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posted by takyon on Thursday December 07 2017, @05:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the petros-per-gallon dept.

Enter the 'petro': Venezuela to launch oil-backed cryptocurrency

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro looked to the world of digital currency to circumvent U.S.-led financial sanctions, announcing on Sunday the launch of the "petro" backed by oil reserves to shore up a collapsed economy. The leftist leader offered few specifics about the currency launch or how the struggling OPEC member would pull off such a feat, but he declared to cheers that "the 21st century has arrived!"

"Venezuela will create a cryptocurrency," backed by oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves, Maduro said in his regular Sunday televised broadcast, a five-hour showcase of Christmas songs and dancing. The petro, he said, would help Venezuela "advance in issues of monetary sovereignty, to make financial transactions and overcome the financial blockade."

Opposition leaders derided the announcement, which they said needed congressional approval, and some cast doubt on whether the digital currency would ever see the light of day in the midst of turmoil. The real currency, the bolivar, is in freefall, and the country is sorely lacking in basic needs like food and medicine.


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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday December 08 2017, @06:01AM (1 child)

    by anubi (2828) on Friday December 08 2017, @06:01AM (#607108) Journal

    Isn't this like investing in "fine" art or "antiques"?

    ( Yes, I used the quotes because a lot of what I see valued so enormously seems to have value only in the sense that the person who made the thing of value is now dead... meaning that this thing is the only one of its kind in existence.... which somehow translates into it having some sort of absurd value. While similar items have no value. Antiques Roadshow never ceases to amaze me as to what has value and what does not. )

    I believe the only value of cryptocurrency is its opaqueness to governments power to tax or monitor commerce. Hence it would be of great use in conducting of financial affairs sans government involvements.

    I wonder how long governments are going to tolerate this, knowing this is a method of unreported wealth transfers out of their tax man's reach, as well as means of funding insurrections.

    Of course there is more than this method of money laundering right under our noses.... ever seen the range of the prices of "rare" books? I faced this dilemma once when looking for some old books of tables of thermodynamic properties of various compounds. Some were in the thousands of dollars. Some were a few dollars. All the stuff is computerized now, such tables now generated by formulas. But I wanted a nice bound book of tables for general armchair mullovers.

    It struck me as to how easy it would be to have "legitimate" money transfer by having someone buy my way overpriced book, provided I offered for sale the only copy of some obscure book.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @01:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @01:42PM (#607172)

    So you say, like art, Bitcoin will get more valuable after Satoshi Nakamoto is dead? Well, that would certainly explain why he hides his identity. ;-)