President Maduro’s Venezuela is preparing to effectively adopt next week two official units of account – the nation’s crypto, El Petro, and the new petro-pegged bolivar that will replace the inflated national fiat. New salary and pricing mechanisms will be implemented as well, the country’s leftist leader promised.
Starting from August 20, Venezuela will have two official units of account – the state-issued, oil-backed cryptocurrency, the petro, and the new petro-pegged, denominated bolivar, comments from President Nicolás Maduro confirmed. In a televised address, published also on Twitter, the Venezuelan head of state said: “As of next Monday, Venezuela will have a second unit of account based on the price, the value of the petro. […] it will begin to operate as the mandatory unit of account for our PDVSA oil company.”
As previously revealed, Venezuelan authorities are issuing a new version of the national fiat currency. The “sovereign bolivar” will have five zeros less than the highly depreciated “strong bolivar”, whose inflation may exceed 1 million percent by the end of this year, according to the projections of the IMF. The banknotes of the denominated bolivar are expected to enter circulation within a week. Quoted by ABC Internacional, the president explains that Venezuela will have the “petro” and the “sovereign bolivar” as units of account from August 20, when the monetary conversion will take effect.