Ethereum is Rising in Popularity in Venezuela Along With Bitcoin

Amidst the development of a nationwide financial turmoil, the demand towards Ethereum and Bitcoin are rapidly rising in Venezuela.

In April, the Venezuelan government revealed that the 2016 inflation rate for the Venezuelan Bolivar recorded 274 percent. Yet, economists and experts revealed that the actual inflation rate of the Venezuelan Bolivar has been far higher, with reports suggesting that the inflation was as high as 800 percent.

Mining illegal

The oil sector, which the Venezuelan economy is primarily based on, has likewise been on a descending pattern, as the business declined by 12.7 percent in 2016 alone. The continuous decrease in the nation's oil sector, expanding inflation rate of the Venezuelan Bolivar and the absence of occupations have left by far most of the nation's population starving, with youthful graduates attempting to discover employments that give adequate pay to help families monetarily.

Cointelegraph uncovered that a few Venezuelans have been depending on Bitcoin to survive. Some neighborhood occupants including Alvaro have continued to mine Bitcoin and pitch the advanced money to get sustenance through online specialist co-ops, for example, Amazon.

Despite the fact that mining has been pronounced unlawful by the nearby government, because of the absence of assets, sustenances, occupations and openings, youthful graduates and professionals have moved in the direction of Bitcoin and Ethereum mining.

Overwhelming demand

Also, because cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum are currently being sold in the country at a high premium due to overwhelming demand, an increasing number of technology savvy graduates and professionals have begun to mine digital currencies.

“At the end of the day Bitcoin has been a lifesaver for Venezuelans like me, trying to preserve the effort of our work, and an alternative to our regulated financial system, which gives people that decide to keep living in this beautiful country to continue struggling to survive without giving up and pushing forward our homeland,” Alvaro said earlier this year.

Recently, Block Channel, an organization focused on reporting on socio-cultural and economic issues related to Blockchain technologies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, revealed that local miners are also starting to look into altcoins such as Ethereum and Zcash.

“Mining Bitcoin became something out of a spy movie, miners were arrested on false charges, people started to get more paranoid than usual. But then Ethereum became popular and very profitable. GPUs are cheaper to import, and don’t attract too much attention. I started with R9 380 2GB GPUs, but then they stopped working for Ethereum mining due to the DAG file size increase, so I pointed them at a ZCash pool,” said David R.

Crackdown

The mining ecosystem of Venezuela has become extremely difficult for local residents to deal with. In some cases, miners were requested to pay a bribe to the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service, Venezuela's premier intelligence agency, Block Channel revealed.

Despite the crackdown on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining by the local government and being forced to pay bribes to local intelligence agencies, miners continue to mine Bitcoin and Ethereum. Mining has become a lifeline to most young graduates and professionals who have found difficulty in supporting their families financially over the past few months.

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