
Venezuela's cryptocurrency: Petro Whitepaper [pdf] - plopilop
http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/Whitepaper_Petro_en.pdf
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sova
What a horrifying idea to back a cryptocoin with oil. Oil is really not a
long-term value store as technology improves and the world goes electric. It
may be viable for 20-100 years, but tying a coin to a resource -- especially
naming a coin after a resource -- will only lead to difficulties and confusion
down the road. Would you ever fill up your tank with BTC? Would you ever buy a
coffee with Tether (scam) ? Presuming you answered definitively "no" to these
two questions, then why would you ever use a cryptocoin to buy petroleum or
accept a coin in exchange for petroleum. Maybe the idea is lost on me, but
tying a globally and internationally exposed digital asset that feels the
variability of markets and wake/sleep cycles of humanity to something as dirty
and short-term as oil seems to just be asking for problems.

It's a tempting idea because Venezuela exports a lot of oil, but you may as
well try and tie a coin to oxygen and see how you do.

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tooltalk
Most dominant currencies of the past centuries were tied to real commodities
with intrinsic value -- eg, gold, silver for instance. There is nothing
horrifying about a commodity-backed currency, especially when compared to the
"alternative" \-- the international reserve currency, the US dollar, is backed
by "confidence" and is created out of thin air -- that we are now stuck with.

I haven't read Venezuela's crypto offering in detail, but Venezuela's problem,
as I see it, is most investors/traders won't trust socialist Venezuela to
honor their contracts when push comes to shove.

~~~
sova
Commodity-backed coins are great, but why oil of all things? It's dirty, low-
tech, actively polluting the air, and running out. It looks like someone just
looked at a list of chief exports and thought "yeah I can make a new currency
for that"

