ABSTRACT
In a matter of ten years, cryptocurrencies have risen as an option to acquire goods and services online. Virtual coins provide important advantages to clients and sellers: they are global, since they do not belong to a government or international institution, therefore they can be used to transfer cash even to totalitarian regimes, and both the client and the costumer could remain anonymous during the operation. In Latin America, the popularization of cryptocurrencies is only moving upward. Every day the number of virtual transactions based on blockchain technology in countries like Argentina, Brazil, or Mexico is rising. Even the Venezuelan government has intended to create their own virtual coin “The Petro,” whose value will be attached to the raw oil price. Surprisingly, there is a group that is taking advantage of this alternative currency: Venezuelans in the country and abroad use Bitcoins and other virtual coins as a way to surpass the government's ferrous control on foreign money exchange. They have established clandestine computers to mine Bitcoins and obtain gains in dollars to survive the difficult economic conditions in the country. On the other side, Venezuelan migrants use Bitcoin for remittances and to receive money from Venezuela, and to sell and to buy property in the country, evading the national bank system. The purpose of this work is not only to describe the cryptocurrency adoption panorama in Latin America, its future prospects, economic concerns, and legal dilemmas, but to focus on how virtual coins have been incorporated into the Venezuelan life as a way to subvert and withstand the hard social and economic conditions in their country. The alternative market based on Bitcoin have allowed Venezuelans to improve their circumstances, to send remittances and support their families, to support their travel and accommodation into another country, or to obtain additional gains by mining cryptocurrencies.
