Maduro can't keep his Petro "Sh*tcoin" lies straight.

[GatoGordo]

The Blockchain Won't Save Venezuela
The petro is just a way to hide new international debt behind crypto mumbo-jumbo.
By Matt Levine
February 25, 2018, 8:00 AM CST



I don't know why Venezuela's "petro" cryptocurrency annoys me so much. It is partly that the promise of cryptocurrency was supposed to be trustless decentralization: You trust the thing because of objective certainties embedded in its open-source code, not because some authority tells you to. Meanwhile the petro is just the opposite. For one thing, you can't trust the code; in fact Venezuela's government can't even get its story straight on what sort of code it is:

Investors will have to overlook confusion about how the currency will operate. The white paper says the Petro is built on the Ethereum network, while the user guide the government published says it’s on the Nem network.

Also irritating is that this cryptocurrency is supposed to "promote well-being, bringing power closer to the people" but you can't buy it with Venezuelan bolivars. The reasons for this are obvious: The petro is not a currency, crypto or otherwise, but a way to raise hard currency externally now that Venezuela is cut off by sanctions from accessing the international debt markets. So the petro is just a way to hide new international debt behind a thin screen of blockchain. (The U.S. sanctions administrators, I should note, are not fooled.)

Also, I keep reading that the petro is a cryptocurrency that is "backed by oil." What does that mean? First of all: It means that you need to trust Venezuela's government to exchange oil for petros. (There are efforts to build decentralized pegged coins, but for the most part a peg requires someone to maintain it.) Obviously the petro does not give you a security interest in any oil. So the petro is unsecured oil-indexed debt of a government that is sliding into default and that has been barred from the international debt markets.

But it's worse than that! Venezuela doesn't even promise to give you any oil. The oil peg is just this:

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela guarantees that it will accept Petro’s as a form of payment of national taxes, fees, contributions and public services, taking as a reference the price of the barrel of the Venezuelan basket of the previous day with a percentage discount of Dv.

-snip-

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-25/venezuela-s-petro-cryptocurrency-won-t-help-debt

This fraud keeps getting better and better... waiting for the UI's to start investing in this scheme.

[DetlefK]

1. The Petro is simply a new way to print more money.

Venezuela has runaway inflation and the petro is essentially more money issued in a new currency.

The Bolivar is backed by Venezuela's oil. And the new money issued in the currency "petro" is backed by? That exactly same oil!

[GatoGordo]

2. ...backed by the same shitty oil that Chavismo can't pump out of the ground.

The lies are getting more outrageous. The blockchain for the Petro shows ZERO sales. While Maduro claims close to a billion dollars worth of sales.

What is hysterical is that Maduro won't accept Bolivars as payment for the Petro... knowing full well that Bolivars are useless as a currency, and he won't allow El Pueblo to scam the scammer! (not that exchanging BsF for Petros is any more meaningful than exchanging buffalo shit for yak shit)

[GatoGordo]

3. WSJ blasts Petro "Sh*tcoin"

Venezuela’s ‘Crypto’ Con
Has Maduro got a currency deal for you.
By The Editorial Board
Feb. 22, 2018 6:59 p.m. ET

Venezuela launched what it called its very own “cryptocurrency” this week, and on day one of pre-sales raised $735 million—or so President Nicolás Maduro claims. But like all of the regime’s attempts at economic alchemy, there is no way to verify that figure. You have to take the word of the government that produced the highest inflation rate in the world in 2017....

-snip-

...But the token itself is guaranteed by the Venezuelan government, which means it is ultimately a promise from Señor Maduro. In most cryptocurrency token offerings, the underlying blockchain ledger could be used to verify the volume of the transactions. In the petro’s case, because the placement was done privately, this information isn’t available.

It’s baffling why anyone in the civilized world would buy the petro since there are already multiple ways to speculate on oil prices using reliable securities.

-snip-

https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelas-crypto-con-1519343990

Only the most foolish of fools would invest even a worthless Bolivar in this scam. Maduro insists nearly a billion dollars invested so far, but refuses to offer proof of his wild boast. Not only that, but the Russian company that set up this scam cannot be found anywhere. Nobody has ever heard of them prior to the Petro, and nobody knows how to contact them currently.

[GatoGordo]

4. And here comes more spin...

'Positive': Venezuela May Limit Number of Petros Traded by Exchanges
Published 27 February 2018
(translation: Maduro doesn't know how to spin the lack of sales of his Sh*tcoin)

The government is authorized to modify the number of Petros each exchange is allowed to handle after the first 90 days of the digital coin's launch.

Following the launch of its oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro, the Venezuelan government has released a 10-page manual detailing that as few as eight exhcanges may operate domestically in the market regulation of the new digital coin. The document outlines the rules and regulations which all local crypto exchanges must follow.

It suggests, according to CoinDesk tech news outlet, that a cap on the amount of Petros each exchange has will be imposed by the Superintendence of Cryptocurrencies and Related Activities from the start of sale. The superintendence, as well as Venezuela's Blockchain Observatory, are responsible for regulating the digital coin.

The government is authorized to modify the number of Petros each exchange is allowed to handle after the first 90 days of the digital coin's launch....

-snip-

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Positive-Venezuela-May-LimitNumber-of-Petros-Traded-by-Exchanges-20180227-0013.html

TeleSewer is the Chavismo sponsored English language media outlet of choice. If it is uplifting to the Marxist-Leninist worldview, it is found in print there.

In regards to the Petro, the STANDARD is that all information is offered PRIOR to issuing these crypto currencies... not after like the Petro. The STANDARD is that the ledgers will show the volume exchanged each day, if not hourly. Not so with the Petro. It doesn't offer this information because it isn't anything other than a scam.

[GatoGordo]

5. Follow the Petro disaster here. The BlockChain

http://explorer.ournem.com/?#/s_account?account=NCGBBZKOTERO3EXMPPCNDNDXZQQJXBEMWWO7MB66

$445... so far.