(Natural News) The massive power outage that occurred throughout most of Venezuela earlier this month once again brought to light the important fact that, during a major “grid-down” event in which electricity is no longer available, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin instantly become non-existent.

Venezuela’s rolling blackout event reportedly left most of the socialist country in the dark for more than a week, and during this time cryptocurrency trading on the peer-to-peer (P2P) platform “Localbitcoins” was basically brought to a screeching halt.

According to Zero Hedge, the number of transactions on the platform plummeted by as much as 40 percent during the week ending on March 9. By March 13, these transactions began to increase as power was restored throughout the country.

But in the meantime, Bitcoin traders who rely on the digital “coin” as part of their livelihood were basically stuck up a creek without a paddle. Unlike gold and silver, which don’t need electricity to exist, Bitcoin is entirely reliant upon a steady supply of electricity – which is never guaranteed in our increasingly volatile and unpredictable world.

“Since the ‘blackout’ began in #Venezuela, the use of #bitcoin has dropped 40%, heightening the country’s money problems: a lot of inflation, but no money,” tweeted Frances Coppola, a business writer for Forbes, on March 16, two days after power was mostly restored throughout Venezuela.

“#Socialism has returned VNZ (Venezuela) to the days of barter … This is the problem with using Bitcoin. It needs electricity,” he added.

https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-03-23-value-of-bitcoin-when-the-grid-goes-down.html#