You either love or hate cryptocurrencies ; but none have drawn quite as controversy as El Patro, an oil- backed cryptocurrency that was designed by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro back in December. This coin has faced its fair share of criticism right from the start and was even declared illegal by its own government. However; this has not stopped Maduro. In early 2018, Maduro recruited over 800,000 young citizens to mine the cryptocurrency, saying; “We are going to call them a special cryptocurrency team...They will set up cryptocurrency mining farms in all states and municipalities of the country.”The presale is set to launch today, and he has already approached the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), who are comprised of some of the world’s top oil producers, and naturally have a large say in what happens in the global oil market. It has faced world wide criticism though, with the biggest coming from China, who have launched yuan-priced oil futures, and are trying to persuade the top producers to trade crude in its national currency. It is not the first time that an oil backed cryptocurrency has been suggested; Kuwaiti officials suggested a platform to trade oil in Bitcoin in 2014; however this failed to materialise. This could be because of the politics that surrounds oil production; however with increasingly ambitious blockchain technology, an OPEC back coin could happen sooner than we think. Commodity backed coins have hit the market, but many fail to really take of the ground, or are shut down completely. This is an emerging market though, and one that many opportunistic players are trying to get involved in, yet few have succeeded. And experts have predicted that things are likely to get worse before they get better.