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2024/10/07 09:24

Venezuelan food delivery driver Pablo Toro has no

Venezuelan food delivery driver Pablo Toro has no stake in cryptocurrency or blockchain, but indirectly uses digital tokens every time he sends money to his family.

Toro, who emigrated to Colombia in 2019, uses an app called Valiu to receive Colombian pesos from working on Bogota’s streets and deposit the corresponding bolivars into a Venezuelan bank account.

In Venezuela’s economy, mired by hyperinflation and hemmed in by sanctions, the operation is not so straightforward.

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Crypto
With Venezuela’s economy in crisis, cryptocurrency fills the gaps
Pablo Toro, a Venezuelan food delivery driver in Colombia, uses digital tokens every time he sends money to his family.


Pablo Toro, Venezuelan delivery worker (left) who emigrated to Colombia in 2019, uses an app called Valiu to receive Colombian pesos from working on Bogota's streets and deposit the corresponding bolivars into a Venezuelan bank account [File: Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters]
Published On 22 Jun 2021
22 Jun 2021
Venezuelan food delivery driver Pablo Toro has no stake in cryptocurrency or blockchain, but indirectly uses digital tokens every time he sends money to his family.

Toro, who emigrated to Colombia in 2019, uses an app called Valiu to receive Colombian pesos from working on Bogota’s streets and deposit the corresponding bolivars into a Venezuelan bank account.

In Venezuela’s economy, mired by hyperinflation and hemmed in by sanctions, the operation is not so straightforward.

KEEP READING
list of 4 items
list 1 of 4
Venezuela’s Maduro expresses desire for foreign aid, Biden deal
list 2 of 4
Copa America: 12 Venezuelans test positive for COVID
list 3 of 4
Luisa Ortega: Is Venezuela a failed state?
list 4 of 4
Venezuela to begin clinical trials of Cuba’s vaccine candidate
end of list
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Valiu uses pesos to buy cryptocurrency that it then sells on LocalBitcoins, a global peer-to-peer site for trading tokens in local currencies.

For Toro, the platform is more reliable than informal money changers, the main channel for Venezuelan migrants to send money home. And he need not buy traditional money orders in person.

“When the power is out in Venezuela, when internet service is down, it has a huge impact on how long it takes to send a remittance to one’s family,” said Toro, who quit working as a university security guard because his monthly salary could not even pay for a day’s groceries.

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