Venezuelan Opposition Leader Proposes Establishing a Bitcoin Reserve, President Nicolas Maduro Proposes Retaking the 'Crypto Path'

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Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has proposed creating a bitcoin reserve for the country. In an interview with Human Rights Foundation CSO Alex Gladstein, Machado discussed the economic challenges faced by Venezuela, including hyperinflation and the devaluation of the national fiat currency.

She highlighted the role that bitcoin has played in helping some Venezuelans to protect their wealth and to finance their exits from the country, given the specific traits of the cryptocurrency.

“We envision bitcoin as part of our national reserves helping rebuild what the dictatorship stole,” Machado stated. “Before our gold reservers [sic] were plundered, Venezuela had wealthy financial reserves worldwide — we will restore those reserves and include bitcoin as a key component.”)

Machado is the leader of a Venezuelan coalition that is currently contesting the results of the recent elections, in which President Nicolas Maduro was proclaimed victor.

Maduro himself has also made statements that could indicate a more crypto-friendly approach in the future. At a meeting with representatives of the banking sector, Maduro spoke about the world migrating to a multi-currency model, including a basket of currencies.

“We started that path and we have to get back on it because a group of bandits and thieves destroyed the path of cryptocurrencies, but we are going to get back on it,” Maduro stated.

The president took several measures that affected cryptocurrency exchanges and mining initiatives in the past, and his statements did not reference the petro, the national cryptocurrency that was reportedly on the brink of liquidation in January.

Financial Action Task Force of Latin America (GAFILAT), the largest organization in Latam that fights against money laundering and terrorism financing, has revealed in its latest report evaluating El Salvador’s compliance that bitcoin has been only marginally adopted in the country’s economy.

The report examines the state of compliance of the country with 40 recommendations of the group and determined that, even when El Salvador included bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, the adoption has not had a “significant impact” on the country’s economy nor high transactional volumes.

GAFILAT found that during the evaluated period only $6.6 million had entered the financial system in the form of operations related to bitcoin, in exchange operations from BTC to U.S. dollars.

This volume represents less than 0.1% of all the assets administered by banks in El Salvador.

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