Its the same as the effects of foreign aid policy, that is largely a resource passed from one government onto the largest entities in a country. The most needy can miss the aid due to logistics problems especially where society and commerce has broken down. The sanctions wont be as much a problem for high level government officials, they have the apparatus and means to get what they need via a variety of routes. The most effected will be the powerless who cannot even transport or trade properly, they are the most effected as end users by the sanctions.
So sure I believe both those statements could be true simultaneously.
Here is a video on a possible Swedish Krona related national crypto currency
E-Crown. Apparently almost all transactions in the country are already done in a cashless way -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE-Oe4HGxzoVenezuela has a pretty good welfare, so the sanctions have an impact on the working class but also on the whole economy (including middle-upper classes, that you can read here how hysterical they are). Trump's sanctions have frozen Venezuelan State bank accounts in the US (and also CITGO revenues, a huge Venezuelan company in the US) and they are basically blocked from doing SWIFT transactions, a system controlled by the US.
Therefore they have a hard time paying public debts deadlines and not because they don't have money. That had also a huge impact in oil production, that requires continuous cash flow and investments. They have solutions, like triangulations through various countries, but it's complicated, slow and expensive. Crypto comes in handy = Petro.
Venezuelans are also pushing digital transactions for payments already. That's because gangs practice another criminal activity called "currency extraction", which works in association with hyper inflation: it means destroying or bringing cash outside of the border, making it very hard to get cash. So people have money in their bank accounts but cannot withdraw enough (so they become hysterical too and blame the government etc!).
In short: the government is not responsible for all the problems. Actually the government is much more responsible for making the problems less dramatic than they could be, by pushing digital payments as much as possible, keeping social investments, public healthcare, education, housing in place and working. Etc...