This is an extremely long comment on the Venezuelan situation, be warned.

As a Venezuelan, living in a small city I can confirm that value will shift when you experience a collapsed economy. You will start to value essential things like that will start to become luxuries: water supply, stable power supply, hot water to shower, food and a varied diet, communications systems from landlines to internet service. The devaluation of your fiat combine with hyperinflation will make you a convert on any kind of decentralized system of money that gives you a sense of purchasing power and hope for the future.

Let me expand on each topic a bit, talking by my own experience.

Water supply has collapsed in residential areas consistent of buildings. I know first hand of people who live with 2-4 hours of running water supply a day, and some who live with 1-3 days of running water a week. You might think it's not that bad, but that means, a lot of hassle to cook, avoiding going to the bathroom for hours (drinking less water), not being able to shower daily, or wash dishes, and so on.

Unstable power supply and constant power outages these will affect all you electronics, my light bulbs last less than a couple of months because of this and some people have lost the their fridges, computers and others to these outages. Everytime the power goes down in one part of the city, access to internet goes down as well and for a freelance designer like myself, this is a bit of a nightmare to reach deadlines. If you go outside during a power outage, some traffic lights won't work, traffic jams will increase and the risk of getting into a car accident becomes significant.

Hot water and food If you take for granted your hot shower and coffee, these will also become somewhat luxuries. One reason is that stove gas service has completely collapsed (lack of supply, corruption inside the companies that should supply, and other factors). This has forced us to switch from stove gas to electrically powered water heaters and cooking gear. The switch combined with the power outages are a recipe for disaster, preventing you from cooking or having a warm shower when you most need it.

Lack of food Packaged foods and non perishables, that should be available in times of struggle have become increasingly scarce. Tuna, sardines, toothpaste, and other essentials are pretty difficult to find and extremely expensive. When you are lucky enough to find and afford these, it's of utmost importance to store them. I've stored many grains such as rice, lentils, beans of many kinds, oats, sugar and salt in my fridge enough for sustaining months of a possible famine. People with low incomes and no access to these high prices are in a critical situation.

Failed communications Text messages won't go out at times, cell phone service will become unavailable as well. Some people started robbing the copper wiring that gives access to landlines to sell the copper inside them, leaving many of my friends without landlines. So, it is true that precious metals will become increasingly valuable. Even manholes were being stolen to sell for their iron component. I'm not kidding. Some of these have been replaced, but many landline wiring remains unreplaced and communications companies don't have enough resources to fix this.

Hyperinflation, local currency devaluation and lack of cash The lack of printed money encouraged many illegal business models i.e. because banks will only give away 10 thousand Bs. to each person cash daily (equivalent to $0,004) people with available cash started reselling it for a 50%-100% commision. That's right, if you need $10 bucks in cash, you will have to pay up to $20 in a bank transfer for this cash. Cash is really hard to get, but many services still work on a cash-based system only: transportation especially. So, no cash means no transportation for you, unless you bike or walk. With hyperinflation, food prices go up 30-200% from one week to another, and sometimes from one day to another. Once I had to pay for a car part and they increased the price from the morning to the afternoon. true story. A university teacher of the highest rank is earning the equivalent to $6 a month and basic food essentials are up to around $0.5 per item. This makes cryptocurrencies a no-brainer alternative. Although people with no access to internet and technologically savvy enough will still struggle to join the crypto market.

Being with family and friends will become extremely valuable, the sense of connection will prevail over anything else to remain hopeful in a country with a bleak future.

Thank you for mentioning our situation Louis