Amidst an unprecedented era of hyper-inflation in the economically tumultuous Venezuela, citizens are turning to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as the choice medium for exchange in order to bypass the issues associated with the country’s fiat currency – the Bolivar.

According to Coin Dance, a Bitcoin/fiat volume tracker, the Venezuelans have been consistently exchanging Bolivars for Bitcoin, and this trend has been increasing exponentially in the past couple of weeks.

According to the data, last week Venezuelans exchanged a record number of Bolivars – nearly 300 million of them – for Bitcoin, and it appears that this record will be broken later this week, as Bitcoin trading volume with the Bolivar is close to reaching that 300 million figure just on this Monday alone.

If anything, the adoption of Bitcoin in Venezuela serves as a testament to its practicality as a decentralized currency resistant to government censorship and immune from devaluation or inflation from a single centralized party.

Part of the reason for the exponential rise in Bitcoin trading volume from Venezuela is due to the recent decision by the government to devalue the currency even further. On August 10, five zeroes were stripped off the Bolivar’s value, proving that the country’s effort to use cryptocurrencies to end their hyperinflation problems is failing.

Earlier this year, the Venezuelan government announced the release of an oil-backed cryptocurrency, called the Petro that was meant to be a solution to the country’s failing economic systems. In an effort to increase the utility of the Petro and to bypass international sanctions, Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, decided to tie the value of the Bolivar to that of the Petro.

The country’s Petro, however, has not been widely adopted, and short of the government forcing businesses, banks, and individuals to recognize it as a real currency, it has seen very little adoption.

Cryptocurrencies like Dash and Bitcoin the Choice Currency of Venezuelan Citizens

Recent reports show that in addition to widespread use of Bitcoin by Venezuelan citizens, they are also turning to popular alt-coins, like Dash, in order to effectively store and transact their money.

Ryan Taylor, the CEO of the Dash Core Group spoke to Business Insider recently, saying:

"We are seeing tens of thousands of wallet downloads from the country each month. Earlier this year, Venezuela became our No. 2 market, even ahead of China and Russia, which are, of course, huge into cryptocurrency right now."

The adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in countries like Venezuela prove that they are an effective way to avoid the risks associated with fiat currency, especially in countries whose governments exercise tremendous control over the valuation of their fiat currency.