CBDCs, CBDCs, CBDCs, it's all over the news, a good number of countries are beginning to look into it and it's funny they all just believe a copied version would be better than the original. If you've been in the Crypto space for a while, and mostly paying attention, you'd probably have taken note of attacks and some sorta trials that have been put forward in an attempt to bring down the growing interest in cryptocurrency. As though cryptocurrencies are unregulated thus decentralized digital assets, it's been a bite on the neck on Central bodies being unable to capitalize on it. Raging from issuance, to being a finance watchdog down to actually propelling the whole crypto jet in a way that would feed their greed, a copycat was one of their ideas of breakthrough, what a joke.
I got to find out some backend stories about bitcoin actually killing it at being utilized by the Venezuelan government. Venezuela is like one of the countries in great economic disaster, and they've actually not been on good terms with the U.S government, so therefore, foreign trade and exchange activities were something they couldn't pull off without being sanctioned. Bla Bla Bla, the Venezuelan government was utilizing crypto, Bitcoin precisely, some years back to bypass the U.S sanction.
Since February 2018, Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar International Airport outside the capital Caracas has required airlines to pay for operational services through an application called Jetman Pay, according to ABC International. This converts the airport taxes into Bitcoin, allowing them to be transferred to international exchange houses in Hong Kong, Russia, China and Hungary. There, they are converted into dollars and deposited into accounts held by the Venezuelan government.Source
Obviously, the government did see the usefulness of cryptocurrency far back, but since it wasn't quite a threat, it was ignored. A funny added information about this activity was that Jetman Pay is actually owned by BCDA Aeronautical Solutions, a Florida-based firm which collects two percent of all fees levied this way at the airport, according to service contracts seen by ABC. This means a US-based company may be helping Venezuela avoid sanctions.reports
That being at the wayside, came closing year 2020, then 2021, cryptocurrency hit the internet hard, exploded the world of finance and investments, banged on a $2 trillion market cap, then it suddenly wasn't a joke and couldn't possibly be seen as one. Venezuela, still coming into the discussion, was quite exposed to the utility of cryptocurrency amid the government activities. A certain Venezuelan government regulated crypto called "petro" which was a failure, was introduced to Venezuelans as the government's vision to get out of the economic crisis. That plan didn't quite work out, as though the CBDCs was supposed to function both in the locals and the foreign as proposed, following the whole crypto concept but centralized! The U.S also struck up here prohibiting its citizens from obtaining petro as though the Venezuelan government was a corny body of Central powers, well, every governmental body is corny, the U.S just don't like competition.
That said, according to a report on coindesk Venezuela has actually been one out of many economic ruined countries wherein citizens depended solely on cryptocurrency as a hedge. The battle between crypto and CBDCs even before it's full installation has clearly shown what's superior, the failure of "petro" which was supposedly backed by petrol reserves and shits, is just one down and many more to come. Today, the Reserve Bank of India is reported to have plans of starting CBDC trials soon, and I'm just waiting to see it fail against cryptocurrency. They would still go ahead talking about undetectable transactions and how it aids criminal activities, but that won't place any of these CBDCs in a good position.
