In Bolivia these days, just about anything seems better than holding the local currency. The buying power of the boliviano has cratered, as trust in the once-dominant socialist government nears all-time lows, inflation hits three-decade highs and dollars are in short supply.
That’s why more and more people are turning to a risky alternative to do business and protect their hard-earned savings: cryptocurrencies.
From small coffee shops to large corporations, signs of rapid adoption are everywhere in this landlocked nation of 11 million in South America. At the El Alto International Airport, a vendor lists prices of candy and sunglasses in USDT, a stablecoin issued by Tether and fixed at 1-for-1 to the dollar. A top university pays its international faculty in Bitcoin. For a while, even the state-owned oil company was authorized to use stablecoins for foreign payments.
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