By Delcy Rodriguez, the Venezuela vice president, announced on Friday, 5 October, that there is now another use for the for the Petro. This means that as of this week, Venezuelans will only be permitted to use the national cryptocurrency when paying for any fees related to the issuing and renewal of their passports.
According to the Venezuelan president, the Petro was first issued in 2017 as a means for the country to alleviate its financial problems. Venezuelans welcomed the Petro as a means to protect themselves against hyperinflation.
The Petro wallet is available on platforms such as Google Play, as well as on an official website. The public sale date will only be November 5, 2018. The Petro is available on specific crypto exchanges.
Rodriguez has confirmed that, as of 8 October (yesterday), Venezuelans are expected to pay 2 Petros for the issuing of a new passport and 1 Petro for a passport renewal.
It should also be noted that, according to a report by Bloomberg, that the average monthly minimum wage in Venezuela, is four times less than the cost of the raised passport fee. In Venezuela, 2 Petros is equivalent to 7,200 Bolivars.
In addition to the use of Petros in Departments such as Home Affairs, the Petro will also be used for oil purchases into and out of the country, as well as for any aircraft fuel which must now be paid in Petros.
The use of the Petro is likely to be a deterrent for significant airline carriers to maintain their routes through Venezuela. Airlines such as Avianca, Latam Airlines, United Airlines, Aeromexico and Deutsche Lufthansa are among a substantial list of airlines that have are no longer servicing Venezuela. This is likely to isolate Venezuela further.
Rodriguez has also announced the formation of a dedicated migration police force, ostensibly designed “to preserve citizen security and migratory control.”
El Universal, a leading Latin American newspaper reported that Rodriguez has said that “in the case of Venezuelans who are abroad, until the first day of November the cost will be $200 for issuance and $100 for extensions.”
Due to the financial problems within Venezuela, coupled with corruption, and the additional social and political problems, it is estimated that approximately 5,000 people are leaving the country every day.
Problems with hyperinflation started in 2014. It is estimated that hyperinflation will hit 1,000,000 percent by the end of this year. This is devasting to Venezuelans, as the government has restricted their permission to acquire foreign currencies, such as that of U.S dollars. This leaves Venezuelans financially trapped in an economy that is contracting.
As a means to circumvent capital controls in an economy riddled with rampant inflation and a failing economy, the government turned to the use of cryptocurrency. The ownership and use of cryptocurrency trading have been climbing since 2014.
The Cointelegraph has reported that developers have accused President Nicolas Maduro’s solution to hyperinflation, the use of the Petro, as having parts of its whitepaper being derived from the altcoin Dash.
Joey Zhou, a Core developer of Ethereum, provided evidence for the accusation. He posted a link that clearly shows that the Venezuelan coin’s whitepaper contains precisely the same image that originates from Dash’s repository on Github. This is in addition to the mining algorithms that are used by Dash and the Venezuelan coin.
Do you think that the Venezuelan coin is plagiarised from the Altcoin Dash? Do you believe that the Venezuelan coin has sound financial backing? Let us know in the comments section below!
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