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IPFS News Link • Venezuela

Venezuela's Petro: Stable Coin For Crypto-Economy Or Illegal Oil Futures?

• https://www.zerohedge.com, by Thomas Meyer

On Feb. 20 the pre-sale of Petro was launched and has already raised $735 mln, according to Maduro's Twitter. Total amount of PTR issued for sale is 100 mln and is worth $6 bln. The pre-sale will end on March 19.  

The following questions are raised by this controversial project: what is Petro in an economic context and what would be its possible real use in the global economy? Is it a cryptocurrency, a stable coin, oil futures, new government debt instrument or something else? What is its possible economic impact? Which legal issues could follow?

According to Maduro, Petro being backed by the Venezuelan crude oil is one of the best ways to use new technologies to restore the financial condition of Venezuela. For many years, the country has been suffering from hyperinflation by thousands of percent per year, while US sanctions cut off Venezuela from international capital markets.

A huge deficit of US dollar monetary supply has led to the absence of basic goods and a tenfold price discrepancy between official and black market currency exchanges for the Venezuelan bolivar and US dollar. That said, this financial catastrophe coincides with Venezuela's status as possessing the largest volume of readily retrievable proved oil reserves as assessed by OPEC, being well ahead of well-known oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and others.


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