Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has said the pre-sale of the country's proposed cryptocurrency – the "petro" – will launch next month.
Signing the petro white paper on Tuesday, Maduro stated that the initial sale of the token will commence on Feb. 20th. President Maduro also revealed that plans are being drawn up to use the petro – which is backed by commodity reserves, including oil – with a national ID card possessed by millions of Venezuelans, a Bloomberg report states.
Maduro further announced that mining centers are being setup at educational institutions to produce the token. This apprently has been revised from an initial draft proposal that the petro was supposed to be pre-mined before launch.
Maduro stated on state TV, according to Bloomberg:
https://www.coindesk.com/venezuelas-president-announces-petro-token-pre-sale/