Maduro announced his decision earlier this week as reported by abc.es. Part of the implementation will see the oil and gas company of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) will start using the petro as an accounting unit. Venezuela’s current economic predicament is quite evident.
The growing economic concerns are a great opportunity to relax the country’s currency controls. Starting on the 20th of August, the government will seek to regulate its currency, the bolivar and create a “sovereign bolivar”. The country’s central bank will then start to publish the new currency’s price.
The sovereign bolivar will be related to the petro and in turn the petro will be related to international currencies. Following these moves the government will try to link the country’s pension and salary systems to the petro cryptocurrency. The Petro cryptocurrency has its criticism linked with Maduro’s policies The petro has always drawn a huge amount of controversy ever since its creation.
Opinions have been different ranging from very supportive to highly negative. Maduro himself claimed that in the first day of its presale the Petro managed to collect over $700 million. Despite the lack of any solid proof, Maduro claimed that this is a great step for the country in regards to innovation. This wasn’t met with great enthusiasm from opposing party members since many of them blasted the move. The biggest critique of the opposing parties was that in reality, no one would consider buying an emerging petro cryptocurrency from a county in hyperinflation and a government which doesn’t pay foreign debt.
Local crypto communities are worried that the government’s unrestrained power to manipulate and control the currency will prove to be its inevitable downfall. Some people even voiced their concerns for the petro being more of debt bond than a cryptocurrency.