Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela recently announced plans to revive the crypto efforts by the country sharing that the country needs to retake the crypto path.
This comes after a failed attempt in 2017 at the launch of "petro" a state-backed crypto, which was intended to help the country's economic challenges and overcome the United States sanctions.
Specific plans weren't provided by the president on how the country would revive its crypto plans but his statement suggests a renewed focus on the technology of blockchain and digital assets as a means to maintain monetary sovereignty and explore new approaches for international financing.
The international community and cryptocurrency experts were skeptical of the petro, which was supposed to be backed by Venezuela's reserves of oil, gold, gas, and diamond. Some concerns that were raised included central control reversibility, lack of privacy, and the closed-source nature of the project.
Irrespective of the challenges faced by Petro, the latest proposal by Maduro shows that the country remains interested in leveraging crypto to reduce the country's economic challenges which have been aggravated by hyperinflation, shortages of essential goods and Sanctions from the United States.
As the country explores its options, it remains to be seen what response will Venezuelan renewed efforts to embrace digital assets get from the international community and crypto experts.
Future cryptocurrency projects' chances of success will probably depend on how well the issues from the Petro project are resolved and how transparent and decentralized the development and implementation of the process is made.
