Just when it seemed like the economic and political situation in Venezuela couldn't get much worse, it has. Back in December, the Venezuelan bolívar witnessed its peak annual inflation rate for 2018, with this rate coming in at a dizzying 80,000 percent, according to the calculations of Steve Hanke of John Hopkins University. However, with the United States' imposition of sanctions against Venezuela's state-owned oil company on Jan. 28, and with Juan Guaido self-declaration as interim president of the South American nation on Jan. 23, this already dire situation has only deteriorated further. Yearly inflation has now reached around 139,000 percent, and Venezuelans have found it even more difficult to buy basic necessities.
Cointelegraph has already shown in a 2018 article how Venezuela's recent plight resulted in a surge in popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, while data from Coin Dance reveal that over 35,000 Bitcoin (worth around $127 million at today's prices) was traded for bolívar on the LocalBitcoins crypto exchange over the entire course of last year. However, even if it’s only two months into 2019, the new year has brought new peaks of trading activity for Bitcoin and the Venezuelan bolívar, with the weekly LocalBitcoins totals for the first two weeks of February — 2,004 and 2,454 — exceeding anything seen in any month of 2018.