Just days after the Venezuelan Parliament declares the oil-backed cryptocurrency Petro illegal, President, Nicolas Maduro, called for 10 other countries to adopt it. The introduction of Petro by Maduro has been his attempt to combat the US led sanctions.


Maduro’s Petro proposal for the countries of the Alba

A day after Venezuela Parliament’s decision to consider Petro null and void, President Nicolas Maduro announced his plans to pre-mine the petro and launch it in 6 weeks.

Carlos Vargas announced on a television broadcast:

“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.”

Recently, Maduro held a meeting of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Treaty of Commerce of the People (Alba – TCP) which consisted of 10 countries. The member countries of Alba are Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, and Venezuela. Here, he asked these countries to come together for the creation of petro.

Madura has been quoted as saying:


“I put on the table, brother governments of the ALBA, the proposal of the cryptocurrency, the petro, so that we assume it as one of the projects of the integration of the 21st century in a bold way, but also in a creative way.”

The opposition parties and the parliament of Venezuela consider it an unwise move. So, it would be interesting to see how petro, the new cryptocurrency gets Venezuela out of its economic crisis.

Oil-backed cryptocurrency: How did it all start?

There has been a lot of commercial and financial trading ban along with a methodical attack on PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela/Petroleum of Venezuela). These US-led blockage on Venezuela’s petroleum industry made its president look to the world of digital currency. The aim was to combat the financial crisis and shore up a collapsed economy.

Amid the economic crisis and plummeted value of the bolivar, the national currency, in a televised address, on Dec 2017, the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, announced the creation of Petro, a cryptocurrency backed by Venezuela’s reserves of 5 billion barrels of crude oil, gasoline, gold, and diamonds. But no timeline for the launch was released.

In order to overcome the economic sanctions led by the US, the President also announced the creation of an agency to supervise the trading of the Petro.

In his speech, the leader announced:

“I announce the creation of the Superintendence of the Venezuelan Cryptocurrency and its relationship with the world, I create a special superintendence to govern the direction of Petro from Venezuela and the world.”

Just days in the new year, the Venezuelan National Assembly declared the national cryptocurrency illegal and in violation of country’s constitution.

According to a media source, the Deputy Carlos Valero was quoted as saying:

“This Assembly tells the world that the cryptocurrency the government wants to issue is illegal, and this parliament will come out in front to prevent public opinion [from] falling into that trap.”

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