Cryptoassets Regulatory Intelligence cryptoassets.gi
VE v13.3.0
content: ai_generated legal review: never_reviewed (informational) publication gate: 0 failing15 sources retrieved model claude-sonnet-5 · 2026-08-06

Venezuela

VE schema crypto-v2.0.0 trajectory: not yet assessedin transitionoverlaps: FIM, WPM

Last updated · 8 categories · 17 sourced findings · 37 sources in the cumulative register

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Jurisdiction lead brief

Latest update · 11 October 2026

Lead Signal

Venezuela's crypto regulatory architecture remains formally intact but institutionally hollowed out, while the market it is meant to oversee continues to expand rapidly through channels largely outside the formal perimeter. SUNACRIP, the licensing authority established under the 2019 Decreto Constituyente sobre el Sistema Integral de Criptoactivos, has operated under an intervenor and restructuring board since the March 2023 PDVSA-Cripto scandal, with its former superintendent still detained. Despite this, SUNACRIP continued renewing exchange licences in 2026, with Crixto licensed through 31 December 2026 and Kontigo through 8 January 2027; these two platforms remain the only currently licensed exchanges in the jurisdiction. This is a probable rather than confirmed finding, since the practical consequence of the 2023 intervention for the licensing function itself could not be confirmed from a primary SUNACRIP source this cycle.

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Venezuela's formal crypto licensing regime derives from the 2019 Constituent Decree on the Integral System of Crypto Assets, which created SUNACRIP (now styled Superintendencia Nacional de Criptoactivos y Actividades Conexas) as the licensing and registration authority for exchanges, miners and other crypto service providers. SUNACRIP's website continues to describe itself as the regulator of natural and legal persons active in the 'Sistema Integral de Criptoactivos' and states exchanges require state licensing ('Casas de Intercambio') and miners require registration/licensing via its Intendencia de Minería Digital. However, the institution was restructured amid a March 2023 corruption scandal in which officials were found to have embezzled billions of dollars via irregular PDVSA oil sales, and reporting indicates the crypto regulator's activity and public-facing output has been irregular since. Following the January 2026 U.S. capture of former President Nicolás Maduro and his transport to the U.S. for prosecution, the political authority underpinning SUNACRIP is itself in flux, so licensing claims below should be treated as textually in-force but operationally uncertain.

Standing sub-brief · as of 11 October 2026383 words · last cycle 2026-10-18

Crypto Licensing

Venezuela's crypto licensing regime remains formally governed by the 2019 Decreto Constituyente sobre el Sistema Integral de Criptoactivos, under which SUNACRIP requires registration before any entity may offer exchange, wallet or mining services. In practice, only two platforms currently hold valid licences: Crixto, renewed through 31 December 2026, and Kontigo, renewed through 8 January 2027. The persistence of a functioning renewal process is notable given that SUNACRIP itself has operated under an intervenor and restructuring board since the March 2023 PDVSA-Cripto scandal, with its former superintendent still detained. This combination, a formally intact licensing statute administered by an institutionally compromised regulator that nonetheless continues to process renewals for a small number of platforms, is the central tension in Venezuela's crypto-licensing posture this cycle.

No new data since the standing brief. 1 periodic run re-emitted it unchanged.

Sources and findings (4)
  1. T1 · SUNACRIPSUNACRIP — Crypto exchanges ('Casas de Intercambio') require a license granted by SUNACRIP to operate in Venezuelan territory, intermediating fiat-to-crypto, crypto-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat operations.retrieved M4bindingin force
  2. T1 · SUNACRIPSUNACRIP — Digital mining operators must obtain a license/certificate from SUNACRIP's Intendencia de Minería Digital for the import, export, development and usufruct of mining activity in Venezuelan territory.retrieved M4bindingin force
  3. T3 · CoinDeskCoinDesk — SUNACRIP underwent a restructuring following a March 2023 corruption scandal in which officials embezzled an estimated $17.6 billion (2020-2023) via irregular PDVSA oil sales, which materially disrupted the regulator's normal licensing and supervisory operations.retrieved M4non-binding
  4. T1 · SUNACRIPSUNACRIP — SUNACRIP's official channels (normativa, noticias, registers) show irregular publication activity since 2023, making current currency of any specific licensing decree or register unverifiable without a dated primary-source confirmation.retrieved M3non-bindingour coverage gap, expected to resolve on a re-run

