Digital Money Is Here: Will It Make Us More Free — or Less?
As Venezuela and China start using digital money as a means for economic control and surveillance, can the original promise of cryptocurrency survive?
By Jamaal Montasser and Will Byrne
For those observing the crisis in Venezuela, it can feel like tragedy in slow motion. The country is in the grips of the most extreme monetary crisis of our time—with inflation recently reaching 1,000,000% — and since 2013 has seen an economic contraction worse than the Great Depression. Once one of the richest countries in South America, the economy is in ruins, livelihoods are shattered, and starvation and violence are rampant. The past weeks have seen state-backed military attacks against its own citizens queued up for humanitarian aid and blackouts across the country.
A range of issues have contributed to the crisis, overdependence on crude oil and crippling sanctions from Western powers among them. Another major driver has been monetary mismanagement of the bolivar, Venezuela’s national currency. For over a decade, Venezuelan regimes have instituted strict capital, foreign exchange and price controls on its currency, making it virtually impossible for those with savings to safeguard their wealth by…
