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Facing hyperinflation at home, Venezuelans have been using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to receive remittances from abroad as well as a store of value. The Maduro government recently announced plans of incorporating BTC and Litecoin (LTC) into the country’s existing remittance platform making it easier for its citizens to receive their funds in cryptocurrency.
In an announcement made on October 31, the Patria Cryptocurrency Remittance Platform announced that it will be incorporating Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) wallets into its platform, Bitcoin.com reported. The move will enable Venezuelans to formally receive their incoming remittance in cryptocurrency.
“The Patria Platform informs about the updates that will be made in the operation of the Cryptocurrency Remittance Platform, the Currency and Crypto-Assets Exchange System, in addition to the Petro, Bitcoin and Litecoin Wallets,” Patria said on an October 28, 2020, post on its site.
The announcement also detailed some of the changes that will be implemented on the platform. Aside from the incorporation of BTC and LTC wallets, the updates will allow the platform to receive remittances in Petro and in the cryptocurrency itself.
With the update, users of the platform will be able to directly withdraw from the Bitcoin and Litecoin wallet to the PetroApp. The post also mentioned a “progressive update of commissions and fees for the exchange and remittances” but the specifics were not yet revealed at the moment.
The Venezuelan government is also planning the “implementation of a service commission for all operations carried out in the Petro, Bitcoin and Litecoin wallets.” However, the post did not give details about this planned cryptocurrency-related service commission.
However, the platform will not implement all the changes at once. “In the few days following this update, some of these functionalities will only be available to a select number of users for purposes of testing the changes,” the post added. “The Patria Platform will gradually incorporate all these and other services, which due to their extension will require several days of updating and monitoring.”
The incorporation of Bitcoin and Litecoin wallets into the remittance platform is expected to boost cryptocurrency usage in the country. Currently, Venezuela has the third-highest crypto usage in the world based on Chainalysis’ Global Crypto Adoption Index.