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Venezuela's principal statutorily-defined token was the Petro (PTR), a state-issued, oil-reserve-referenced digital currency launched in 2018 under a Constituent Decree approved by the Asamblea Nacional Constituyente for use in national financial activity. The Petro was discontinued as of January 15, 2024, with the government's Patria Platform displaying a shutdown notice and remaining balances converted to bolívares. No successor statutory taxonomy distinguishing security tokens, e-money tokens, asset-referenced tokens, utility tokens or NFTs has been identified in current force; the 2019 Decree uses the generic umbrella term 'criptoactivos' without granular sub-classification.

Absence reason not determinableNo sub-brief exists and the JID records no gap or review marker explaining why. The renderer will not invent a reason.

no periodic updates on record for this sub-brief

Sources and findings (2)
  1. T3 · CoinDeskCoinDesk — The Petro was a state-backed, oil-reserve-referenced digital currency launched under a 2018 Constituent Decree; Venezuela ended the Petro cryptocurrency on January 15, 2024, more than five years after launch, with remaining balances converted to bolívares.retrieved M3non-binding
  2. T1 · SUNACRIPSUNACRIP — No current in-force statutory taxonomy distinguishing security tokens, e-money tokens, asset-referenced tokens, utility tokens or NFTs beyond the generic 'criptoactivos' umbrella term has been identified for Venezuela.retrieved M2non-bindingour coverage gap, expected to resolve on a re-run

#

Digital mining is the only on-chain activity category with an identified specific regulatory treatment: SUNACRIP's Intendencia de Minería Digital plans, coordinates, promotes and executes digital mining activity, issuing licenses and certificates for importing, exporting, developing and profiting from mining equipment/operations nationally. Historical reporting also describes a mandatory National Digital Mining Pool through which all mining activity had to be channeled, though current operability of that pool post-2023 restructuring is unverified. No specific staking, DeFi lending, DEX, node-operation or validator-specific regime has been identified in force.

Absence reason not determinableNo sub-brief exists and the JID records no gap or review marker explaining why. The renderer will not invent a reason.

no periodic updates on record for this sub-brief

Sources and findings (2)
  1. T1 · SUNACRIPSUNACRIP — Digital mining in Venezuela is regulated by SUNACRIP through its Intendencia de Minería Digital, which grants licenses and certificates governing the import, export, development and exploitation of mining activities nationally.retrieved M4bindingin force
  2. T1 · SUNACRIPSUNACRIP — No specific staking, DeFi lending, DEX or validator-operation regulatory regime has been identified as currently in force for Venezuela.retrieved M2non-bindingour coverage gap, expected to resolve on a re-run

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Venezuela's only stablecoin-adjacent instrument was the Petro, a state-issued token nominally referenced to oil reserves and authorized directly by the executive/ANC rather than through an independent issuance-authorization process resembling e-money/ART frameworks elsewhere. The Petro was discontinued on January 15, 2024. U.S. Executive Order 13827 (March 19, 2018) separately prohibits U.S. persons from any transactions, financing or other dealings in any digital currency, coin or token issued by or for the Government of Venezuela, including the Petro — a prohibition that as a matter of U.S. law remains on the books irrespective of the Petro's domestic discontinuation. No current domestic reserve, redemption or disclosure regime for privately issued stablecoins has been identified.

