It's estimated that the inflation rate over the last year in Venezuela has been around 52,000%.

For this reason, the current economic situation in the country has been described as one of the most serious humanitarian, economic, and political crisis events, to take place in the Americas over the last decade.

People in the country are dealing with medical shortages, food shortages, long queues for anything and everything from shopping to taking out money from the ATM. There are perpetual price hikes, frequent power outages, and constant currency devaluation.

For the many people who live outside of Venezuela, who might want to send money or food etc, back home to their loved ones, it can be costly and tedious. There are complicated currency restrictions and regulations pertaining to money transfers.

It's estimated that roughly 80 percent of the country is now living in poverty.

To try and help the situation in the region, DASH recently launched their text-based crypto payment service Dash Text in the country.

With this payment service, it eliminates the need for any smartphone or internet connection to carry out a crypto transaction and send money to someone else. Their solution was built in partnership with BlockCypher and it's currently in beta testing.

It enables users of Digitel and Movistar to access DASH services using a 5-digit shortcode, so that anyone with a phone can become engaged in sending and receiving crypto payments.

For registration, it's reported that users only need to send an SMS with the word DASH to 22625, followed by a 2nd SMS with the word CREAR that is expected to create the Dash wallet for them. After that, users will be able to send and receive Dash payments via SMS.

Dash has also been actively pursuing adoption with retailers in the region and they've already signed up thousands. One online store in the region, Tu Pana Charcutero, has already been busy accepting Dash payments for his goods. It's reported that DASH now has thousands of merchants on-board. They have also established a deal with Kripto Mobile which creates mobile phones that are going to come now pre-equipped with a DASH wallet.

The people in Venezuela have been increasingly turning to cryptocurrencies, not only DASH, over the past few years because of the economic instability that they have been facing.

In the summer this year, it was reported that the price of BTC had been doubling every 18 days as a result of the ongoing hyperinflation in the country. Use of cryptocurrency in Venezuela, reportedly remains far above other countries. By the end of 2018, it's suspected that the inflation might grow to 1,000,000 percent. As the fiat currency has become increasingly devalued, people are scrambling to use anything and everything but.

Pics:
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