Venezuela’s President Urges Neighbors to Embrace the Petro Cryptocurrency

Venezuela’s cryptocurrency project will still go ahead as planned, by the look of things. Last week, the nation’s Senate forbade the issuance of the Petro cryptocurrency, but it seems President Nicolás Maduro has no intention of backing down. More specifically, he has urged some of the neighboring countries to embrace this new cryptocurrency in the very near future. Whether or not this request will fall on deaf ears remains to be determined.

President Maduro Wants the Petro to Succeed

It is evident that something will need to change in Venezuela sooner rather than later. Right now, the country’s financial situation is far too dire to leave things unchecked. Citizens are struggling to get basic necessities like food, water, and medicine. Given Venezuela’s weak position at the negotiation table, it is evident the country will need to get creative in its approach to solving this problem once and for all. Creating its own national oil-backed cryptocurrency may very well be the only way out.

Unfortunately, it seems the Petro cryptocurrency is not to the liking of Venezuela’s politicians. President Maduro is one of the biggest backers of this initiative, but most of his colleagues aren’t too convinced this project can succeed. In fact, the Venezuelan Senate officially forbade Maduro from creating this cryptocurrency, although it seems highly unlikely this order will be honored anytime soon. After all, President Maduro has not given up on his quest to make the Petro a success, as he recently spoke to the Bolivarian Alliance regarding this topic.

During the meeting, Maduro tried to persuade ten other governments to embrace the Petro and its potential. The Bolivarian Alliance is comprised of Ecuador, Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and a few other countries. All of these nations stand to benefit from an oil-backed cryptocurrency such as the Petro, although nothing prevents them from issuing their own forms of digital money in the future.

For his part, Maduro would love to see all members of the Bolivarian Alliance come together to create the Petro. This seems to indicate that the new currency would not necessarily become a currency just for Venezuela, but for a lot of countries in this region. Uniting these nations with a new cryptocurrency would certainly introduce a lot of interesting opportunities, although putting such a project into motion will not be easy whatsoever.

Ever since the Petro was announced, the project has been a topic of controversy and substantial debate. President Maduro decided to stake more than five billion barrels of crude oil on this currency as a way of giving it intrinsic value. As one would expect, this was not to the liking of other government members, and thus it remains to be seen whether or not this currency is officially illegal. Since no member of the Venezuelan government wishes to be a part of this project, it is unlikely the president will succeed in convincing governments of other countries. Then again, nothing is impossible these days.

For the time being, we will have to wait and see how this situation unfolds. Although the Petro certainly has a lot of potential in the long run, it remains unclear if there will be any legal ground on which to create such a currency backed by national oil reserves. It seems a lot of decisions regarding this currency were made rather hastily, and that has since become a topic of substantial debate. It takes a lot of effort to issue a centrally-controlled digital currency; that much is rather evident.