In Venezuela's capital city of Caracas, a hungry mob recently broke into a zoo to eat a horse. One cause of the food crisis is government currency controls that make it very expensive to buy goods from other countries. But Venezuelans are bypassing these restrictions using the internet-based currency bitcoin.

And there are similar phenomena in neighboring countries. Bitcoin is catching on especially fast in Latin America because it gives individuals a way around protectionism and other destructive government policies that are common in the region. Here are three ways that bitcoin is promoting economic freedom in Latin America.