| That's not even close to an accurate assessment. Yes, you can technically have a bank account in Venezuela denominated in USD. However, it would be completely useless for a few reasons. You cannot withdraw USD in Venezuela. Only Bolivares. And when you withdraw Bolivares from a USD denominated account, the bank must do so at the official rate. The official government rate is a complete farce and has no bearing on reality. If you were to pull out $1 USD from any bank in Venezuela, you would get about 10 Bolivares. The real rate on the street right now is about 3 million Bolivares to 1 USD. https://dolartoday.com/ In other words, with your USD denominated bank account, you would have to withdraw about $300k usd to buy a bottle of coke. As for getting an overseas account, that is extremely difficult if not impossible without physically being in that country. In the US you cannot get a bank account without some type of US id, either a SSN or TIN/EIN. There are very few ways to get money into venezuela. One is to be lucky enough to already have a foreign account or overseas family or friends with an account. You can then transact with other locals who also have a foreign account by transferring money to them electronically. The other method is Western Union to an adjoining country like Colombia. They go across the border get the cash and come back to Venezuela. Crossing the border with cash is fraught with danger right now. The other option is simply to travel outside the country but getting a travel visa to fly is exceedingly difficult for most Venezuelans. Venezuelan officials have stopped issuing passports to most. And countries like the US are not quick to grant a visa considering the fact that the great majority of tourists from venezuela are going to stay in the US permanently/illegally. As for crypto... you still have to find someone else with money that is willing to pay cash for a crypto currency. But at least the barrier of entry for crypto currency is much lower right now that the difficulty of getting an overseas bank account. Things are very, very bad in Venezuela right now. Of course, that doesn't mean scammers won't scam. But if the person is truly still in Venezuela, it is very likely they are in dire straits. |
I did specifically mention that regardless of whether you try to take crypto or USD, if your goal is to immediately convert into bolivares for survival spending, neither is easy or simple, since the government presumably wants to seize any USD it can get its hands on (the extortionate 'official' conversion rate just being a particular method of doing so).
> But at least the barrier of entry for crypto currency is much lower right now that the difficulty of getting an overseas bank account.
I don't see how that is the case, unless you have a specific example? Sure, you can get a crypto account and perhaps get someone to pay you, but you can equally well get a PayPal account denominated in USD, if you didn't already have a foreign bank account.
Neither of those can directly translate into bolivares, but at least the PayPal account can be be easily used to buy physical goods and perhaps get them into the country if you can bypass or bribe your way through customs.