The government of Venezuela published an decree in the Official Gazette a few days ago where it was confirmed that Petro would be backed up by the reserves of raw oil found in the area of the Orinoco oil belt.
The oil reserves will be used to back up the implementation of financial exchange and trading operations by using cryptocurrencies, which means a potential development of 5,342 million barrels of oil. This would allow the responsible entities to realize trading activities with cryptocurrencies that use the national oil reserves as collateral.
This number of barrels of oil is given by an independent international certifier located in the Ayacucho Block 01 of the Orinoco oil belt. The name of the company has not been disclosed.
The publication of the decree created by the Presidency of the Republic of Venezuela marks the official launch of the controversial token created by Venezuela.
The new cryptocurrency was first mentioned in an earlier decree, where the president Nicolás Maduro announced the creation of the Venezuelan Superintendency for Cryptocurrencies. This entity is currently in charge of emitting the national cryptocurrency called Petro through auctions and allocation and any future activities that could be implemented in the future.
Despite all this, the political instability of Venezuela continues creating uncertainty and insecurity in relation to the launch of Petro. A few days ago, José Guerra, a member of the National Assembly of Venezuela, said the national cryptocurrency could not be backed up by the oil reserves, because these reserves cannot be assessed precisely. He added this was confirmed by the article 12 of the Venezuelan constitution and that it would be necessary for the token to be approved by the National Assembly, which is not the case.
On the other hand, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States of America assured that the US citizens who engage in trading with Petro would be exposed to sanctions that could result in millions of dollars of fines.
Despite all the controversy around the launch of Petro, the president Maduro announced another cryptocurrency called Petro Oro. The new cryptocurrency should be launched in the next days and it is supposed to be backed up by the gold reserves of Venezuela. There are no more details about Petro Oro and one of the most frequent questions is whether the gold reserves mentioned are the already exploited ones or the government is talking about the unexploited gold reserves.
