Venezuela Tries To Pay Russian Debt With Cryptocurrency

in venezuela •  7 years ago 

Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source


The Petro was a fine idea, at least in the mind of Nicolas Maduro. Creating a currency is relatively easy. It is the getting others to accept it that becomes difficult.

The Venezuelan leader created the cryptocurrency in hopes of getting around United States led sanctions. Russia was reported to helped in this endeavor. The belief in the Petro evidently stopped when Venezuela offered to pay down Russian debt in the new currency.

Russia said "Nyet".

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

If crisis-hit Venezuela was hoping to pay off its US$3.15-billion debt to Russia with its new cryptocurrency, those hopes have been shattered as the Russian Finance Ministry announces that it won't be accepting digital coin.

Venezuela will not be paying any part of its debt to Russia with its cryptocurrency, the head of the Russian Finance Ministry's state debt department, Konstantin Vyshkovsky, has said.

In November last year, Russia threw a life-line to Venezuela after the two countries signed a deal to restructure US$3.15 billion worth of Venezuelan debt owed to Moscow. Under the terms of the deal, Venezuela will be repaying the debt over the next ten years, of which the first six years include "minimal payments".

The following month, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that his country would be issuing an oil-backed cryptocurrency, which it did, in February this year.

Maduro's propaganda machine is touting the digital coin as a 'ground-breaking' first-ever national crypto currency, the El Petro--backed by 5 billion barrels of oil reserves in Venezuela's Orinoco Belt.

But most observers see this crypto issuance as a desperate attempt to skirt U.S. financial sanctions.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump banned U.S. purchases, transactions, and dealings of any digital coin or token issued for or by the government of Venezuela.

Last week, Time magazine reported that Russia secretly helped Venezuela in creating the Petro, with the purpose of undermining the power of U.S. sanctions, the magazine reported, citing sources familiar with the effort.

Russia slammed the Time report as "fake news", with Deputy Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Artyom Kozhin, saying that Russia and Venezuela had never worked together on the development of the Venezuelan cryptocurrency.

Russia and China are the last holdouts that still finance Venezuela, which is digging deeper into the downward spiral of economic crisis, hyperinflation, and crumbling oil production. However, **China is reportedly thinking of cutting off Venezuela from new loans. **This would leave Russia as the only financial supporter of the Maduro regime, and if all it's got is a crypto coin that no one really believes in to pay off debt, loans are likely to be plentiful.

Non-adapated content found at zerohedge.com: Source


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Even I knew that Russia frowns upon cryptocurrency the majority of the time, what bonehead offered the El Petro to pay down Russian debt? lol moron

Lol. Venezuela should just offer plain old oil. To them though the Petro reptesents oil. The problem is the Parliament never signed off on this crypto currency so it it questionable if it'd value will ever be respected by future Venezuela Governments.

Interesting. Guess they're gonna have to cash out into fiat, crashing the price of their coin, in order to pay Russia.

United States President, Donald Trump issued a ban on Petro's purchase in the US, petro is a cryptocurrency that will be launched by the Venezuelan government

Trump forbids US citizens from buying the cryptocurrency from Venezuela, this ban as part of the movement to pressure the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Trump thinks Maduro is trying to use Petro to avoid sanctioning US debt against Venezuela

How about this news ?

Not sure why they tried to be honest. Russia isn't that stupid to accept something that has a question over its value. I guess the Venezuelans are desperate (I feel for their people, but not their government officials who have ruined them).

I think Russia will probably only accept USD, Rubles, Gold, land or oil to extinguish that debt.

good info))))

Please, upvote back me, please mister

yesterday the maduro president is speaking again of the petro in national chain .. and with his empeno to make of the petro the new local currency replacing the bolivar by petro .. but the majority of the Venezuelan does not want this idea of maduro .. another one of the ideas that occurred to nicolas maduro is to eliminate 3 zero to the new bills that are circulating, he wants to do the same thing that ex-president hugo chavez did, not to mention high amounts since the super inflation is difficult to stop ..

I reference the problem with Venezuela in my article, "Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash". Believe it or not, Bitcoin was created to protect against this type of government corruption:
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@workin2005/bitcoin-btc-vs-bitcoin-cash-bch-the-great-block-size-debate

I really liked your post, I would like to count on your support since I am new and having your support would be of great help to keep growing on this platform, I am also from Venezuela

Hi, I am from Venezuela, and here the super inflation is ending everything, there is no medicine, there is no education, there is no food, there is no work ... only corruption. the president paints very nice things but the reality is different, we work miracles so that money gives us everything, crime is unleashed, ... horrible! WE ARE IN DICTATORSHIP. The petro is another lure to divert what is really happening. miren este link
https://steemit.com/politics/@angela29/pobreza-en-venezuela-poverty-in-venezuela