The Petro - White Paper / Venezuela Cryptocurren

The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has recently announced the creation of a national cryptocurrency backed by the nation’s oil, gold, gas, and diamond reserves, called the Petro.

Yesterday, January 30 2018, the white paper of the Venezuelan cryptocurrency is officially announced and the first phase of the pre-sale of public offer and private offer for sale is indicated on February 20 of this year.

Remenber that according to President Maduro, the creation of the Petro is intended to combat what he describes as a financial “blockade” against his nation, inflicted by U.S. sanctions.

The Petro was launched on december and be backed by 5.3 billion barrels of oil worth $267 billion, gold, gas and diamonds, the government will issue 100 million tokens, each valued at - and backed by - the equivalent of one barrel of Venezuelan crude.

The Superintendent of Cryptocurrencies and Related Activities, Carlos Vargas, announced that “the petro will not be minable but [will be] pre-mined, that is, the complete emission will be under the control of the country. In addition, it will be assigned with a procedure similar to that of an auction” However, the most widely known platform often used to create tokens marketed worldwide is the Ethereum ERC20 protocol, which requires the coins be pre-mined.Venezuela and citizens have comparative advantages "because we have the cheapest electricity in the world. To manufacture from the point of view of mining a Bitcoin in China costs $ 1560, in Venezuela it costs from $ 100 to $ 120 "

Reuters reports that Venezuela’s government has agreed to accept both hard currencies and cryptocurrencies during the presale. However, its own fiat currency, the bolivar, will not be accepted.

Once the pre-sale is over, an additional 44 million petro will be made available to the general public. Vargas further added that the government will start accepting bolivar in exchange for petro shortly after the presale is over. It remains interesting to see how these moves play out for the country’s fiat which went through a rather tough period last year after falling over 3,400 percent compared to the dollar.