Venezuela has long been in a state of crisis, but you can help it improve through cryptocurrency.
From Strong to Starving
Steve Hanke – an applied economics professor at Johns Hopkins University – is leading a new crypto-based financial campaign known as Airdrop Venezuela. In a recent interview, he explains how members of the public can get involved.
Venezuela was once the richest nation in South America, but a socialist agenda through its current president Nicolas Maduro and rising inflation has caused its national currency, the bolivar, to lose much of its value. The people now undergo days of starvation and poverty to the point that they are attacking zoo animals for food and store shelves are virtually barren.
Hanke is looking to help the nation improve its economy through cryptocurrency, which has become a hugely popular alternative to the bolivar over the past few years. Discussing how the airdrop will work, he mentions:
Well, our objective is to have 100,000 people verified that would qualify to receive donations. Right now, we’re at 60,000. We’ve collected $272,000 to date, and the objective is to get to $1 million. So, we’ll have $1 million, and we’ll have 100,000 Venezuelans receiving equal portions of that, and we’ll probably be delivering in August.
Hanke states that those who partake in the airdrop can do so through their phones or mobile devices to pledge cryptocurrency to the cause. The money then goes to the Air TM platform – the system which holds all the money – and is then distributed evenly to all the verified wallets of the campaign.
Discussing how the money can be used, Hanke mentions what he believes will be the standard process of most recipients:
Well, this is what most people will probably do – to go to their Air TM platform and exchange the cryptocurrencies that they’ve received in their wallets for real money that they can use to buy things, and the real money would, in most cases, be U.S. dollars. When the currency in your country is literally melting in your hand and – knowing that, the key is getting people hard currency that they use to purchase something. So, that was the general attraction, and the technology of using this internet platform is just what the doctor ordered.
No Politics; We’re for the People
Hanke assures that these efforts are not politically biased, and that he’s not looking to help cement interim president Juan Guaido as the leader of Venezuela. He’s just looking to help the people of Venezuela get the money they need to survive:
[The intentions] are purely humanitarian at this point, and these are private – the private exchanges that are going on, and there’s no particular political motivation. It’s just to help people to give them some purchasing power. The money comes from private donations.