Venezuela Bitcoin Trading Reaches All-Time High Amid Inflation

Venezuela Bitcoin trading reached its all-time high as the International Monetary Fund projected that the country will experience the world’s highest inflation rate for this year as we can read in the latest cryptocurrency news.

With the week ending on August 3, the number of Venezuelan Bolivars that were exchanged for Bitcoin increased up to 67 billion. The previous record was reached at 58 billion. According to the data from the Associated Press, the IMF believes that the inflation in Venezuela will hit up to 1,000,000 percent by the end of 2019 and because it is a deflationary currency, the demand for Bitcoin in the country might be driven from those who want to escape the hyperinflationary conditions.

The projected inflation rate is more tolerable now when you take into consideration what has been forecasted about four months ago. Back in April, the IMF projected that the inflation rate will reach up to 10,000,000 but has since lowered the prediction to about a tenth of that. The lower inflation rate is because of the central bank of the country Banco Central de Venezuela because they are raising the reserve ratio for the country’s local banks. Besides being a store of value, Bitcoin could be also used as a means of transfer across the borders able to avoid the government controls. This is especially because the people of the country to flee Venezuela and it is expected that the emigration levels could reach up to five million at the end of 2019.

Since the third quarter of 2018, the level of Bolivar to bitcoin trading volumes broke records nearly every week. The Venezuela Bitcoin trading was mainly driven to spike thanks to the LocalBitcoins platform since many of the use it to exchange. Since then, the volumes have been declining mainly because of the Bitcoin price which has also been going up and down that time resulting in fewer Bitcoins being purchased. As reported in the coming altcoin news, the growing Bolivar-to-bitcoin volumes could indicate as well that the number of people who try to buy it has been steadily growing. Additionally, the economic and political conditions have been very negative on other countries that are neighboring Venezuela so many of them fled to the US and Colombia.