Standing sub-brief · as of 25 August 2026254 words · last cycle 2026-10-18

Stablecoin Regime

Venezuela has no statutory issuance-authorisation, reserve, or disclosure regime for stablecoins. In the absence of any domestic framework, USDT functions as a de facto parallel settlement and remittance instrument, filling a role that in a regulated market would typically sit within a supervised stablecoin or e-money framework. This gap sits alongside evidence that PDVSA has required USDT for a significant share of oil-revenue settlement since 2023-2024, meaning a foreign-issued, privately-controlled stablecoin has become embedded in a systemically important segment of the Venezuelan economy without any corresponding domestic oversight, reserve requirement, or disclosure obligation attaching to it.

Periodic update · new data 2026-10-11

Stablecoin Regime

Venezuela has no dedicated stablecoin regulatory regime. The jurisdiction's one historical state-backed cryptoasset, the Petro, was discontinued by decree in January 2024, and this is treated as confirmed: any source describing the Petro as currently operative should be read as superseded by that decree. With the Petro's discontinuation, Venezuela has no domestic analog to a fiat-referenced-token or stablecoin-specific licensing framework of the kind now developing in other jurisdictions. Fiat-referenced tokens circulating in the Venezuelan market, principally USDT and USDC, continue to be treated generically as criptoactivos under the broad 2019 Decreto Constituyente sobre el Sistema Integral de Criptoactivos framework, with no distinct prudential, reserve-backing, or redemption-rights regime applied to them specifically.

This absence of a stablecoin-specific regime is itself the material fact in this module, not a gap to be filled by inference. A jurisdiction in Venezuela's position, where formal banking-sector correspondent access has historically been constrained and where dollar-denominated stablecoins function in practice as a parallel store of value and medium of exchange for many users, might be expected to develop stablecoin-specific rules addressing reserve adequacy or redemption rights; no such development was found this cycle. The underlying Petro discontinuation decree itself was not independently retrieved this cycle; the finding rests on a Tier 1 regulator-domain source (SUNACRIP's own site) but at a probable rather than confirmed tier pending direct retrieval of the decree text itself.

The practical consequence for market participants is that stablecoins used in the Venezuelan market carry none of the jurisdiction-specific consumer or prudential protections that a dedicated stablecoin regime would provide; users and counterparties rely entirely on the token issuer's own home-jurisdiction framework, if any, rather than any Venezuelan-specific oversight.

Outlook

No near-term regulatory development specific to stablecoins was identified in sourced material this cycle. The relevant watch item is whether increasing dollar-denominated stablecoin usage in the Venezuelan market, which other monitors this cycle describe as a growing feature of crypto-card and crypto-payments products, eventually prompts a dedicated regulatory response from SUNACRIP or another Venezuelan authority, or whether the generic criptoactivo treatment persists indefinitely.

1 further periodic run re-emitted the standing brief unchanged and is not shown.

Sources and findings (2)
  1. T1 · Banco Central de VenezuelaBanco Central de Venezuela — The Petro was authorized for use in Venezuela's financial activity via a Constituent Decree approved by the Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, establishing the bases for handling digital assets, with the stated purpose of enabling crypto use to overcome the effects of the U.S. financial blockade on the nation.retrieved M3non-binding
  2. T3 · CoinDeskCoinDesk — Venezuela ended the Petro cryptocurrency on January 15, 2024, with remaining Petro balances converted to bolívares, terminating the only domestic stablecoin-type redemption mechanism.retrieved M3non-binding

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The 2019 Decree and SUNACRIP's exchange-licensing framework are stated to exist in part to provide 'the necessary safeguard of user rights' by requiring licensed intermediation of crypto-fiat operations. Beyond this general statement, no specific marketing-restriction, custody-segregation, complaint-handling or suitability regime tailored to crypto consumers has been identified, and the practical enforceability of even the stated safeguard is doubtful given SUNACRIP's post-2023 institutional disruption.

