Venezuela Found Foreign Investors for Petro Cryptocurrency Pre-Sale Starting This Month

Venezuela says it has found a number of foreign investors for the pre-sale of its “oil-backed” national cryptocurrency, the petro. Starting this month, Venezuela is expected to pay companies from Brazil, Poland, Denmark, Honduras, Norway, Vietnam, and other nations for food and medicine imports with the petro.

Also read: Japan’s DMM Bitcoin Exchange Opens for Business With 7 Cryptocurrencies

Prepping for Petro Pre-Sale

Venezuela is preparing for the sale of its “oil-backed” cryptocurrency, the petro. A total of 100 million coins will be issued in total, 82.4 million of which will be offered to the market in two stages: a private pre-sale and an initial coin offering (ICO).

The pre-sale starts on February 20 at 8:30 am Venezuela time (-04:00 UTC), where 38.4 million petro ERC-20 tokens will be placed for sale. The petro whitepaper explains:

During the process, degressive discounts will be applied to stimulate early investment.

Pre-sale tokens “will not be part of the Petro network until it is redeemed or ‘burned’ during the initial offer process,” which starts on March 20. They “may be exchanged for petro [coins] at any time between the launch date and the closing of the initial offer,” the whitepaper clarifies. The petro will be divisible by 100,000,000 units. For the ICO, 44 million coins will be available.

The Superintendency of Cryptocurrencies, headed by Carlos Vargas, and the Blockchain Observatory will oversee the function of the petro.

Venezuela Found Some Early Investors

The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Trade, José Vielma Mora, announced on Tuesday that Venezuela will pay for imports to Brazil using the petro cryptocurrency. The Venezuelan Ministry of Popular Power for Communication and Information announced:

A group of Brazilian companies have agreed to receive payment for the sale of food to Venezuela, through petro, starting on February 20, when the pre-sale of the cryptocurrency [begins].

Telesur TV quoted Mora describing a “group of Brazilian business people who wished to invest US$300 million in Venezuela,” starting with $100 million. The minister further noted, “Poland, Denmark, Honduras, Norway, Vietnam among others also expressed interest in exporting goods to Venezuela like food and medicine for a total amount of $435 million, while receiving payment in Venezuela’s new cryptocurrency.”

In addition to other Asian nations, Mora added that a Canadian trade chamber also plans to trade with Venezuela and accepting the petro in exchange for “pharmaceuticals for humans and animals,” the news outlet conveyed.

Do you think these companies are wise to accept the petro? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the Venezuelan government.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.