Venezuela Reportedly Blocks its Citizens from Accessing Coinbase

Reports from Venezuela appear to indicate that the government has blocked the United States-based major crypto exchange platform Coinbase.

The claims were made by multiple Twitter users, although the government is yet to make a statement on the matter.

Venezuela-based internet tech group Venezuela Inteligente shared screenshots that appeared to show that Coinbase access was blocked, as well as the MercaDolar platform, another USA-based firm. The latter offers remittance and foreign exchange services for Venezuelans.

The tech group stated that “most mainstream internet service providers” in the nation were blocking Coinbase and MercaDolar, and added that the “exact motivation” for the move was so far unclear.

One user claimed that he was unable to access Coinbase, and that the American firm’s services appeared to be inaccessible from Venezuela. The Twitter user added that he was able to bypass the block using a VPN, however.

Venezuela Inteligente also pointed out that the Nicolás Maduro government last month issued a block on the AirTM platform, a peer-to-peer money transfer app run by a Mexican fintech firm.

The government had previously selected the platform for use in a healthcare donations program.

Earlier this week, Cryptonews.com reported that Twitter appears to have taken down the account of the Venezuelan cryptoasset regulator, Sunacrip.

Crypto adoption is sky-high in the Latin American nation. Yesterday, Chainalysis released data showing that only the citizens of Russia and Ukraine were more active in the crypto market than Venezuela, with sky-high peer-to-peer exchange volumes.
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