Venezuela has recently announced the authorisation of the Decentralised Stock Exchange of Venezuela, known as BDVE, allowing users to access the exchange “from anywhere in the world” and “without restrictions.”

In a fascinating move Venezuela, which has been a basket-case economy ever since Hugo Chavez died in 2013, has dropped their national currency (the bolivar) and any ties to the US dollar, and decided to link their national currency to bitcoin instead. This follows years of hyperinflation where the bolivar – both the old and the new one – became worthless. The result is that the society moved from dealing in money to dealing in barter, preferring to receive a loaf of bread, a toilet roll and a bag of sweets for a day’s work than a currency that in the morning was worth $1 and in the evening was worth 1 cent.