They are trying to create an alternative trading currency.
They are the countries most affected by embargo and IMF. It's just a start from the two. Soon we will be seeing many such regional projects to make the financial world free from the dictatorship of IMF.

Digital coins, altcoins, and blockchain technology is the future in financial transactions. The fact that they use it, doesn't mean that they are visionaries. They would like probably to avoid the economic exclusion, as Venezuela did with El Pedro or as the bank institutions would say, to laundry money. Venezuela is a big oil producer, but due to the embargo can't sell it. Cryptocurrencies could be a resource.

The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro said Petro cryptocurrency had raised $5 billion during Pre-ICO. He also noted that this cryptocurrency had strengthened the country’s international reserves.
Read more here: Petro Cryptocurrency

Venezuela has not received a single dollar (and certainly zero euros) from the ICO. A large part of the investments were in crypto, the rest in rubles. Therefore the process of dealing with that money is way more complex. You won't find it on the website for some time.

We all know that following US and EU sanctions, the only banks Venezuela could use were Russian or Chinese, so the ICO did not accept de facto anything apart from rubles and crypto.

The reality is that doing an ICO under financial sanctions and media blockade is a huge challenge, almost impossible. The goal of the illegal sanctions is to starve the nation and make any recovery impossible. The Petro ICO will take time. Venezuela is fighting a war.

A Time investigation into the development of Venezuela’s state-backed cryptocurrency, petro, revealed strong anecdotal and circumstantial evidence connecting Russia to its launch. At least two Russians with ties to Vladimir Putin were present at petro’s unveiling, complete with the Venezuelan president’s thanks. Analysts are claiming the South American country is Mr. Putin’s crypto guinea pig as the two nations try to find innovative ways around US sanctions.

Also read: Bitcoiners Demand More Crypto CFDs and Spread-Betting in the UK

Report Claims Putin and Maduro Teamed to Launch Petro
Time online is referring to Tuesday’s official sale of petro as “a half-hidden joint venture between Venezuelan and Russian officials and businessmen, whose aim was to erode the power of U.S. sanctions,” finding “Moscow’s fingerprints all over the creation of the petro.”

Such revelations come at an interesting time for all three countries. In the US, the present administration has been accused of being too close to re-elected Russian President Putin. Mr. Putin is under international pressure for alleged acts of assassination on foreign shores along with meddling in elections abroad. Venezuela has long been a client state of Russia, and has equally been the object of scorn for several US administrations. The three were tied together, somewhat unknowingly (on the US side at least) by President Trump’s recent Executive Order forbidding formal participation in the petro. 



And truth be told it is Russia who would rather tread lightly at this point. Indeed, as Mr. Putin’s economic advisor, Igor Shuvalov, explained, “For Russia, it’s too dangerous. If we say that the only reason we do it is to avoid U.S. sanctions, then the United States is definitely going to be displeased about it. Venezuela has nothing to lose. For them it’s the only chance.” The Venezuelan economy is the daily subject of press accounts, documenting economic horrors.

So it might have seemed somewhat brazen to have no fewer than two Russian nationals connected front and center at petro’s media scrum launch last month. Denis Druzhkov and Fyodor Bogorodsky were thanked publicly by Mr. Maduro, and Mr. Bogorodsky stands at the one hour and eight minute mark to give a congratulatory speech in Russian (see video inset).

Covering Tracks on a Gamble
The two men were initially identified as representatives of a shadowy company, Aerotrading, which claims blockchain specialty. Within days of the presser, presumably to establish the company’s legitimacy, a sudden website and Twitter account were set up. Of the two men, Mr. Bogorodsky was the only to comment publicly.

Mr. Druzhkov is well connected to a Russian billionaire, while Mr. Bogorodsky is a former banking executive living in South America. The report describes him as having “close business ties with Russia and other former Soviet states.” It appears he’s been involved with petro since its inception late last year. Mr. Bogorodsky stresses, “Russia has been moving in this direction for a while now, trying to draft laws to regulate cryptocurrencies.” Venezuela’s pace has evidently been much quicker. Dismissing potential US concerns, he laughs, “Any citizen of the world can do what he wants. We offer freedom of choice. So I think there will be lots of investors, big and small, from all over the world.”

