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The Venezuelan Petro’s alleged astronomical success could be under threat as US President Trump puts plans in process to prohibit American citizens from purchasing the digital currency.

It seems as if President Trump has thrown a cog in the apparent billion-dollar machine that is Venezuela’s Petro. According to Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-19/trump-prohibits-u-s-purchases-of-venezuelan-cryptocurrency?utm_source=twitter&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_medium=social), the US president issued a prohibition order on Monday banning the country’s citizens from going anywhere near the South American country’s first state-issued virtual currency.

To reinforce this, Trump has ordered Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to issue any regulations required to enforce this ban.

The Role of the Petro

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro developed the Petro, which can be purchased through US dollars and euros, as a way to combat the country’s hyperinflation, which is expected to reach 13,000% in 2018. It is also being used as a way to circumvent US-imposed financial sanctions.

The latter, issued in August 2017, forbids Venezuela from borrowing any more money from the US, making refinancing its existing mountain of debt just about impossible. Even though the South American country is rich in natural resources, such as the crude oil used to back the Petro, it is poor in nearly everything else, which has resulted in its population suffering drastic food and medical supply shortages. The US imposed these sanctions in response to the deplorable humanitarian conditions in the country.

Continue reading >> http://bitcoinist.com/president-trump-bans-us-citizens-buying-venezuelas-petro/

Venezuelan Petro's astronomical success? It's a bit hard to believe since there isn't any actual evidence of how much has been raised. Various sources throw numbers around, but nothing of that can be actually verified.

I wouldn't even be surprised if turns out that Maduro has invested his own dirty capital through proxies in his own crypto scheme. It would somewhat grant him a safe haven store of value tool.

I don't very often agree with US sanctions, but in this case I would love to see other nations to follow and ban the living crap out of this nonsense. Maduro is a criminal, and criminals should be punished, not rewarded.

Pro-government, businessmen, loyalists, governing party supporters worldwide will buy (maybe forced to buy too sometimes?) this cryptocurrency, so any data couldn't really show the reality.
Banning it from the USA is expected, same will probably happens in EU, UK and the other sheep-like governments in the rest part of the world.
Oil prices will drop further in the next decade, Venezuelan gov is the only real investor imo.

This is the first time I hear about Petro, but just like you said negative reaction from the USA was expected. Europe will also support the USA in this point I guess. The only possible supporter of Venezuelan Petro is Russia, but they still didn't decide what to do with crypto on their territory, so they definitely will not hurry to support Petro.

I've heard about this coin many times, but I've never seen it traded. It seems to me that Maduro is preparing to leave Venezuela. He has converted his stolen money into this currency and will now protect himself from blocking his accounts. Even after he leaves Venezuela, the Treasury will be obliged to pay him debts. That's a good idea.

Interesting how US responds to critical humanitarian conditions. Instead of helping the country, they impose more sanctions, which always lead to even worse conditions. They could directly provide food and medication to the people. I know they don't trust Venezuelan government, but there are ways of direct help. But they don't really care about the Venezuelan people of course. They just want a change of government and their own puppets who would help them get Venezuelan oil and gold.
I'm not advocating Venezuelan government, I'm just showing how twisted the US is.