Absence reason not determinableNo sub-brief exists and the JID records no gap or review marker explaining why. The renderer will not invent a reason.

no periodic updates on record for this sub-brief

Sources and findings (1)
  1. T1 · SUNACRIPSUNACRIP — SUNACRIP's exchange licensing regime is described as seeking to provide a regulatory and administrative infrastructure affording 'the necessary safeguard of user rights' for persons using licensed exchange intermediaries.retrieved M3bindingin force

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No crypto-specific capital gains, income tax, VAT/GST, withholding or reporting-obligation rule issued by SENIAT (Venezuela's national tax administration) has been located in this research pass. General tax administration context (SENIAT's role in income tax and VAT enforcement) is documented, but no crypto-specific SENIAT circular, resolution or gazette instrument was found; this module is emitted with an explicit gap rather than a fabricated obligation.

Standing sub-brief · as of 11 October 2026343 words · last cycle 2026-10-18

Tax Treatment

Crypto gains and income in Venezuela continue to be taxed under the general ISLR income-tax regime rather than under any bespoke crypto-specific tax instrument. For the 2026 tax year, gains are to be declared in the ordinary ISLR return due 31 March 2027, with no separate crypto declaration requirement identified. This is the stable baseline against which this cycle's one notable development should be read: the July 2026 appointment of Román Maniglia as head of SENIAT, Venezuela's national tax authority. Maniglia is a crypto-asset specialist and a former member of SUNACRIP's restructuring board, and commentary surrounding the appointment frames it as a signal that Venezuela's tax authority is likely to pay closer attention to crypto-asset activity going forward.

No new data since the standing brief. 1 periodic run re-emitted it unchanged.

Sources and findings (1)
  1. T1 · Banco Central de VenezuelaBanco Central de Venezuela — No crypto-specific income tax, capital gains, VAT/GST or withholding instrument issued by SENIAT has been identified as currently in force for crypto-asset transactions in Venezuela.retrieved M3non-bindingour coverage gap, expected to resolve on a re-run

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Cross-border crypto activity involving Venezuela is dominated by the U.S. sanctions regime rather than by domestic Venezuelan law. U.S. Executive Order 13827 (March 19, 2018) prohibits U.S. persons from any transactions in digital currency, coin or token issued by or for the Government of Venezuela, including the Petro. Following the January 3, 2026 U.S. military capture and transport of former President Nicolás Maduro to the U.S. for prosecution on drug-trafficking and related charges (Operation Absolute Resolve), the sanctions landscape began shifting: OFAC issued General Licenses 60 and 57 in 2026, and on July 27, 2026 FinCEN issued a statement of enforcement policy supporting economic recovery and earthquake-relief efforts in Venezuela, signaling a partial, still-evolving normalization of financial-institution engagement. Venezuela also remains on the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring as of February 13, 2026, reflecting unresolved strategic AML/CFT/proliferation-financing deficiencies with direct bearing on cross-border risk screening.

Standing sub-brief · as of 25 August 2026203 words · last cycle 2026-10-18

Cross-Border Transfer

OFAC General License 57, a Tier-1-sourced and confirmed instrument effective 14 April 2026, authorises US-regulated entities to provide financial services, including digital-payment services, in connection with four named Venezuelan state banks. This is the clearest in-force statutory development in this module this cycle, and it sits within the sanctions-regulation framework at 31 CFR Part 591 rather than within any Venezuela-domestic crypto-specific cross-border rule.

Periodic update · new data 2026-10-11

Cross-Border Transfer

The binding constraint on cross-border crypto transfers involving Venezuela is United States sanctions law, specifically the Venezuela Sanctions Regulations at 31 CFR Part 591, rather than any Venezuelan domestic outbound-restriction or crypto-specific reporting-threshold instrument. No such domestic instrument was identified in sourced material this cycle; Venezuela itself does not appear to impose crypto-specific cross-border reporting thresholds or restrictions distinct from its general capital-controls framework.

