Venezuelan President Claimes Oil-Backed Cryptocurrency Will Be On Sale This Month

in news •  6 years ago 

 

This week, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro gave a televised speech to announce the official launch of the “Petro,” which is the first government issued cryptocurrency in the world. Maduro said that the official public sale will start on November 5th,  but that six major exchanges would be listing the Petro this week.  

However, the Petro is still not listed on CoinMarketCap, CryptoCompare,  or any other major exchange. Maduro also revealed the official website for the Petro has already been launched, as well as mobile wallets for the cryptocurrency, which are already available at Google Play

Questions About the Petro

The government of Venezuela insists that the Petro will be backed by  oil, which if true, could prevent the government from excessively  printing money and devaluing the currency, a policy which has caused the  current economic crisis in the country. Petro’s recently released whitepaper specifies  that the currency is backed by reserves of 50% oil, 20% gold, 20%, and  10%. 

Although, it is important to note that the public has lost significant trust in  the Venezuelan government and its central bank as a result of the  hyperinflation crisis, and the sloppy roll-out of the Petro. Initially, Madura promised that the Petro would be ready for full use  by August, which included point of sale payments in grocery stores and  other local merchants. Now, it seems that the Petro is far from ready  for mainstream use in Venezuela. 

Madura says that all oil purchases in and out of the country will be  paid in Petro, which could be where the most popular use case for this  blockchain. Venezuela is one of the world’s top exporters of oil, so if  they were able to require foreign buyers to trade with them in Petro, it  could turn this crypto into a valuable asset. 

However, the Petro is not expected to be welcomed by most  Venezuelans, who are already becoming more comfortable with using  decentralized alternatives, such as bitcoin, monero, bitcoin cash and  dash. Last month, Business Insider reported that dash is especially popular for point of sale transactions in the country. Dash Core's CEO, Ryan Taylor, told Cointelegraph that areas dealing with economic turmoil can gain the most benefit from crypto. Taylor said: 

We’ve found that regions of high inflation rates and industries in  which cash handling or credit card chargeback rates are high have been  most excited to adopt the technology. For us, we focus on those segments  in which cryptocurrency can offer the most benefit, and that’s one of  the reasons growth in acceptance is so high.   

Ironically enough, Ethereum developer Joey Zhou pointed out that this  week that the whitepaper for the Petro seems in fact to be a “blatant  Dash clone.”  

https://twitter.com/josephzhou/status/1047222363425787904

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  ·  6 years ago Reveal Comment

You got a 68.37% upvote from @sleeplesswhale courtesy of @stimialiti!

The Petro is even more scammy than bitconnect... I mean, nothing that comes from those communist could ever be transparent or useful, on the contrary is usually link to very dark purposes as we all know.
It's hard to trust a crypto backed on our Oil when most of our Oil industry is completely paralized, refineries are not working, extraction is barely happening and the National Oil company is officially broke.
I live in the state where most of the Oil comes from, my family worked for the Oil Industry for decades.. and if we compare the current stage of the industry with how it used to be... oh man, it's just ridiculous how far they have taken corruption.
Anyways, as I always say... never trust that crypto, never, It will never moon and is not even decentralized. It's purpose is definitely not to save Venezuela's economy but to finance they're oligarchy and terror.
Greetings from Venezuela! :D and thanks for sharing this!

Why didn't he call it the Maduro :):):):)

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Its an interesting idea and topic in general. I read somewhere that Giddafi, the Lybian leader pre-2011 wanted to relinquish the U.S. control over the country by creating a new currency backed by gold (or maybe it was oil). Shortly afterwards the country went into revolution and he was killed. If it's true, I think its kind of interesting. Take that info with a grain of salt though as i do not know how accurate it is.

Regardless, it seems that the introduction of crypto-currencies in the world has definitely changed how countries and society view money.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 they cloned dash to make the petro that is fucking classic!

We are a non-profit organization that helps many people in difficult situations. We provide food, medicines to help they get ahead. We want to get our message across to many people and we hope you can visit our report here

gracias