According to recent news Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro says the launch of his country’s oil-backed answer to Bitcoin, Petro, raised $735 million in its first day.
This is impressive given the fact that the U.S. Treasury Department has been feverishly warning investors not to invest in it.
A tweet went out late Tuesday in which the Venezuelan leader said that investors had pledged 4.8 billion yuan, or $735 million in a pre-sale of Petro.
For people who have never heard of Petro, essentially it is the new cryptocurrency backed by the Venezuelan government that Maduro intends to boost Venezuela’s ailing economy with.
Countries including the U.S. have imposed sanctions on Venezuela, with the U.S., at least, dubbing Maduro a “dictator.” That comes as the Venezuelan bolívar fuerte has been in free fall partly due to excessive printing of money, while the country still owes its creditors some $141 billion.
This is a very genius way to boost a failing economy! If it works, expect other countries with financial difficulties to follow suit!
“Available information indicates that, once issued, the Petro digital currency would appear to be an extension of credit to the Venezuelan government,” the Treasury department recently disclosed to Reuters.
If Maduro’s plan works this fund will net a lot more money than the initial $735 million raise. According to Maduro, he has said that a total of 100 million Petros will be put on offer at a starting price of $60 each—roughly which also happens to be the price of a barrel of oil. This adds up to a total of about $6 billion. At the current time, 824 million tokens have been made available.
In addition to the sale of the Petro, Maduro also plans to launch a cryptocurrency backed by gold next week, Reuters reports.
This is a very exciting time to be involved in the cryptospace! I can't believe this is actually happening and in fact it is certainly going to put other governments on notice. This is a train and you either get on it or you get left behind!
What do you guys think about this new Petro token? Will this be the solution in solving the economic woes of Venezuela?
Please leave your thoughts below.
Thanks for reading @Techblogger!
Source:
Venezuela President Claims His Country's Answer to Bitcoin, Petro, Raises $735 Million - Fortune
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Fortune
in my opinion what they want is to use this currency to launder money from drug trafficking, absolutely nothing that this government has done to work, because instead of launching an electronic currency, it does not dollarize the country, which already lives depending on what that is worth the parallel dollar, which is controlled by themselves, that part this electronic currency is very expensive because the salary of Venezuelans, is totally su-real to what really costs the economy of the country, for me it is a large-scale fraud, but nevertheless for other countries in the world it seems a pretty juicy business opportunity for us Venezuelans who live on a daily basis to eat we see it as a mockery for all Venezuelans that we have to deal with here. survive
This is sad to hear. From a normal citizens perspective I guess you speak on behalf of the people. This isnt the solution to the economic problems of the country's citizens but rather a government cash grab. Not surprising in the least. Hang in there buddy!
Yes friend, very sad , I've seen people who literally went crazy with hunger, acquaintances who eat from the garbage, and unfortunately, I do not have the opportunity to help them, because although I have more possibilities than them, I do not have a job and my wife neither, our means of income is steemit, thank God we got it, because if not a day like yesterday, I would have had to leave my family and emigrate to look for a better future for my daughters, this situation is totally frustrating and outrageous, And thanks for your words. I only ask you to carry this voice throughout the world, not to support this currency, is to support a regime of asecinos and narcos.
Berita yang sangat mengesankan..
This looks exciting , Real asset backed by cryptos . Cryptos are truly on the way to become digital gold . They are also releasing cryptos backed by gold after petro .
Its a crypto security! One of the first ever created and the first to ever be backed by a national government! I think its an exciting time to be involved in the cryptospace indeed.
nice post
Buen tema soy venezolano pero, como ayudaría a mi país cuando todos pasan hambre. Nuestra economía no es muy sólida. Tenemos riqueza naturales pero la corrupción es muy grande y disculpa por mi comentario. Hoy en día solo pensamos en salir del país y soñar con un mundo mejor.
IMHO the only way of solving the economic woes of Venezuela is creating incentives to foreign and local investment, clear rules, reducing violence, investing in infrastructure and producing more goods and services a well as cutting excess expenses like vote-seeking concerts and giving away money for votes, or buying food from other countries that used to be produced in Venezuela but that can no longer be produced there because of an unrealistic price control and an iron fist clenched around the free exchange of currency. That does without mentioning rampant corruption.
These are all valid points. The real story is much more complex and very few care to look into the problems deep enough to gain a true understanding of them in the first place.
As long as they can't create as many tokens as they want, I'm all for it. But if they can just control the supply like they did with excessive printing of money, history will just repeat itself a few years down the road.
Hopefully the supply is capped and the value fluctuates based on oil prices and supply. If someone could clarify this I would greatly appreciate it!
@Chiren
@DUnite Community Leader
Fair points. We will see how this project develops!
"Venezuela has a history of setting official bolivar exchange rates that are far out of line from the bolivar's market value. If the Venezuelan government wants to devalue the petro, it can use an inflated value for the bolivar—something it already does in other contexts. Hence, there's no reason to think the petros will remain linked to a barrel of oil in international markets." Source
Its a great post and great news. There's alot of resistance from the opposition party though, who believe it is basically staking/ selling their national oil resource.
If this really work every country with financial crisis will surely embark on it
If Petro were to fail, however, it would certainly be a big blow to the cryptospace.
If anything this move resembles something out of the dot.com bubble; I'm actually slightly troubled by news like this, along with news like KODAK adopting crypto and shares soaring.
Thank you for the information though!
Got me scared here now! Didn't really think into it that much but like you said it is a bit worrying when you put it in that light.
yes, but who will invest in the petro? one glance at reddit it's all horrible press. Sad days continue for the Venezuelan population :(
Where do you think the price of a barrel will be in 5 years?
It’s a little risky but still a good investment longterm
your post is very interesting. I hope you post the news again.
Dude, I am venezuelan, anything our government does is probably a scam or a way to deceive people.
This crypto will be used for their illegal money so they can hide it in the crypto world somehow. They are a criminal organization that managed to kidnap a whole country. I won't recommend at all investing in any of their crypto.
Besides, they say the petro will be backed by our natural resources, which is absurd because crypto don't need to be backed up by any of that. Our fiat currency is supposedly to be backed by those things as well, and yet we have the highest inflation in the world.