Pre-sale just started on the 20th February. You cannot buy yet, only make an offer (how much you'd like to buy during the ICO, at a discounted price). The technology is still under development, so things can still change. We'll know more towards the end of March or early April. So stay tuned.

Most negative things you hear mirror US and EU media negative propaganda: hostility against Venezuela is very strong because their government is not enslaved and they have a lot of oil. Be careful, only rely on official information from Venezuelan government sources if you decide to buy (there are many fakes already).

Yes, you can trust Maduro. But Maduro is a chief of State, not a technician. So you should listen his generic declarations about the project, don't expect specific technical details.
He declared that investors offered more than 750 millions dollars in 24h from the pre-sale launch, which is quite possible since they're offering 40% discount on the oil price. The initial investments in Petro will be much higher than that, likely.

You can make an offer saying how much Petro would you like to buy on the official pre-sale page (after registration): https://regpetro.mppeuct.gob.ve/

El Pais is a propaganda tool of coup plotters and have supported violence and terrorism (when it serves their interests), it has always been. The have been publishing fake news and negative propaganda against Venezuela, every day, for 20 years. Venezuela is a democracy, where parties can participate in elections and people can vote.

The money supply increased because of the fabricated exchange rate (USD / Bolivar) imposed through the black market and DolarToday (https://dolartoday.com/), a website based in Cucuta and Miami. The Central Bank was forced to increase the supply, because the inflation skyrocketed.

If you try to apply a common logic to the economic crisis in Venezuela, you would find that it doesn't work. Venezuela does not have a "normal" recession.  Venezuela goes through an economic war that was triggered by the collapse of oil prices in 2014 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_oil_glut).

I agree, but I understand that before committing the government must have solid reserves of crypto. They simply don't have that at the moment (no government in the world does, and this is something very innovative too). As i said, I believe this is something they can change later, either after the ICO or even in the next months or years.

Exactly. The price of a Venezuelan oil barrel is supposed to be the base price, not necessarily the price the Petro will reach while freely exchanged and traded. This was confirmed in several comments, even by Maduro.

As for the exchange you won't get oil, obviously. You will get the official value of the oil barrel, in Bolivares. In my opinion this is potentially going to change in the future if the government decides to create more confidence: they could extend the exchange to other cryptos, instead of only Bolivares which would be hard to actually use outside of Venezuela. But they need first to create a national reserve of cryptos to support that option. That could already be the case after the ICO.

That phrase is copied from the White Paper. You are wrong, $PTR is backed by oil assets and will be exchanged by its value in Bolivares. The mechanism is not in place yet, simply because the Petro is not even active yet.

Petro: success or fail

Let's play this game. Many followers of the US empire hope the Petro will fail. Their hatred is all over the place, well supported by mainstream media war propaganda and fake news. But many others, like me, really hope it's a success.
Who dares to face the threats of the US empire? Few dare. Venezuela is one of them. A dissident Latin American country with only 30 million people, rich in oil and natural resources, but historically poor, Venezuela had been treated as a colony by the US for more than a century, before Chavez won in 1998 and became President. After a US backed coup in 2002, they still need to fight for their sovereignty and independence, at a great price. Several illegal US "sanctions" are currently active to stop US dollars from reaching Venezuela, making it very hard to trade and import goods. Sanctions have a single goal: starve the country in order to overthrow the current (elected) government through a coup or even a war. The Petro ($PTR) has a huge potential and could actually help Venezuela. But it all depends on many factors. So, why would the Petro succeed or fail?


Success

• Mass adoption -
  Petro is the first State-issued crypto asset. The State will accept payments for taxes, fees, contributions, public services in Petros and other cryptos. If even a decent number of the 30 million Venezuelans manage to get Petros or the government manages to pay public employees in Petros, this could stimulate the private sector to adopt the crypto asset too. It would be the most used crypto in the world, and this could happen relatively quickly.
  
  
• Big numbers -
  Venezuelan oil exports amount to 8 billion US dollars a year now, but before the oil crisis it was around 25 billions. Petro was introduced to fight the US blockade that makes oil trade in US dollars and with US companies and banks almost impossible. By negotiating the adoption of Petro with trade partners around the world, Venezuelans could collect large amounts of fiat and crypto currency during the ICO. But the Petro could also become a massively valuable asset for oil international trades (and also gold, diamonds, other metals and goods).
  
  
• Crypto reserves -
  Petro does not come alone. The Venezuelan government started a large scale operation to collect crypto currencies and use them as national reserve: not only they will accept Bitcoins and Ethereum for taxes and public services, they are also regulating the miners and the use of crypto in the national economy, they are creating State owned mining factories around the country and they’re even creating crypto trading courses to form young people to trade crypto online! Most of these initiatives are done in the universities and led by young workers and students.
  
  

Fail

• ICO failure -
  The negative propaganda around the Petro in the crypto community reflects the mainstream media propaganda on Venezuela. It is unlikely that many people in the US and Europe will invest in Petro during the ICO stage, but the rest of the world, including companies and people in countries like China, Russia, India, Brazil and many others could be extremely interested. This will be a huge stress test for the Petro and a serious failure could make the project unsustainable, mostly because 45% of the ICO money is supposed to support the development. If money is not enough, it is unlikely that the Petro will thrive.
  
  
• Technical failure -
  Venezuela is the first country to create a sovereign crypto asset, it has never been done before. The technical challenge is huge, in terms of organisation, management, security. They need considerable resources to make sure they can afford a sustained development of the Petro network with the most talented and experienced minds they can get: at the moment of the launch, a Venezuelan and a Russian company have been publicly introduced as the two main technical assets for the project.
  
