Cucuta Colombia Serving As a Gateway To Venezuela, Venezuelans, & Bitcoin

6 min readMar 14, 2019

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Athena Bitcoin Inc.,™ the Most Trusted Name in Virtual Currency, Installed its 100th BTM- #TheOwlHasLanded

Live in Cúcuta Yards from Venezuela!

“Today Athena Bitcoin announced through its Twitter account the installation of a bitcoin ATM and other cryptocurrencies in the city of Cúcuta, border between Colombia and Venezuela…To learn more about the installation, CriptoNoticias consulted Arley Lozano, director of Panda Group, a company that was responsible for coordinating the logistics for the installation of the Athena BitcoinATM.” [7] *

“According to the information shown by the CoinATMRadar site, the new ATM will allow exchanging bitcoin, bitcoin cash and litecoin for Colombian pesos and is located in the JMJM travel agency in the La Parada neighborhood of Cúcuta, Colombia, 120 meters from the pass. border crossing through San Antonio del Táchira towards Venezuela.” [7][8]*

Cúcuta

Cúcuta, Colombia, or San Jose de Cúcuta, a city that abuts the devastated country of Venezuela, caught in economic upheaval manifested by widespread humanitarian crisis under an oppressive regime and with a population of 850,000 including the greater surrounding metropolitan area, is the hub of commerce nestled in the Norte de Santander [1] Cúcuta houses many small industries and is the closest metropolitan area to the oil fields in the North. [2] Yet, as detailed extensively in recent months the Colombian border has served as a site for grave unrest, at times becoming violent, while Maduro’s Authoritarian, Socialist regime continues to oppress the citizens of Venezuela. For more information, see our Flipboard which offers a curation of reliable resources from the frontlines. [3][5]

It’s been over 100 hours since the national blackout started and there are still places where power hasn’t returned since last Thursday, March 7th. The lack of electricity has intensified the lack of water and this Monday, March 11th in Caracas, we saw San Agustin neighbors use the gorges that feed Guaire river to fill their buckets with water. Although they’re not sewage drains, their water’s obviously unsafe, but since the state has been incapable of fulfilling its promise of distributing water tankers “for all communities,” people collect it even from the banks of a heavily polluted river.

Athena’s Mission to Provide Economic Liberty

This dissonance will not deter our mission, in our continued efforts to diligently forge into new territory and promote Economic Liberty, we are proud to announce that #TheOwlHasLanded again, in Cúcuta.

Further, we will not charge commissions for operations for amounts less than 100,000 Colombian pesos for the first two months.

Our Cúcuta ATM/BTM is our 100th install and the location of Cúcuta was strategic for providing a direct on and off ramp for those impacted by the collapse of the Venezuelan economy. To understand why many Venezuelans have turned to Bitcoin as a way to preserve value and escape corruption, see ‘BitcoinSaved My Family,’ a short excerpt is found below.

I keep all of my money in Bitcoin. Keeping it in bolívars would be financial suicide: The last time I checked, the rate of daily inflation was around 3.5 percent. That’s dailyinflation; the annual inflation rate for 2018 was almost 1.7 million percent. I don’t have a bank account abroad, and with Venezuela’s currency controls, there’s no easy way for me to use a conventional foreign currency like American dollars. [3]

Due to Maduro’s financial mismanagement, the Bolivar hyper-inflates at a staggering rate that leaves Venezuelans in an ever intensified state of peril.

So they robbed a bank in Merida #Venezuela but bolivars are worth so little they just left the worthless paper money behind.

While we will not go into depth on the economic, social, and political instability of Venezuela, more information is available on our Flipboard as we believe in providing factual and relevant content that is free from bias.

Again, we invite you to educate yourself by visiting our curation of stories from reputable sources on Flipboard. [5]

Cúcuta, A Brief History

This historic city is known for multiple historical milestones, yet given today’s economic crisis, it bears significance to note that in 1813, Simón Bolívarbegan his campaign in Cúcuta, which subsequently led to Venezuela’s independence. In the historic Battle of Cúcuta, troops led by Bolívar from the Spanish Royal Rorce, liberated the city from Spanish rule, allowing Bolívar’s troops to continue their campaign toward Venezuela. [1]

Cucata has long been known as loyal and courageous,

CÚCUTA (North of Santander). Founded in 1773 by Antonio Villamizar Pineda with the name of San José de Cúcuta, in the lands of Juana Rangel de Cuéllar, who is also considered the founder of the city. Title of “very noble, courageous and loyal” villa of San José de Guasimal of the valley of Cúcuta by real cedula of Carlos IV, to May 18, 1792. [4]

The city is segmented into 10 communes and it is the “political, economic, administrative, industrial, cultural and tourism hub of the Norte de Santander department.” [1] Cúcuta, connects to Venezuela via rail, river, and air. [2] In addition, part of its success as a commercial center is due to Cúcuta’s connections to other major cities like Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Ocaña, Valledupar, Pamplona, Tunja and Cartagena de Indias; Los Patios is east and the Villa del Rosario is to the south. [1]

Drone footage & Gallery

Here are some photos from the Cucuta Colombia location including an aerial drone captured video. [6]

Western Union On The Left, Athena Bitcoin ATM line on the Right

Our 1st Venezuela Customers in Cucuta. You can see the ATM in the window on the right.

Join in the Athena Story

Please follow us on our social media platforms for more updates on Colombia, Argentina, and our initiatives close to the border of Venezuela @athenabitcoin on Twitter and Instagram.

This is our Chicago peeps, Josie Bellini’s, work below.

Athena has purchased the 1st of 50 prints. We will be unveiling it at our Meetup next week at our Athena Trade offices.

**Resistencia** is a painting of my incredibly brave friend, Mariana, from Venezuela. She recently moved to the United States and obtained political asylum status to escape the swiftly deteriorating situation in Venezuela. It is not just an economic crisis but a humanitarian crisis. I created this art to bring attention to the situation and to help the people of Venezuela. Even though this is a small gesture, anything we can do will help. Here is a direct quote from Mariana.

“Venezuela. Economic crisis is not all. It is the famine, the medicine shortage, the corruption, the political persecution, the unfairness, all the families separated, the deaths & unfortunately there’s more. Venezuelans are suffering in an unimaginable ways because an unfair and illegitimate government.
I’m Mariana Rojas Latouche and I was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela. I left Venezuela in 2017 and now I’m granted Political asylum in USA. I’m constantly talking about my country trying to make people outside of Venezuelan understand that everything is beyond news. Unfortunately my country has been collapsing for many years and it’s getting worse.
Josie Bellini made this work in consequence of all the mistreatment we are living. She got so interested in my culture and country that it inspired her to help. She decided to speak for us, to show the world how vulnerable we are. And she decided to help us in an remarkable way as donating all the profits of this piece of Art to a several Venezuelan Organizations that will help Venezuelan people in need.”

Follow our LatAm Twitter Accounts specific to Colombia & Argentina for more about us in LatAm.

Athena Bitcoin Inc., “The Most Trusted Name In Bitcoin ATM’s™” is raising expansion capital to continue our mission to bring economic liberty and digital currency adoption to the under and un-banked in Latin America & Beyond.

#ViresInNumeris

This article was researched and co-written by our Chief Researcher Jenny Balliet