In an increasingly shocking development, Venezuela has registered yet another record high inflation rate which is now hitting at 488,865 percent in the 12 months ending in September, as the crude-producing nation continues to brace itself from a much broader economic collapse looming in a distance, a member of the Venezuelan Congress tipped the press on Monday.
According to Reuters, the rate to which consumer prices rose is now felt throughout the country on a daily basis at 4 percent per day. Citing the statement released by opposition legislator, Angel Alvarado, it was further revealed that the monthly inflation rate has risen from 223 percent in August to 233 percent last month.
As part of the government's continuing efforts to salvage the sinking economy, President Nicolas Maduro decided to implement a new Bolivar currency which sought to alleviate the feverish prices of commodities.
According to the previous report from Business Times, the new Bolivar Soberano is worth 100,000 of the old Bolivares. Basically, what the government did was to cut off five zeroes off the old currency. In this case, a cup of coffee, for example, which originally sells at 2.5 million strong bolivares will now cost 25 sovereign bolivars in Caracas.
Moreover, this new economic move from Maduro has boosted the national minimum wage by 3,000 percent. The admin has also been pushing for the use of state-backed cryptocurrency or as popularly known, Bitcoin.
To make the matter worse, the International Monetary Fund has issued a grim estimation of consumer price increase in the country which could hit at a whopping 1,000,000 percent before 2018 ends.
The Rise In The Use Of Cryptocurrency
Due to these recent rounds of hyperinflation, Venezuela has resorted to using this form of currency as a way to store value while the bolivar continues to go down the drain, Bitt Press reported.
According to the industry-focused publication, the country will most likely to adopt the use of Dash (a cryptocurrency) on a much larger scale.
In fact, as pointed out by Bitt Press, there are already more than 3,000 businesses around the world that accept bitcoin payments. Half of these businesses are actually found in Venezuela.
With the devaluing of Venezuelan paper money, the market value of Dash will increase. Ryan Taylor, the CEO of Cash Core Group, reported a sudden spike of wallet downloads to number tens of thousands per month since the currency was made available in the country.
Like Venezuela, countries like China and Russia are also going large on cryptocurrency.
