Ryze Recap 6/25: Venezuelan Government Testing Bitcoin Payments

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It’s Thursday, June 25th. If you’re new here— Ryze Recaps is a daily newsletter covering the top stories that Bitcoiners need to know in 2 minutes or less.

We’ve got one quick story for you today.

Venezuelan Government Testing Bitcoin Payments for Passports

Earlier this week, an image posted to the r/Bitcoin Reddit community showed Bitcoin as a payment option for Venezuelan passports via an official government payment portal. Several media outlets confirmed that the option was shown for a brief period of time but wasn’t fully functional, indicating that it was likely part of a test.

The option was only available to those outside Venezuela. Due to sanctions, Venezuela cannot accept cross-border debit/credit card transactions and is exploring Bitcoin as an alternative payment option.

Why it matters:

• Venezuela isn’t the only country that’s trying to use Bitcoin as a way to skirt around US-imposed sanctions. As we reported earlier, Iran, faced with heavy sanctions, has encouraged the use of Bitcoin among its citizens for international payments and commerce. Bitcoin can’t be censored or stopped by any government, and countries who are being intentionally excluded from global economic systems are viewing Bitcoin as an alternative payment method for cross-border transactions.

• This isn’t Venezuela’s first brush with crypto-assets. Venezuela’s fiat currency, the Bolivar, has experienced massive hyperinflation and is essentially worthless. For the last few years, the Maduro government has looked at cryptocurrency as a political strategy to offset the effects of sanctions and hyperinflation. Venezuela has its own state-backed crypto-asset, the Petro, and holds Bitcoin and Ethereum in its reserves.

That’s all for today! Thanks for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow with another Ryze Recap.

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Written by Ryze Financial— helping you understand and invest in Bitcoin, on your own terms.