This cycle's dominant cross-border development is OFAC General License No. 60, which authorises earthquake-relief-related fund transfers to and from Venezuela, including transfers routed via third-country persons, through 23 October 2026, with a standard financial-institution reliance safe harbour attached. This is confirmed directly from the primary OFAC licence text. The licence is time-bound and humanitarian in framing, distinguishing it from more durable, architecture-level sanctions relief tracked in other modules; its defined expiry date makes the renewal-or-lapse decision the clearest near-term signal for cross-border crypto flows specifically.

The practical effect of this licence is to ease a cross-border constraint that otherwise falls on crypto flows into and out of Venezuela precisely because that constraint originates in US sanctions law applied extraterritorially rather than in Venezuelan domestic policy. This means that Venezuela's own regulatory posture toward outbound or inbound crypto transfers is, in effect, secondary to US sanctions policy as the operative control on cross-border crypto activity involving the jurisdiction. Market participants assessing cross-border crypto risk for Venezuela should therefore track US sanctions licensing developments as the primary variable, rather than looking for a parallel Venezuelan domestic framework that does not appear to exist.

Outlook

The near-term date to watch is the GL 60 expiry on 23 October 2026. A renewal or broadening of the licence would extend the current easing of cross-border crypto flows tied to earthquake relief; a lapse would close that channel on schedule, reverting cross-border crypto flows involving Venezuela to the more restrictive baseline sanctions posture that predates the earthquake-relief licence. No Venezuelan domestic development that would independently alter this picture was identified in sourced material this cycle.

1 earlier distinct update(s)
Periodic update · new data 2026-10-05

Cross-Border Transfer

Venezuela's cross-border crypto transfer regime is, in practice, a foreign sanctions-licensing framework rather than a domestic regulatory one. The operative primary framework is the OFAC Venezuela Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR Part 591, administered through a General Licence series that has been amended repeatedly through September 2026 alone. General Licence 5Z, issued 16 September 2026, delays the effectiveness of General Licence 5 to 5 November 2026. General Licence 52C, dated 14 September 2026 and replacing the prior General Licence 52B, continues to bar payment in digital currency, digital coin or digital tokens issued by, for, or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela, explicitly naming the petro within that prohibition. These amendments were confirmed through a Tier 1 primary OFAC source dated inside this cycle's window, supporting a confirmed-confidence reading of the licence sequence itself.

A separate licence, General Licence 57, dated 14 April 2026, authorised digital-wallet, mobile-money and currency-exchange transactions involving the Banco Central de Venezuela, Banco de Venezuela, Banco del Tesoro and Banco Digital de los Trabajadores. Secondary reporting indicates that Binance has incorporated these institutions as supported peer-to-peer settlement rails for Venezuelan users. This specific banking-rail detail rests on a Tier 4 secondary source this cycle, since the General Licence 57 text itself was not independently retrieved to corroborate it, and is accordingly held at probable rather than confirmed confidence. Taken together, General Licence 57's banking-rail authorisation and the General Licence 5/5Z/52C sequence describe a corridor that is simultaneously being widened, through authorised banking-rail access for P2P settlement, and narrowed, through the standing and unamended petro-denominated settlement bar.

The traffic-light assessment for this module is amber, and the rationale is structural rather than incidental: the operative cross-border framework governing Venezuela's crypto corridor is foreign rather than domestic, administered by OFAC rather than by any Venezuelan authority, and is itself in active flux, having produced three distinct licence amendments inside a roughly six-week window this cycle. A domestic licensing vacuum, discussed elsewhere in this jurisdiction's record, has left this foreign sanctions-licensing architecture as the only functioning governance layer over the corridor. For compliance purposes, this means that cross-border crypto exposure analysis for Venezuela must track OFAC's licence sequence directly rather than relying on any Venezuelan statutory text, since the latter does not currently describe the operative legal reality of the corridor.

