Maduro Raises The Price Of ‘el petro’ Despite No Functioning Wallet

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Late last week, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro
ordered a hike in the value of the country’s state-
sponsored cryptocurrency ‘ el petro. ’
In an announcement on Thursday, President Nicolas
Maduro ordered that the price of one petro be increased
from 3,600 sovereign bolivars to 9,000. This move
came with a 150 percent wage hike, the sixth such hike
of the year as the Venezuelan economy continues its
disastrous negative spiral.

“The arrival of Christmas is very exciting, so this
corrective measure comes as a gift for large working
families,” Maduro said.
There is growing suspicion, however, that the world’s
first state-sponsored cryptocurrency still does not
exist.

Venezuelan economist Leonardo Buniak explained,
“When the president decrees that a petro is worth 9,000
Bs.s, what he is saying is that the petro is not a
cryptocurrency but a debt title that is predetermined,
[which] cannot be mined. It is impossible to think that
it is a cryptocurrency when its value is not given by the
interaction between supply and demand.”

El Petro: The Crypto that Never Was

The petro, which was officially rebooted at the
beginning of last month, struggled at the starting line
once again, with underwhelming interest, a broken
wallet, and very interaction with the blockchain.

And now, a month later, nothing has really changed.
The wallet is still broken, meaning the only way to
actually ‘purchase’ the crypto is to go to the
headquarters of Sunacrip, the operator of the
blockchain, to purchase a physical certificate that will
supposedly entitle owners ‘real’ petro when the wallet
issues are sorted.

Even if users were able to send and receive petro,
however, there are currently no significant exchanges
offering, or planning to offer, the cryptocurrency.
But petro’s troubles aren’t limited to its lack of wallet
availability.

There’s still no public code for the platform, meaning
confirmation of its existence is practically impossible.
Additionally, there are no charts reflecting
confirmations, hashrate or network activity, making it
difficult to verify the health of the platform.

Crypto Transactions on the Rise

Despite petro’s troubles cryptocurrency transactions in
Venezuela are on the rise.

According to data from Coin Dance, bitcoin
transactions hit record levels, with over 2.35 billion
sovereign bolivars traded in the week ending on
December 1 .

Trading volume in Venezuela has seen significant
growth in 2018, with sharp boosts coming in relation to
economic announcements from the government.
Regardless of the fall in value, Bitcoin, in particular has
become a hedge against further inflation of the
country’s national currency.

Other cryptocurrencies, as well, are becoming more
widespread, especially in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital
city.

CEO of Dash Core Group Ryan Taylor noted a wave of
adoption in the country, explaining, “We are seeing
tens of thousands of wallet downloads from the country
each month,” adding, “Earlier this year, Venezuela
became our No. 2 market, even ahead of China and
Russia, which are, of course, huge into cryptocurrency
right now.”

Source : https://cryptoinsider.com/maduro-price-petro-wallet/