There is never a boring day in the world of finance. While most developments are not interesting to a lot of people, some trends are quite peculiar. Venezuela’s bolivar, for example, has devalued so much over the past few years, it is now worth one-seventh of the gold in World of Warcraft.
The Venezuelan Bolivar is a Joke Currency
Anyone who has paid any attention to economic developments in Venezuela knows the country is not in a good place right now. There has been a lot of pressure on the bolivar, and it seems things will not improve anytime soon. In fact, the Venezuelan bolivar is losing value pretty much every other day, which makes life increasingly difficult for residents and corporations in the country.
Even though the bolivar is still around today, it remains to be seen how long that will be the case moving forward. It is slowly turning into a big joke of a currency, as it is now worth less than virtual gold in the popular MMO game World of Warcraft. Said gold was worth twice as much as the Venezuelan bolivar in August of 2017. That was only a glimmer of what was to come for Venezuela’s national currency, unfortunately.
Fast forward to today, and the bolivar is worth one-seventh of WoW’s virtual gold, as the situation has only worsened over these past nine months. The value of World of Warcraft gold hasn’t risen, mind you, as the prices across gold-selling websites have fallen dramatically over the years. This only compounds the Venezuelan bolivar’s woes as of right now.
As is always the case, such calculations are subject to some degree of interpretation and error. Even so, anyone in the world can see the Venezuelan bolivar is sliding pretty quickly, and there will be no recourse if this trend keeps up for much longer. In fact, it seems even the Venezuelan government has given up on the Bolivar altogether ever since the Petro cryptocurrency was created.
The big question is whether or not the Petro can become a global success. Considering that even the government is still not convinced this currency is completely legal – despite having been vetted by President Maduro – the future of Venezuela looks very troubled. It might have even been worth the time to develop a new currency tied to the value of World of Warcraft gold, although that may have proven even more problematic than what the Petro entails today.
The black market for Venezuelan bolivars is not improving matters much either. According to DolarToday, the black market rate of the bolivar is 636,711.03 per 1 USD. It is a very interesting trend to keep an eye on, but everyone can see that things will not end well for the bolivar. With the Petro having become another contender, the future of Venezuela is in obvious peril.
