Venezuela, South American Leader in Cryptoassets Legislation.

This must have taken more than one of us by surprise.

When we mention the name of Venezuela, the mental images that we can create, do not contemplate any relationship with cryptoassets. If we talk about cryptography in the South American continent, the countries that jump first are: Argentina, Colombia and Chile.

However, none of these nations has legislation or any solid initiative on the part of the National Administrations in regulation matters.

Argentina

Considered as the Bitcoin capital of South America, it recently became part of the Blockchain Research Institute (BRI). All the necessary research is being supported in terms of Blockchain and cryptoassets, but the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic said in a statement that: "it is limited for the time being to carry out a monitoring of the evolution of cryptoasset in general and of their associated technologies to better understand their risks and opportunities".

Chile

It´s one of the countries with the highest levels of adoption. However, there is no regulation. The government has not expressed a clear position, noting only that: "it must study and better understand the ecosystem" and has also raised a debate on the issue in which several sectors participate.
Meanwhile, the Superintendency of Banks and Financial Institutions has maintained a restrictive position, by supporting the closure of the bank accounts of several exchange houses.

Colombia

The Central Bank of the Republic of Colombia determined in 2014 that cryptocurrencies are not "an asset that has equivalence to the legal currency, the peso, in Colombia because it has not been recognized as a currency in the country".
But as we can know in an article published in the web portal "lanotavirtual" in this Nation was presented the Bill 268 of 2019, which seeks to promote entrepreneurship and investment in the industry of the exchange of cryptoassets.

ph venezuela cintillo 001.jpg

Venezuela takes the Vanguard

The Venezuelan Government officially created a government agency whose function is to regulate and supervise all activities inherent to and derived from the development of the "Integrated Cryptoassets System".

The SUNACRIP (National Superintendence of Cryptoassets and Related Activities) is an autonomous body created with the purpose of developing activities that promote inclusion, promotion and financial innovation, universality, protection to users, preservation of financial stability, prevention of illicit operations, technological security and simplification of procedures.

Apparently everything was taken into account, since this organization has a complete organizational structure. It is conformed in 4 Intendancies:

Intendancy of Digital Mining and Associated Processes: Responsible for regulating, controlling and supervising the digital mining activity in Venezuela.
Intendancy of Promotion and Development of Cryptoassets and Related Activities: Responsible is to promote the adoption, use, training, research and dissemination of the technologies of distributed records and related technologies.
Intendancy of Crypto-Financial Services: Responsible for regulating, controlling, planning, coordinating and developing all financial transactions for the exchange of available capital in crypto-assets, through distributed networks.
Inspection Intendancy: Responsible for ensuring compliance with the Regulatory Framework established by the SUNACRIP

In 2018, the Venezuelan Administration issued a cryptocurrency called PETRO.
This would be a stablecoin backed by Venezuelan oil. Something that does not make much sense if we analyze the behavior of oil prices and their volatility depending on the political conditions of the countries of the world. A war affects the price as well as an OPEC resolution, for example.

The truth is that this initiative also took other legislative actions to give a legal framework to all operations carried out in the national territory based on cryptoassets. Thus, a complete normative was obtained.

To support the commercialization of PETRO, a governmental application was developed that allows the exchange of this cryptocurrency in different modalities: Crypto-Fiat, Fiat-Crypto and Crypto-Crypto. In this way, with the use of PETROAPP the exchange of Petros with Bitcoins, Litecoins and Dash is allowed.

Even the web portal "petroshopvenezuela" was created, dedicated to the purchase and sale of products, articles, goods and services, with payment in Petros.

ph venezuela cintillo 001.jpg

Conclusion

I believe that any legislative initiative taken by nations in the area of cryptoassets represents, in its base, a positive aspect.

This indicates that mass adoption is favored and it seeks to give protection to citizens. With the Intendancy of Promotion, educational campaigns should be developed that allow the community to master the terminology and become familiar with the financial transactions that involve crypts.

But with entities such as the Intendency of Crypto-Financial Services, what is intended is the control and regulation of exchanges and exchange houses that intend to establish operations in the country. These companies must obtain a license from the Venezuelan State to operate within the national territory and entering the Integral Registry of Services in Cryptoassets (RISEC).

We hope that these apparently well-organized actions will crystallize the words into solid and positive events. Although with the corruption scandals carried out by the National Administration, unfortunately, the most probable thing is that all this will unleash excessive regulation and encourage the enrichment of a minority to the detriment of the rest of the population.