Far from the oil fields, a new financial power is brewing in the palm of Venezuelans’ hands. It is the digital economy where the use of bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT consolidate a market that, although silent, mobilizes a volume of capital that challenges the traditional metrics of the national economy.
During the Global Crypto Summit 2026, held between March 26 and 28 in Margarita, eastern Venezuela and in which NoticiasVE was present, the president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Electronic Commerce (Cavecom-e), Richard Ujueta, presented an x-ray that challenges the official metrics.
Their data reveal that the digital economy in Venezuela mobilized 51 billion dollars in mobile payments alone during 2025, a figure that supports their thesis that the key to cleaning up public accounts lies in providing traceability to this «invisible economy» which also includes the use of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins such as USDT, instead of applying new taxes.
The rise of this sector is not a coincidence, but an adaptive response to years of restrictions and a crisis that forced Venezuelans to take refuge in technology. With financial digitalization that reaches 96%, the country is building a payments ecosystem that exceeds the region’s averages, allowing assets like USDT to penetrate everyday commerce with an agility that surprises many.
We have the highest banking coverage in Latin America at 95%, but the most impressive figure is financial digitalization at 96%. That is the pinnacle for a country that claims to be developed; us [Venezuela] We are in that range and that leads us to understand why cryptoassets are so easy to be adopted by Venezuelans.
Richard Ujueta.
And although Ujueta did not mention it, it is noteworthy that this technological robustness coexists with an irregular network infrastructure and a chronic electricity crisis that has worsened in 2026. This scenario forces the private sector to make extraordinary investmentsranging from the deployment of independent satellite connectivity to the installation of own electricity generation systems.
These measures are not an option, but rather a survival condition to ensure that servers and digital transactions do not stop due to recurring public service failures, a factor that adds a layer of operational cost that does not exist in other markets in the region.
When comparing magnitudes, the Cavecom-e study provides data that forces us to rethink the country’s economic hierarchy. The use of cryptocurrencies for more than 44 billion dollars in one year, this together with sectors such as delivery, which delivers 2.2 million packages daily, or digital financing (Buy now, Pay later), which already grants three times more credit than all traditional banking combined, operate in an area where fiscal traceability is little or none.
China represents 66% of its economy in the digital sector; The oil was left out of the device. To give you an idea, in 2025 Venezuela’s oil operations invoiced 13.5 billion dollars, while only one actor in the digital economy, such as BNPL financing, represents approximately 3% of the national GDP.
Richard Ujueta.
This contrast shows that, while the State reports a limited tax base, between 46 and 65 billion dollars circulate outside. This gap is what Ujueta defines as the engine that could transform the national cash flow.
Transparency of cryptocurrencies against evasion
The chamber’s technical proposal is pragmatic: standardize current points of sale with fiscal devices and convert mobile payment and cryptocurrencies into tools of transparency. Currently, the lack of integrated devices allows many businesses to cancel invoices after collecting VAT, leaving them with a tax that the consumer has already paid.
Invisibility harms us all. By converting current points of sale to fiscal points and formalizing mobile payment, SENIAT would increase its current collection 3.5 times. This is not a new law or an additional tax burden, but rather ensuring that technology makes visible what is today evasion, even allowing VAT to be lowered to a single digit.
Richard Ujueta.
However, the success of this plan depends on a delicate balance. The biggest challenge is not only technical, but encourage a mass of more than 3.5 million entrepreneurs and small merchants who see formalization as a real risk to their survival. Many fear that declaring their operations before the SENIAT implies an additional tax burden (ISLR, VAT and other taxes) that, in a context of already very narrow margins, high inflation and volatile operating costs, ends up eroding their profitability or even making the business unviable.
Added to this is the fear of greater exposure to inspections, fines and bureaucratic procedures in an environment where informality has been, for years, the main survival tool. The path, according to Cavecom-e, involves converting the agility that Venezuelans already have with their telephone into the basis of a formal, transparent and, finally, visible economy.
The twist of reverse remittances with crypto assets in Venezuela
Venezuela has established itself as a global laboratory for the use of digital assets, ranking first in adoption per capita in Latin America and ninth worldwide. According to Richard Ujueta, this position not only responds to the need to overcome the crisis, but also to a financial digitalization infrastructure that already reaches almost the entire population. This technological base allows cryptoassets to stop being a technical curiosity and become the backbone of cross-border transfers.
The impact is most evident in the remittance sector, where Ujueta estimates that 90% of flows are processed through the use of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Based on sector metrics, the manager estimates that there are 5.5 million Binance users linked to the Venezuelan ecosystem, of which about 2 million operate internally while another 3 million do so from abroad. However, he notes a change in trend that reflects the complex migratory and economic reality of the region:
Remittances went 90% both from there to here and from here to there at the crypto asset level in any of its modalities. But we see a phenomenon that is happening. Remittances have been invested. Now we Venezuelans send more to our relatives in Colombia than what we are receiving.
Richard Ujueta.
This “reverse remittances” phenomenon suggests that, despite internal difficulties, the family support network now flows from Venezuela to countries such as Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, where many migrants face conditions of economic instability.
For Ujueta, This torrent of money «downstream» is what sustains consumption in the country’s large chains, demonstrating that the digital economy creates a parallel and much more vibrant reality than traditional income indicators suggest.