Welcome to Latam Insights Encore, a deep dive into Latin America’s most relevant economic and crypto news from the past week. In this edition, we examine how USDT is overtaking dollar disbursements in Venezuela, and the irony of a sanctioned country leveraging a currency backed by the U.S. debt.
Latam Insights Encore: The Venezuelan Case Shows the Power of Crypto
While stablecoins have always been popular in Latam, taken by users as a way of preserving their purchasing power and hedging against inflation in these ailing economies, Venezuela is especially relevant due to its large trading volumes and the relevance that USDT is taking in public finance.
According to recent reports, the Venezuelan government has disbursed large volumes of USDT to private buyers, even overtaking the figures moved in actual dollars during September. The statement, made by Asdrubal Oliveros, a local economist, underscores the reality of a country where dollars have become increasingly scarce due to sanctions enacted on its oil industry, traditionally the main driver of foreign currency funds.
Oliveros stated this constituted a “significant shift in the direction of the national exchange rate regime,” and this might even understate the relevance of this move.
In the absence of dollars, USDT has become a de facto dollar proxy, with the stablecoin even making inroads into private company treasuries and being used to pay suppliers and as a retail currency.
The case of Venezuela might be the first example of a nation moved by the power of stablecoins, even when it encompasses obvious problems. Ironically, it also illustrates how U.S. debt, which backs most of the USDT supply, is indirectly contributing to driving the Venezuelan economy forward, even after being sanctioned by the U.S.
And while Tether is a centralized economy, and can in fact freeze funds from sanctioned economies if the U.S. Treasury orders to do so, the compliance mess of determining which addresses belong to the government (if there are some), and the backlash of sanctioning a whole country, make it a pretty unlikely scenario.
In conclusion, even with centralized stablecoins involved, Venezuela highlights that crypto can always be your enemy’s currency.