$1.38 Billion in One Month: How Venezuela's Binance P2P Market Now Rivals Its Oil Exports
According to economic consulting firm Econalitica, peer-to-peer (P2P) trading volumes on Binance, Venezuela’s most popular crypto platform, reached nearly 1.38 billion USDT between June 11 and July 13, averaging 44 million USDT per day. This volume represents 75% of the country’s monthly oil exports and 88% of all foreign currency sales executed by the central bank in June.
Alejandro Grisanti, Director and Founding Partner at Ecoanalitica, stated that Binance has moved beyond a niche market to become one of Venezuela’s primary channels for buying and selling currency, reflecting ongoing limitations in the traditional foreign exchange market.
Venezuela has been a pioneer in cryptocurrency and stablecoin adoption, partly due to U.S. sanctions. In September, former Econalitica partner Adrubal Oliveros noted that the Venezuelan forex market had pivoted toward crypto and stablecoins, using crypto payments to settle oil sales.
However, after the Trump administration began progressively lifting sanctions in January, the formal forex sales market, where the Venezuelan government is the main provider, has seen a mild recovery. Grisanti expects this trend to continue, with increased dollar volumes from the central bank and reduced market segmentation empowering traditional banking. He concluded that if the exchange normalization process continues, Binance trading volumes will gradually decrease as more operations move to traditional banking, not because demand falls, but because alternative channels become available.