- Paper money is useless (as seen in the video) so everything is done via bank transfer. This has led to a very fast adoption of internet banking. You want to pay someone, you make them a transfer and show them the transaction.
- There are places where paper money is needed, parking lots. You have to pay 100.000 bolivares in bills of 500. ATMs don't give you enough money to cover that, so you need to ... buy packets of money, for a premium.
- Credit cards can't keep up their limits with the inflation. All the credit cards in a middle class family amount to a few dollars.
- Unusual for a country like Venezuela, some weird sense of trust is now needed. You might go to get a haircut and then make a money transfer from your PC when you get home. No one wants your paper currency.
- Bitcoin has become a common way of sending money from abroad to family in Venezuela. There's people that will buy it in exchange for Bolivares (Venezuelan currency) at a premium. Again, you have to trust them to hold their side of the bargain.
- All of the issues above work while internet and electricity are working, which very often, doesn't. Banking infrastructure is pushed to its limits .
- There's start ups trying to work around these trust and centralized systems using blockchain technology. (https://www.citywallet.net/ - in spanish)