, the TIE has found that — in order — Peru, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Italy show the most …

This article previously contained statements implying that Binance DEX itself — rather than its website — was geoblocking users. It has been updated for accuracy. The decentralized exchange (DEX) developed by major cryptocurrency exchange Binance will block website access to users based in 29 countries. The Binance DEX website informs potential users of the restriction via a message that appears when accessing the platform from one of the regions. The message appearing on the platform states that accessing the website from certain countries will be restricted starting on July 1: “It seems you are accessing www.binance.org from an IP address …

Venezuela is considering to close mutual trade settlements with Russia using the ruble, Russian government-backed TV channel RT reports on May 17. Venezuela’s representative to the United Nations in Geneva Jorge Valero said they are also discussing uses for the state-owned Petro (PTR) cryptocurrency. Valero reportedly revealed that Venezuelan authorities are now working with Russia to find opportunities for eliminating the use of the United States dollar in trade deals between the two countries. As such, the two countries' authorities are purportedly mulling the use of the Russian ruble, as well as Venezuela’s oil-backed Petro digital currency, a controversial project …

Stablecoin project Reserve announced that it will launch a crypto-fiat payments app in Venezuela and Angola in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 12. In the same announcement, the firm revealed that it is listing its separate utility token, Reserve Rights (RSR), on major exchange Huobi Global’s token sale platform, Houbi Prime. Per the press release, the project’s stablecoin app — to be launched for Android users via Google Play “in the coming weeks” — will enable people and businesses to switch back and forth from their local fiat currency to the firm’s stablecoin, the Reserve Dollar (RSD). …

A charitable campaign to enable the direct transfer of $1 million in crypto donations to Venezuelans has registered around 60,000 verified beneficiaries and raised $272,000 to date. The news was revealed in an interview with the campaign’s leader, Steve Hanke, with National Public Radio on April 21. Professor Hanke is a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University who reportedly served as economic adviser to former Venezuelan president Rafael Caldera between 1995 and 1996. Professor Hanke outlined that the campaign, dubbed “Airdrop Venezuela,” is using the existing blockchain and bank-connected e-wallet infrastructure from Mexico-based startup AirTM. Alongside a native …

Charity-focused organization Bitcoin Venezuela tweeted on April 10 that the so-called Lightning Torch had reached its final destination, with all accumulated Bitcoin (BTC) donated to the group. By the time it got to the organization, the Lightning Torch had grown to exactly 0.4108021 BTC, which is currently equivalent to over $2,000. The Torch is an experiment first initiated by anonymous Twitter user Hodlnaut. The Lightning Torch is passed by sending the same BTC from user to user adding a little every time via the scalability solution, Lightning Network (LN). Bitcoin Venezuela is reportedly responsible for the humanitarian initiative “Bitcoin for …