Venezuelan Government Opens School to Teach Citizens About Cryptocurrencies

The Venezuelan government has opened a school in the capital city to teach its citizens how to buy, sell, and mine cryptocurrencies, including courses on the nation’s oil-backed currency, the petro. Meanwhile, President Nicolas Maduro has approved resources for universities across the country to establish mining farms.

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Crypto School in Caracas

The Venezuelan government has opened “a training centre to teach its citizens about cryptocurrencies” in its capital city, Caracas, Telesur TV reported on Saturday.

This announcement came shortly after the government announced the launch of its oil-backed currency, the petro. “The cryptocurrency training school offers courses on the petro to Venezuelans for free,” the news outlet added, noting:

At the Granja Laboratorio Petro School in Caracas, Venezuelans can learn how to buy, sell and mine cryptocurrencies and how the cryptoeconomy works.

Carmen Salvador, a Venezuelan teacher of cryptocurrency trading, told Reuters in a video interview Friday that “what we hope to do with this, primarily, is to make knowledge accessible like any new methodology or technology.” The teacher explained that the government is guaranteeing free access for all to participate, noting that these courses often cost most than $500-800 internationally. “Many of our young people here find it impossible to have this amount of resources,” Salvador detailed, emphasizing that “we’ve designed this plan with a completely free training.”

The Minister of Youth and Sports, Pedro Infante, said on the national radio and television network that the mining farm at the school is “made up of several areas such as the Mining Laboratory, where all the necessary equipment is found to mine any type of cryptocurrency on the planet.”

There is a room “created for the study of the trading of cryptocurrencies,” where students will learn about buying, selling, and trading them, as well as how to “diversify the investments that are generated,” he elaborated, emphasizing:

All our technological and computer youth can start a process of training in everything that has to do with the cryptoeconomy, specifically with the petro, the Venezuelan cryptocurrency.

Maduro claimed on Thursday that “his government has raised US$1 billion in the first two days of the petro sale, while its website received almost one million visitors over the same period,” according to Telesur TV. He has also announced the launch of another cryptocurrency backed by gold, called the petro gold. However, some people doubt that Venezuela has raised any money at all from the pre-sale of the petro.

Mining Farms in Universities

Prior to the announcement of the school, Maduro has repeatedly said that he wanted universities across Venezuela to set up mining farms.

The head of state has recently approved resources “for the installation of student mining farms in the country’s universities,” according to the Minister for University Education, Science and Technology, Hugbel Roa. He was quoted saying:

We call on all those technological entrepreneurs that, with the petro, we will finance all these operations in order to grab the necessary technologies and take them to each university and to each school to use mining as a source to break with this rentier model and strengthen the Venezuelan economy.

What do you think of the Venezuelan government opening a school to teach about cryptocurrencies? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the Venezuelan government.

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