The announcement of the crypto currency Petro by President Nicolás Maduro was accompanied by the creation of the blockchain observatory of Venezuela, an institution attached to the Ministry of Science and Technology, formed by a multidisciplinary technical team (technology, economy, legal, monetary and media area) witch is the one in charge of carrying out the project. Until then, all that was known was that it was going to be backed by natural resources, then the president established each petro as the equivalent of one barrel of oil.
Some people say that it's a hidden dollarization of the economy, others that is unconstitutional and at the other end it is believed that it will remedy all the problems of Venezuela as if it were a magic wand.
I support the use of digital technologies and the internet because of the advantages they have, and the decision that in addition to issuing the currency is with cryptographic technology is appropriate.
I, as a Venezuelan citizen, of the lower class, believe that it will serve to attract some foreign currency, it will help to establish international trade relations that are more difficult for the US to block, but if it is not accompanied by other measures, especially at the domestic level, it will not improve the living conditions of ordinary citizens, even depending on how it's used it could make them worse.
At the technical level, very little information has been given, it is not known what algorithm will be used, in what cryptocurrency will petro be based, size of the blocks, commissions, etc. But it has been suggested that it will be a minable currency, associated with the term "democratize".
Incompatibilities of petro with mining:
backed by tangible goods: the first one I mention and the one I suppose is enough to rule out mining is the fact that it is backed by oil, if a petro can be exchanged for a barrel of oil, it is the Venezuelan government as administrator of that resource that should keep for itself the generation of 100% of the petros, without the need to pay any third party for it. That anyobody in the world can generate it with his/her computer is equivalent to me having the ability to write down in a paper that I own any amount of raw material in the world I want, those goverments should recognize that document that I made and consequently give me in exchange what I awarded myself.
legal: In Venezuela until recently mining was illegal, the main reason is the high energy consumption that it has, and we must take into account that in Venezuela it is subsidized, but it is certainly not the only reason since is prohibited to sell both mining equipment and cryptocurrencies. The announcement of the petro brought with it an immediate change of paradigm, is "legalized" now, the goverment is asking citizens who have mining equipment to register into the observatory, and it was also announced that many young people will mine the petro through the government plan "Chamba Juvenil" ("chamba" is a coloquial way to say "job"). Supposedly it'll be possible to mine other cryptocurrencies, they haven't said wich ones, nor if they will be able to sell them, import equipment, etc.
Energy: The power generation capacity hasn't been increased, nor has the distribution network been improved. There are still cities where the electrical company shuts down the power to ration it, however one of the spokesmen of the blockchain observatory stated that they have already been assigned a Kw quota for coin mining. Bitcoin requires a lot of electricity, for those interested check https://www.xataka.com/criptomonedas/el-bitcoin-ya-consume-mas-energia-que-mas-de-130-paises-del-mundo
high prices: In Venezuela there are two exchange rates of bsf/dollar, the official (available for few people) and another illegal, aggressive, imperialist, designed to generate crisis, but unfortunately it is the one that rules the economy, it affects the entire population and even ends up affecting the official rate that remains ten times lower. At the time of writing this article, that financial terrorist group had set the dollar at 128446.21 Bsf. and it should be noted that it increases every day. The minimum integral salary with the recent increase of 40% reaches 797510 bsf which represents 6.20 dollars per month, this means that any worker with minimum wage who wants to invest in mining equipment should stop eating for 40 years to acquire a antminer, 3 years for a video card or 1 year for a hard disk of one terabyte, depending on the algorithm on which the coin is based, also assuming that it will be mined with a single device and that the illegal dollar will not go up more never.
Few sources of employment: young people have been promised that they will be able to mine through "chamba juvenil", but the reality is that a mining farm needs a tiny staff for its maintenance, machines do most of the work, the staff just be aware of the temperature, send to repair defective equipment, reconnect new or repaired devices, distribute the coins, etc. even investing millions of dollars in huge amounts of equipment to install gigantic farms and hiring more personnel than necessary it would not be even 0.1% of young Venezuelans who benefit from it.
International disadvantage: even when the state can install some farms and that it would be allowed some few Venezuelans who have miners, the rest of the planet has much more mining capacity than Venezuela, and they would generate a pretty high percentage of petros.
In the first cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or litecoin the mining process is justified not only to maintain the network but also to give some legitimacy to a currency that was created and issued initially by a common person like you or me, without any support. As a creator I can reserve some of them directly before mining, but as an act of justice I allow the community to generate a good amount to support it.
In the market there are some currencies that were never mined and they have a good performance in the market, such as IOTA and Ripple, the petro that is backed doesn't need mining to get support.
I refuse to believe that in the blockchain observatory there are not people who know this better than me and agree with me.
Could it be that someone of high rank does not understand it and still imposed his position?
Could it be that some officials of the observatory, even knowing the patrimonial damage that is coming to us for the mining of the petro, do not care because they expect to benefit personally from mining as well?
If there are problems in the public opinion for petro mining, who will be the first to have to resign?
A government like the Venezuelan who claims to be progressive, egalitarian, ecological and socialist can't have an official minable cryptocurrency. Mining is not democratic in any part of the world, but in Venezuela because of the great inequalities in which we live, it is less so, and depending on the algorithm used, a great deal of energy can be consumed.
The cryptolooting would first of all performed by the international mining elite, secondly the local elite and the vast majority of the Venezuelan population would have no choice but to see how the petro passes by the front without seeing any benefit or even feeling that it hurts him.