Venezuelans are paying a $1,700+ premium on LocalBitcoins and volumes are the fastest-growing in the world

Volumes have skyrocketed on LocalBitcoins Venezuela after posting a staggering 2,492 percent increase over the last twelve months, making the stricken South American economy the world's fastest-growing-but likely the most expensive-market for LocalBitcoins.

Weekly volumes leaped from 13.7 billion Venezuelan bolívars in mid-January 2019, to 363 billion bolívars at the end of last week, according to CoinDance.

BTC is currently listed on LBC Venezuela no lower than $9,401 and the only seller offering a whole Bitcoin has listed an ask price of an outlandish $11,687 per BTC. LocalBitcoins to the rescue?

LBC's evident growth in Venezuela can be seen as another validation of Bitcoin's reputation as a non-confiscatable and censorship-resistant store of value.

As such LBC trade volumes have become a yardstick for quantifying purchases of seeming necessity.

A closer analysis of LBC data has revealed that the original cryptocurrency is seeing exceptionally high rates of adoption in countries with low economic freedom-countries like Venezuela.

Last year Bitcoin jumped to a $2,250 premium on one of Argentina's top exchanges after the government imposed capital controls, not too long before LBC Argentina volumes hit their all-time-high.

Last year Venezuela took the title of Bloomberg's "Most miserable" economy on its annual "Misery Index," which ranks the world's worst economies based on inflation and employment rates.

Faced with an inflation rate of more than eight million percent, on-and-off capital controls, and a steady decline in the production of oil-which accounts for about 99 percent of Venezuela's export earnings-Venezuelans would have ample reasons to allocate to Bitcoin.

As reported previously by CryptoSlate, Venezuela is the world's most Bitcoinified nation in terms of amount of BTC owned per head of population, and amount of income spent on BTC relative to income.