
Venezuela ties its currency to cryptocoin - chanfest22
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/20/venezuela-ties-its-currency-to-a-state-run-cryptocoin/
======
aeternus
Dupe, plus a more informative article is linked in the other thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17799490](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17799490)

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X6S1x6Okd1st
techcrunch is pretty low on details here. The sources that wikipedia cites on
the subject are:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-20/here-s-
wh...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-20/here-s-what-maduro-
has-said-of-venezuela-s-petro-cryptocurrency)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/20/venezuela-
prep...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/20/venezuela-prepares-to-
devalue-currency-amid-fears-it-may-worsen-crisis-bolivar)

[https://news.bitcoin.com/venezuelans-to-be-paid-at-least-
hal...](https://news.bitcoin.com/venezuelans-to-be-paid-at-least-half-a-petro-
a-month/)

Notable details:

They claim they will allow the price to fluctate. The minimum wage will be 0.5
Petros. The inital price for 1 Petro is 3.6k sovereign bolivars

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newswriter99
I've written about this twice now. No one in the oil/gas industry is buying
(no pun intended) the idea that Venezuela's Petro is anything but a sham.

I mean for crying outloud it's a commodity-backed cryptocoin on a private
chain run by a country. How is that anything near the definition of a true
cryptocurrency?

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AstralStorm
It is actually a crypto future on top of weak economy. Not really a currency.
Essentially they tied their currency value to fast junk bonds. Good Job /s

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prolikewh0a
Trump actually signed an executive order banning American's from purchasing
the cryptocurrency.

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59jzyn/president-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59jzyn/president-
donald-trump-signs-executive-order-banning-venezuelas-petro-cryptocurrency-
maduro)

~~~
guidedlight
Of course, Trump wants people to buy oil with freedom dollars.

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lainga
"Fie!" declares a refinery manager in Galveston, throwing his mining rig in
the dumpster.

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newswriter99
I'm missing something. Why a refinery in Galveston?

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sremani
The Texas and Louisiana coast has most refineries in USA.

To my knowledge there are no refineries in Galveston which is a tourist spot
(at least for people in texas). There are refineries in near by Texas City.

~~~
newswriter99
There's Marathon's Galveston Bay refinery but it's technically closer to Texas
City than Galveston island itself.

Then there's Enjet on Pelican Island but they don't have a refinery on-site if
I'm not mistaken.

It's a topic I'm well-versed in, hence why I asked about Galveston.

