Runescape, dragon bones, and Venezuela

Runescape, a massively popular multi-player online game launched in 2001, was a highlight of my youth. 

So it came as a kind of surprise when I came across an article describing how Venezuelans were playing Runescape to mine digital gold pieces (GP) in the game to  covert them into Bitcoin for a profit. Due to the instability of the Venezuelan economy, these gold miners were apparently making over five times the minimum wage in Venezuela.