There are some advantages to Bitcoin in that they could 'carry' it over a border while having no security fears like any normal valuable would have. That is useful but I still see the greatest purpose for Bitcoin to be in transaction not being saved for a longer period of time exactly
When Chavez was the president of Venezuela, they were actually doing quite well.
Any conclusion of this type over time, also needs consideration over the graph of the oil price. If oil were $150 or even just 100 Venezuela might have continued on a bit longer but this is partially a curse of every oil rich country that its possible to make the mistake of neglecting efficiency and ability to self sustain without the oil bonus.
Norway has done the smart thing, maybe other countries. Its accepted the oil wealth not as not a solution by itself to fund budgets but a credit to be stored for investment because it does not help the countrys economy over the long term. The oil price right now is actually pretty low, because inflation makes dollar worth less every year especially to any regime not directly connected to the printing presses of the Federal reserve. Obviously Venezuela failed on the other side which is to deal with costs of production which is not perfect for them requiring refinement.
Competition and allowing private losses and gains to be made would have made a difference, government never does a job with as much innovation and dedication as personal investment manages to achieve. I dont want to think about how evil this regime is, there is more like them. I just would like to hear it said that big government is dangerous and fails horribly, its totally possible in the '1st world' countries also imo
PDVSA was run nearly into bankruptcy due to the abuse politicians did to it. Before Chávez, it only dedicated itself to the oil industry (sounds logical no?) but when Chávez took control of it (after the failed coup in 2002~2003) it was forced to do the things normally done by the State, and not an oil industry. In fact it was required to hand over the entire income to the central bank, where the politicians would decide what to do, before they decide to give something back to the industry.
Normally you would let the company work alone to sustain itself and then tax it, but the politicians got greedy and saw it as an infinite source of money (to buy votes with populism). PDVSA was actually quite profitable until this occurred. I clearly remember the company could easily sustain itself with oil price as low as 7 USD. But can you guess who takes pays the subsidy for the "free" gasoline Venezuelans get? Yup, PDVSA. And this is what happens when you let socialists run a company... They will ruin it, no matter what.
There was a law in place that didn't allow the gov to touch the income above a threshold, 40 USD a barrel or something, it should have gone entirely to international reserves to strengthen the local fiat, but Chávez didn't like that and changed the law to spend it all. The other oil rich countries used the extra to either build their reserve (savings) or diversify their economy. We did neither...