Venezuela’s controversial oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro, is garnering even greater criticism than usual due to it being a blatant copy of Dash, with similarities including its mining algorithm, features, and whitepaper.

The blatant similarities were first pointed out on Twitter by Joey Zhou, an Ethereum core developer, who explained that in addition to multiple similarities, an image on the 11th page of the Petro’s whitepaper was directly copied from Dash’s Github repository.

In addition to stealing images from Dash’s whitepaper, it becomes increasingly apparent the Venezuelan government didn’t stop there, touting an instant send feature that is nearly identical to that of Dash.

“One of the most important characteristics of the Petro, is the instantaneous sending (less than 5 seconds) of the transactions, which represents an innovative advance with a significant impact compared to existing cryptocurrencies. This feature is activated by default and will work from the first transaction, adding the address to a blank list,” the whitepaper reads.

The similarities become even more striking when considering that the Petro, just like Dash, will use a unique Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake hybrid that heavily utilizes masternodes to support transactions on the network. This hybrid blend of PoS and PoW and heavy reliance on masternodes is something that, until the Petro came about, was unique to Dash.

Dash is More Popular in Venezuela than the Petro

Despite the Petro being a legally recognized currency in Venezuela, the country’s citizens are increasingly turning to Dash, over the Petro, in order to protect their money and to conduct efficient transactions with businesses and services.

Ryan Taylor, the CEO of the Dash Core Group, recently spoke to Business Insider about the popularity of Dash in the economically tumultuous country, saying:

"We are seeing tens of thousands of wallet downloads from the country each month. Earlier this year, Venezuela became our No. 2 market, even ahead of China and Russia, which are, of course, huge into cryptocurrency right now."

Bitcoin is also becoming a popular cryptocurrency in the country, with Bitcoin/Bolivar buying volume reaching record highs in the past couple weeks.

The popularity of Bitcoin and Dash in Venezuela comes as the country has witnessed unprecedented levels of hyper-inflation, resulting from an unorganized and politically messy switch to socialism.

The government has clearly placed high hopes in the Petro being the solution to the country’s economic problems, but Venezuelans are understandably hesitant to use it due to its direct ties to the very government that has caused their fiscal problems.