Report Claims Putin Aided Maduro in Creating Venezuela’s Crypto, Petro

According to an anonymous “executive at a Russian state bank who deals with cryptocurrencies, senior advisers to the Kremlin have overseen the effort in Venezuela, and President Vladimir Putin signed off on it last year. ‘People close to Putin, they told him this is how to avoid the sanctions,’ says the executive. ‘This is how the whole thing started,’” the report explained. Russia is insisting it had nothing to do with the petro’s creation.

State apparatchiks, on the other hand, have made plenty of statements about US financial sanctions. The head of Russia’s second largest bank, VTB, Andrei Kostin spoke openly recently about how “The reign of the dollar must end. This whip that the Americans use in the form of the dollar would then, to a great extent, not have such a serious impact on the global financial system.”

US regulators are quoted as not being too worried about petro nor the possibility of a crypto-ruble. It is hard to say if state-backed cryptocurrencies could ultimately work. Such ideas have always suffered from violating key tenants of crypto: censorship resistance and decentralization. By definition, state-backed currencies violate both.

https://news.bitcoin.com/report-claims-putin-aided-maduro-in-creating-venezuelas-crypto-petro/?utm_source=OneSignal%20Push&utm_medium=notification&utm_campaign=Push%20Notifications

Dude, you're mixing up two concepts: cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is decent and if used properly can work for public good but when it comes to crypto currency like El Petro ... I mean, Venezuelan government has to make other countries adopt it too. Like they do to India. Otherwise it fails

Corrupted? Why? Do you know something about Venezuela that make you say that?
Rogue? Why? An elected government is rogue in your country? So you live in a dictatorship, I assume.

Information is key, if we believe anything we see on mainstream media (that by the way reflects only the interests of some elites and governments), we can consider ourselves manipulated or idiots...

In other words: you have no idea, so you just repeat the 2-neurons BS you read on mainstream propaganda.

State-issued altcoin? I don't know about that, I've read that Venezuelan government has been flip-flopping on Petro for a while now, many people loss their faith in this coin due to the rampant corruption in Venezuela, I honestly don't know what to think.

It depends on what the cryptocurrency is backed by when it becomes commonly used. For example, if we take the case of El petro, it for sure can add to economic crisis Venezuela is already suffering from. But Bitcoin? I don't think Bitcoin can

nobody knows for sure.
and whatever you find about it it's speculation.
if you want to know what i think about it, then read all this thread.

Luckily, Maduro's regime resulted in that most people can't even afford being frauded))))

Maybe they went for sauna in Caracas, too. NEM's representative in Venezuela during the NEM global tour was a Russian guy Misha Granin. Check out his insta https://www.instagram.com/p/BegoeFugCZ_/
" Venezuela makes sure that you smile". Well, I hope Venezuelans smile at a pathetic attempt of their government to fraud them with all the El Petro bullshit

Dude you are always getting mad when I talk about your beloved government, you are the one who is pathetic you can never recognize when the Maduro government is wrong, they never respected the whitepaper so just stop it, I know you read me all the time and you see that I am most of the time well informed let me add I am even better informed than you are , I invested in Petro because I believed the government was serious about the Petro, I can confirm that they are not it's just a trial to them...Instead of insulting people come with facts and if you have valuable infos defending my accusations expose them, you are such a kiss ass when it comes to Venezuela government...

Tell me when the pre sale was officially concluded and when the public sale started ? Nobody knows dummy...


Basic conditions
Pre - Sell
Initial Offer
INITIAL OFFER OF THE CRYPTOASSET
Total emission: 100.000.000
Tokens available: 38.400.000
Reference Selling Price: USD 6026,27
Start date and time: February 20, 2018 at 08:30 a.m. (Venezuela time, -04:00 GMT).
Closure date and time: March 19, 2018 at 23:59:59 p.m. (Venezuela time, -04:00 GMT).
Total Petro available for sale: 44,000,000
Reference Selling Price: USD 60*
Start date and time: March 20, 2018 at 08:30 a.m. (Venezuela time, -04:00 GMT)
Closure date and time: Until the Petros of the first emission are exhausted

Just a little connection...