The petro's exclusion from General Licence 52C's authorisation is worth isolating as a distinct and stable finding. Where the broader licence sequence has moved repeatedly this cycle, extending effectiveness dates and adjusting contract-signing authority, the prohibition on petro-denominated settlement has not moved at all across any of the amendments retrieved. This stability, against a backdrop of otherwise continuous amendment, marks the petro exclusion as a structural anchor point of the sanctions architecture rather than a transitional feature likely to be relaxed in the near term.

Outlook

The effectiveness date of 5 November 2026, fixed for General Licence 5 by General Licence 5Z, is the principal marker to track: a further delay would extend the current pattern of continuous administrative adjustment, while the licence taking effect as scheduled would mark the first concrete stabilisation point in the sequence retrieved this cycle. Separately, any change to General Licence 52C's petro-exclusion language would be significant precisely because that provision has so far proven the one stable element of an otherwise actively shifting framework. Given the extent to which this corridor's effective governance rests on OFAC rather than Venezuelan domestic law, continued monitoring of OFAC's own general-licence index, rather than Venezuelan regulatory sources, remains the primary mechanism for tracking this module going forward.

1 further periodic run re-emitted the standing brief unchanged and is not shown.

Sources and findings (4)
  1. T2 · FinCEN / U.S. TreasuryFinCEN / U.S. Treasury — U.S. Executive Order 13827, issued March 19, 2018, prohibits a United States person from engaging in any transactions related to, providing financing for, or other dealings in, any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token issued by, for, or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela, including the Petro.retrieved M5bindingin force
  2. T2 · FinCEN / U.S. TreasuryFinCEN / U.S. Treasury — Following the January 3, 2026 capture of former President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces and his transport to the U.S. for prosecution on drug-trafficking and related charges, OFAC issued multiple sanctions-related authorizations in 2026, including General License 60 (GL 60) and General License 57 (GL 57), intended to support economic recovery and earthquake-relief efforts in Venezuela.retrieved M5bindingin force
  3. T1 · CFTCCFTC — The U.S. carried out a military operation ('Operation Absolute Resolve') that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in the early morning hours of January 3, 2026, transporting them to the United States, where both were indicted in the Southern District of New York on drug-trafficking and weapons charges.retrieved M4non-binding
  4. T1 · FATFFATF — Venezuela remains identified by the FATF as a jurisdiction under increased monitoring as of the February 13, 2026 plenary outcomes, reflecting unresolved strategic deficiencies in its AML/CFT/proliferation-financing regime with direct relevance to cross-border transaction risk screening.retrieved M4bindingin force

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Crypto AML/CFT obligations are subscribed from the FIM module and are not produced as baseline claims in this evidence set per module-subscription doctrine. For disambiguation context only: Venezuela's CFATF Mutual Evaluation identifies SUNACRIP as the supervisory authority for the virtual-assets sector for AML/CFT purposes, working alongside SUDEBAN, SUDEASEG, the Central Bank of Venezuela and the UNIF (financial intelligence unit); Venezuela remains on the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring as of February 13, 2026.

Absence reason not determinableNo sub-brief exists and the JID records no gap or review marker explaining why. The renderer will not invent a reason.

no periodic updates on record for this sub-brief

Sources and findings (1)
  1. T2 · CFATFCFATF — AML/CFT content for crypto is out of scope for this baseline and is subscribed from the FIM consumer's aml_ctf module; no claims are produced here.retrieved M1non-bindinga fact about the regime
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tier_a_b_national_primary_pct80.0
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Editorial metadata

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Editorial metadata for Venezuela
FieldValue
trust.lawyer_review.statusnever_reviewed
trust.lawyer_review.reviewerno reviewer on record
trust.content_sourceai_generated

Provenance and declared absence

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Suppressed by doctrine: derived risk score; per-module RAG traffic light; derived_scores = {}.

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Envelope: baseline resolved at jurisdiction_json.baseline; 8 module(s), 17 finding(s), 37 source(s) in the cumulative register.

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