We have talked several times about Venezuela and its role in the cryptocurrency market. Its population has been embracing virtual currencies for a long period of time due to the current economic and political situation that the country is experiencing. This time, due to a blackout experienced by the country, both transactions and active addresses on the Bitcoin network plummetted.

Venezuela’s Blackout Affects Bitcoin

Both, Bitcoin transactions and active addresses, seem to have been affected by the blackout in Venezuela. The country experienced the worst power and communications outage ever. Around 96% of the country has been affected by this lack of energy.

Due to this situation, Bitcoin transactions fell by about 100,000. During the last days, they’ve reached 240,000 after accounting 370,000.

The same has happened with active addresses. According to BitInfoCharts, the daily active addresses reached the same value as in August 2018, with the exception of January 1st, 2019. Nevertheless, it is not possible to link the situation in Venezuela with a drop in the number of transactions or active addresses. It is only possible to speculate with it and try to make some relations between the market and the situation that the country is currently living.

The number of transactions that take place in LocalBitcoin shows that Venezuelans are moving large sums of BTC. More than in Europe or in the United States. According to LocalBitcoins, $8 million in Bitcoin transactions took place in the South American country. In Europe, there were just $4 million transactions processed, and in the United States, that number dropped down to $3 million.

According to the US government, the lack of energy is due to the way in which they handled the situation in the country. About it, Juan Guaidó, the president of Venezuela, commented:

“We have been reporting the electrical crisis for years, and now, we have to alert in a responsible manner that this could also become the gasoline crisis, in addition to the water crisis we already have.”

The country has been affected by years of lack of investments in large energy projects. Moreover, Maduro has been focusing on retaining its power rather than offering solutions to the problems of Venezuelans.

Due to the economic problems that citizens are facing, several Venezuelans that lived abroad tend to send Bitcoin and other digital currencies to their families in the country. At the same time, there are several firms that are currently accepting virtual currencies as a means of payment. With Bitcoin, users can store their funds and move them as desired as they need.

One of the main issues that Venezuelans are facing is high inflation rates. Venezuela is the country with the largest inflation in the world. They could eventually reach inflation of 10 million percent in the future.

If electricity returns to normal, it will be interesting to see whether Bitcoin transactions and active addresses return to normal.

This situation could help other countries and analysts understand what would happen with Bitcoin if there is a blackout in different countries at the same time.