The economic troubles that Venezuela has experienced in recent years has led the population into a fit of desperation, with commodity prices constantly swinging upwards.
President Maduro’s Petro doesn’t appear—at least from the outset—to have benefitted the country directly, despite his insistence that the ICO backing up the currency made $5 billion in its initial sale.
On Tuesday, Cuatro F—a popular socialist newspaper in Venezuela—outlined Maduro’s plan for the Petro and his argument against his rivals in the country’s upcoming elections.
“It would be a ‘gringo’ colony. Venezuela will never be a gringo colony as long as it lives,” the incumbent President said when speaking about his rival’s plans.
If rival Henry Falcon wins the election, this might spell doom for the Petro project, which was mostly reliant on Nicolas Maduro’s agitation.
Maduro also fears that the economy will be dollarized to maintain its stability, making Venezuela—in his view—a colony of the United States.
He insists that the Petro “will permit the Bolivar to become stronger in Venezuelan hands.”
In the edition of Cuatro F published the week before, Maduro said that it’s “revolutionizing the global cryptoeconomy,” after which he said that the ICO received 200,927 investment offers from 133 countries.
That’s not bad for a country that will probably have trouble extracting the oil backing the cryptocurrency, as Pdvsa—Venezuela’s state-owned oil company—is rapidly eroding its capital without making a profit.
In addition to the company’s financial troubles, Cuba—a close ally of the country—took possession of 49% of the company’s assets because of the amount of debt it owed.
Cuatro F also stated that, “The one possible saving grace for the Petro is the fact that Maduro wants to create four special economic zones that will engage in the commerce of goods and services via the cryptocurrency, creating a healthy ecosystem of demand and supply.”
If Maduro wins the election and manages to establish this particular agenda, it might help some commerce trickle into Venezuela perhaps in the same way it helped China when it established its own free economic areas.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
