The digital bolívar

Which decree created the digital bolívar

The executive decreed the Nueva Expresión Monetaria in Decree 4.553, published in Official Gazette 42.185 on 6 August 2021. Ten days later the central bank's board set out the working rules in Resolution 21-08-01, citing article 318 of the constitution and the central bank law. The new scale took effect on 1 October 2021. Banks froze operations for several hours between the Thursday and the Friday to make the switch.

Three zeros had gone in January 2008 and five in 2018, so this was the third cut since 2008, and in a statement the bank said that removing six more did not change what the currency was worth and served only to make it easier to use.

How prices moved to the new scale

Resolution 21-08-01 told everyone to divide by 1,000,000 and round once to two decimals. A third decimal below five is dropped; five or above raises the second decimal by one. Fuel, domestic gas, water, electricity and telephone bills, metro fares, bank balances, shares and exchange rates were divided without that rounding and kept at least two decimals. Wages and pensions owed on 30 September 2021 were converted the next day under a separate rule, which raised the second decimal whenever any remainder was left. A price printed on a product in the old unit was read as divided by a million.

Shops had to show prices on both scales from 1 September 2021. Some showed three, adding US dollars. The central bank ended the obligation with Resolution 22-04-01 of 27 April 2022.

When the sovereign notes stopped counting

After October 2021 sovereign notes of 10,000 bolívares and above kept circulating as legal tender, at a million to one, until the bank chose to demonetise them; smaller notes and all the old coins could only be paid into a bank account, and nobody was obliged to accept them in payment.

Resolution 24-08-01 of 29 August 2024 ended that arrangement. The notes of 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 and 200,000 lost legal tender on 25 September 2024, and banks took them as deposits until 15:00 on 30 September. The civil association Acceso a la Justicia pointed out that Official Gazette 42.952, which carried the resolution, could not be found on the national printing office's site. Its text reached the public through social media and the press.

Which notes and coins reached circulation

Coins of 25 and 50 céntimos and 1 bolívar came out on 1 October 2021. The 2021 notes run from 5 to 100 bolívares and share their motifs in different colours; the 5 shows Simón Bolívar on the front and the monument on the Carabobo battlefield on the back. Central bank data show that only the 5 and the 10 circulated at first. The 20 followed in March 2022. The 50 and 100 came in May 2022, and the 200 and 500, each carrying three portraits of Bolívar, joined them on 16 August 2024.

Why the name says digital

The notes are paper and the coins are metal, a point the Financial Times made on launch day. The word belongs to the 2021 reform. When the bank announced the change in August 2021, officials promised to keep modernising electronic payments so that transfers between customers of different banks would arrive within seconds.

Acceso a la Justicia reads the labels fuerte, soberano and digital as temporary: once each changeover settled, it writes, the national currency should have gone back to being called the bolívar.

Where VED sits beside VES

ISO 4217 lists VED, numeric 926, with two decimal places, under the name Bolívar Soberano, the name it also gives VES. Wikipedia attaches VED to the digital bolívar and VES to the sovereign bolívar of 2018. The record for Venezuela carries both codes.