Venezuelan Cryptocurrency (Petro), Moving Forward to Replace the Dollar
Caracas, Dec. 30 (Prensa Latina) The massive use of the Petro today marks a new stage of income protection for Venezuelans and the cryptocurrency takes the first steps to position itself as a financial alternative to the dollar.
Just one week after President Nicolás Maduro assigned the “Petro Aguinaldo” (Petro end of the year bonus) to state workers and pensioners, and commercial establishments authorized to carry out transactions in that currency were announced, skepticism about its use is being overcome.
Although resistance to change and some technical and organizational difficulties are still holding back Venezuelans’ interest in carrying out transactions in the new virtual currency, at least thousands of people are acquiring products and services for the value of that bonus, equivalent to approximately 1,38 million bolivars (about 30 dollars).
Just a few days ago, when announcing the measure, the president said that ‘this new, unique and exceptional experience can serve as an example for the world that is being born. The Petro is born within the framework of the new multipolar world and in economic terms it opens new channels for the development of the peoples’.
With the creation in 2018 of that digital asset, Venezuela becomes the first nation to use cryptocurrency as a viable alternative to eliminate dollarization from its economy.
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Emerging on the basis of a proposal forecast by Commander Hugo Chávez in 2009, the new currency begins with a backup of 30 billion barrels of oil from the Ayacucho I Block (in the Orinoco Belt), equivalent to more than $ 1.5 billion.
A year later, in the middle of an intense blockade by the United States that affected the economy of the country in general and the domestic one in particular, the State certifies 180 thousand tons of briquetted iron before the National Superintendence of Cryptoactive and Related Activities (Sunacrip) to support those operations.
From then on, the first actions are taken that pave the way for the definitive implementation of that financial policy, which is part of the Bolivarian government’s Economic Recovery, Growth and Prosperity program.
“Either we enter the world of cryptocurrencies and continue to push with the Petro a great financial and monetary revolution from Venezuela or we stay in the past,” Maduro said last June when he decreed the creation of digital wallets in the Digital Bank of Youth and Students.
With the emergence of that banking entity, 924 million bolivars are approved to initiate the exchange activities, while Sunacrip, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) and the Vice Presidency of the Economy, establish a convertibility mechanism for the Petros saved.
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Financial institutions are then incorporated for the massive use of petro, especially public banking, with the activation in 13 thousand stores of the Biopago and PuntoYa BDV devices (payment terminals), as well as counters at their bank branches.
All this allowed the new virtual currency to reach the working class with the payment of social benefits and bonuses of the Basic and Strategic Companies of Guyana.
The platform also included other devices such as Patria Remesa, PetroPago and PetroApp, which increase their potential and Sunacrip is expected to develop other registration and validation mechanisms for the use of sovereign cryptoactive.
In 2020 the implementation of a special card is planned for the people to handle their transactions, which was already announced by the head of state.
The allocation to governorates and protectorates one million bi-monthly petros, which will be used in the improvement of public services and maintenance of cities, will also give the possibility of strengthening social policies and the exercise of popular power.
Step by step and in the middle of a national economy that tries to rise from an intense crisis caused by the coercive and unilateral actions imposed by Washington and the actions of the opposition right, the Petro takes its place.
dfm / ycv
Translated by JRE/EF
