Several Venezuelan leaders recently came under fire for alleged criminal acts, although, contrary to initial impressions, the situation did not directly involve cryptocurrency usage. “Maduro and his co-defendants are not alleged to have been involved with crypto, directly,” Ashok Ayyar, counsel at Experience Legal, told Cointelegraph. A number of Venezuelan officials, including former president Maduro, faced a slew of charges from U.S. governing bodies, according to a March 26 statement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). Despite the press release announcing the charges touting the Homeland Security Investigations’ ability to track cryptocurrency transactions, a close examination of the DoJ’s …
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro ordered the country’s leading bank, Banco de Venezuela, to accept the nation’s cryptocurrency, the Petro (PTR) at all of its branches, the country’s Finance Ministry tweeted on July 4. According to the tweet, Maduro gave “the express order to open Petro desks in all the branches of the Bank of Venezuela.” The announcement apparently came during an event celebrating the tenth anniversary of the nationalization of the bank in question. On June 19, Maduro announced that 924 million bolivars (over $92.5 million) were allocated to the Digital Bank of Youth and Students to open one million …
Venezuela’s controversial state-owned cryptocurrency the Petro is now available for purchase for fiat and crypto, Venezuelan Economy Department announced on Twitter Monday, Oct. 29. According to an infographic included in the tweet, Petro can now be purchased directly from the country’s treasury via the coin’s official website or from six crypto exchanges authorized by the government. The state-issued coin can be purchased for fiat, specified in the graphic as yuan, Euro and U.S. dollars, or for certain cryptocurrencies, by legal entities and individuals who have registered and passed a validation process on the coin’s official site. According to Petro’s official …
Reuters has today, August 30, published an investigative report into Venezuela’s national oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro (PTR), attempting to square government claims with facts on the ground and evidence of the Petro’s transaction history to date. Reuters dispatched reporters to the central Venezuelan hamlet of Atapirire, which sits at the heart of the 380-square-kilometer territory that the president has said can provide the 5 billion barrels of petroleum needed to back the new cryptocurrency. Amid rampant hyperinflation in the Venezuelan economy, President Maduro last week introduced a rebranded fiat currency – the sovereign bolívar, which will have five fewer zeros …
The president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro has announced that the country’s new cryptocurrency-backed national currency will start circulating August 20, local state news agency Telesur reported July 25. Telesur reports that the new currency, the Bolívar Soberano (Sovereign Bolivar), will have five zeros less than the existing national currency Bolivar Fuerte (VEF) and will be anchored to the oil-backed Petro (PTR) digital currency. The Petro was launched by the government of Venezuela this February. Maduro noted that the measure intends to align the financial and monetary system in the country “in a radical manner,” stating that the reconversion and anchoring …