Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin Trading Surges in Venezuela

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On February 2, Venezuela's leading bitcoin exchange, SurBitcoin, was forced to suspend operations when its bank account was revoked. According to Rodrigo Souza, who runs SurBitcoin's trading platform, the bank closed the account in anticipation of a nationwide crackdown on bitcoin use in Venezuela after the police raided a warehouse with 11,000 mining computers. SurBitcoin is in talks with other banks, and hopefully it will be operating again soon. At its core, Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer system that allows users to exchange digital currency without permission from the government or any third party. That's why it's the ultimate libertarian technology.

Bitcoin exchanges, like SurBitcoin, however, are subject to government control because they buy and sell bitcoins on behalf of their users and rely on a company bank account to collect and pay out money. As Souza stressed in an interview last year, exchanges like SurBitcoin aren't actually necessary. They make buying and selling bitcoins more convenient, but users can always revert to peer-to-peer trading. As Souza put it, "how can [the government] stop software running on the internet?"

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As he predicted, SurBitcoin's closure has led to a surge in peer-to-peer trading. LocalBitcoins, a site where users connect to buy and sell bitcoins, makes its trade volume public through an API. (See the chart below.) Last week, 464 bitcoins were exchanged in Venezuela on LocalBitcoins, the equivalent of nearly $470,000 dollars based on today's price. That's close to a 50 percent increase in volume since SurBitcoin stopped operating. (LocalBitcoins' previous trading volume peak was 377 bitcoins the week of October 15, 2016, but, at the time, bitcoin was worth almost 40 percent less than it is today.)

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