CARACAS, Venezuela — Pity the bolívar, Venezuela’s currency, named after its independence hero, Simón Bolívar. Even some thieves do not want it anymore.

When robbers carjacked Pedro Venero, an engineer, earlier this year, he expected they would drive him to his bank to cash his check for a hefty sum in bolívars — the sort of thing that crime-weary Venezuelans have long since gotten used to. But the robbers, armed with rifles and a grenade, and sure that he would have a stash of dollars at home, wanted nothing to do with the bolívars in his bank account.

“They told me straight up, ‘Don’t worry about that,’ ” Mr. Venero said. “Forget about it.”

The eagerness to dump bolívars or avoid them completely shows the extent to which Venezuelans have lost faith in their economy and in the ability of their government to find a way out of the mess.

A year ago, $1 bought about 100 bolívars on the black market. These days, it often fetches more than 700 bolívars, a sign of how thoroughly domestic confidence in the economy has crashed.