Total News - 8/19/2018 - Atlanta, GA - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduras announced Friday a massive devaluation of the existing currency, while making a verbal peg 1 "Petro" (Venezuelas new CryptoCurrency which is not yet in circulation) to $60 US Dollars, effectively wiping out the value of the existing currency and forcing the population to use the Petro.
Crypto Enthusiasts will be eager to see the Petro trade, as it will be the first sovereign Crypto Currency in the world. IBM has disclosed that it is contracted with more than 10+ central banks to investigate the possibility of making digital sovereign currencies based on cryptographic technologies like Blockchain, but it hasn't disclosed who they are. Venezuela is an interesting case to be the guinea pig in this digital money experiment, because Venezuela has been a unique host of an underground mining community in the past years, because electricity there is practically free. The interesting world of underground Bitcoin mining in Venezuela has been covered in an excellent article published on Hacker Noon "Extortion, Police Raids and Secrecy: Inside The Venezuelan Bitcoin Mining World."
Maduro told viewers:
"As of next Monday, Venezuela will have a second accounting unit based on the price, the value of the Petro. It will be a second accounting unit of the Republic and will begin operations as a mandatory accounting unit of our PDVSA oil industry."
"As of next Monday, Venezuela will have a second accounting unit based on the price, the value of the Petro. It will be a second accounting unit of the Republic and will begin operations as a mandatory accounting unit of our PDVSA oil industry."
What's interesting about Venezuela is that this is an act of desperation, Maduro really has few other choices. Venezuela has become a war zone in recent years with rolling blackouts, rampant inflation, food shortages, rise in violent crimes, and social unrest. The Petro is Venezuela's oil backed (government backed) Sovereign Crypto Currency, based on the NEM Blockchain. But ultimately, it is backed by whatever Maduro says it is backed by, as any fiat currency is. In fact the word 'fiat' means 'by decree' or in plain English, because I said so.
Fiat: a formal authorization or proposition; a decree.
Maduro said the new currency, set to enter circulation on Monday, will be called the "sovereign bolivar" and will be based on the petro, which is valued at $60 or 3,600 sovereign bolivars, after the redenomination planned for August 20 slashes five zeroes off the national currency. The minimum wage will be set at half that, 1,800 sovereign bolivars. The government would cover the minimum wage increase at small and medium-size companies for 90 days, Maduro added. It was not clear what happens after. "They've dollarized our prices. I am petrolizing salaries and petrolizing prices," Maduro explained in a Friday televised address. "We are going to convert the petro into the reference that pegs the entire economy's movements."
We will see the market reaction shortly, however Venezuela is already living in a world of it's own, even bragging about how the IMF doesn't have any 'fingers in our pies' type of speech. Meanwhile, the population of Venezuela is forced to turn to things like Bitcoin and Alt coins in order to survive, as the national currency is completely unstable.
