From bolibourgeoisie to cryptocrats: how the crisis and sanctions reshaped Venezuela’s ruling elite into a new oligarchy

This article examines whether Venezuela’s prolonged ongoing crisis, intensified by international sanctions, is fostering the emergence of a new oligarchy. Extending theories on the relationship between the modern state and oligarchic cohesion, it proposes a three variable framework to understand the drivers of oligarchic change in Venezuela: (1) a regression of the functional differentiation of the state; (2) a shift in the sources of wealth from oil rent to illicit commodities and cryptocurrency based finance; and (3) the evolution of an authoritarian regime blurring public private boundaries. Sanctions have accelerated the transformation by forcing economic liberalisation, reallocating scarce dollars and licences to loyal actors, and spurring diversification into illicit and crypto channels, supplying resources for patronage networks. Empirical evidence from secondary sources, legal proceedings, and interviews identifies four emergent clusters of elites – sanction evaders, military millionaires, new ‘kings of commerce’, and ‘cryptocrats’. These groups depend on regime granted privileges, creating a feedback loop that ehes authoritarian capitalism and deepens patrimonialism. The analysis therefore highlights that sanctions are not merely a tool of economic pressure; they can act as a catalyst for re‑configuration of elite relations, towards an oligarchic formation that fuses state power, illicit enterprise and digital finance.