  
• US sabotage, terrorism, coup or war -
  Both Iraq and Libya wars were motivated by the decision of their governments to get rid of the US dollar, more than anything else. Those countries have been totally destroyed, millions have died. Times have changed in the last years with China and Russia unhappy with US imperial overreach. The US are an oversized empire, always more violent and with a disproportionate arsenal, but also struggling with too many challenges. Some analysts say it is unlikely that the US will start a hot war in South America, but many think Colombia is their military proxy, mostly because of the large number of Colombian paramilitaries always active at the border with Venezuela. Venezuela has many big friends, but far away: if the US manage to destabilise Venezuela to a point where the institutions collapse, the Petro will likely fail. And it would be a bloodshed.
  
  

Check my article on Medium: https://medium.com/@taseenb/petro-success-or-fail-be0bd38930a1

They launched the pre-sale stage on February 20th, and it should last until March 19th. You can already register and declare how much you want to buy, but you cannot buy yet. For updates, keep reading here or in the official page: http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/index-en.html

FYI Venezuela is a democracy where people can vote and be candidates. Maduro was elected in 2013, even if by a small margin. He's the constitutional president of the country, not a dictator.

Next Presidential election is on 22nd April, 2018, very soon.

The Petro hasn't "raised $735 millions": this was a statement Maduro did 2 days ago, referring to the pre-sale offers. If that figure was accurate, it should be even higher now. Pre-sale offers are only declarations of intentions (offers), that you and I can do simply by registering here: http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/ I did it. The next phase will involve the actual payment and delivery of tokens.

The Petro is supposed to be a cryptocurrency based on the Ethereum blockchain: ie. an Ethereum token that you can manage with any Ethereum wallet. Therefore, yes: the Petro is a cryptocurrency. Is it centralised? It is only as much as any other Ethereum token out there.

Sounds pretty good

Venezuela + oil + US propaganda = hysteria

Let's forget for a moment the Petro and the current economic crisis in Venezuela. Let's see some FACTS:

• Venezuela has a strongly democratic Constitution and is a liberal democracy.
• Their electoral system, introduced in early 2000s, was defined by US ex-president Jimmy Carter "the best in the world" (Carter was an international observer during elections in dozens of countries).
• Private property is protected under the law, exactly like in any other liberal democracy.
• Private media (that includes several TV channels, newspapers and websites) are mostly controlled by the opposition.
• In Venezuela you have debates defining Maduro a dictator and the government a "regime" on TV, every day.
• They have dozens of political parties: some belong to the government coalition, some are opposition parties. All of them can (obviously) participate in free, secret, universal elections.
• Venezuela guarantees the right to demonstrate and protest, free speech and press freedom are protected by the law.
• Only in the last year Venezuela held 3 different elections: Constituent Assembly, Mayors and Governors.
• On April 22nd, 2018, Venezuela will have the Presidential Election and the electoral campaign has already started.
• If you like McDonalds or Burger King, you can find them in Caracas.
• You can actually find any other major multinational brand and, among them, many US companies operating in Venezuela.

Therefore Venezuela is definitely not a "communist dictatorship", not even close.
Venezuela is a liberal democracy with elected governments that the US have tried to overthrow (undemocratically) for 20 years.

Many people fail to analyse Venezuelan political and economic situation, without falling for narratives that are unsupported by facts. I can't blame them. Some of them have no idea but repeat what they heard. Some are influenced by 20 years of massive propaganda by the US funded opposition and the US. A minority (mostly middle and upper class Venezuelans) have reasons to think that their privileges and interests are not supported, as they've always been, under Chavez and Maduro. And last but not least, radical anti-socialists or fascists of the world developed a biased judgement based on their ideology and hatred towards anything that uses the word "socialism".

The guy whose wife is Venezuelan (cbair3) admits he has "strong opinions" for that reason. Sure, middle class Venezuelans (mostly white) grew up in an environment of toxic propaganda (and sometimes outright racism), mostly after Chavez was first elected. Many middle class Venezuelans dream to be a sort of American surrogate, and they are: they idolise the model of the masters (the de-facto rulers of the country for a century), dreaming a life of consumption that the vast majority of Venezuelans cannot even afford to imagine. This happens in all Latin American countries and represents a major effect of US imperial power over the continent.

We see this power reflected in the anti-chavista propaganda that you can find on a daily basis on all major TV networks and news outlets. rme's post is one in a million: you can find tons of posts like that in social media. Why? Where do the lies and hysteria come from? Why people hate so much the government of Venezuela and not, let's say, the government of Colombia, where life conditions for millions are catastrophic and political assassinations a daily reality? Very simple: Colombia has a puppet government controlled by the US and is militarily occupied by the US with several military bases, so everything's "fine" in Colombia (despite 5 decades of civil war, tens of thousands of deaths, death squads, paramilitaries violence, massive drug trade, massive political assassinations etc).

I let you analyse the news on Venezuela that you can find on CNN, BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post and so on, in the last 20 years. And then compare all that with what actually happened in Venezuela in the last 20 years, by only relying on the facts. Take your time.

“The pre-sale token will not be part of the Petro network until Petro distribution during the Initial Offer process. The token may be exchanged for Petro at any time between the launch date and the closing of the Initial Offer.” (from the White Paper)

Question for someone who knows how the NEM blockchain works: could  that mean that the Petro will be an Ethereum token, but the ICO will be made  through the NEM blockchain? Ie. the NEM token will then be exchanged for Petros when the Petro network will be ready.

Political context

A few notes about the recent history of Venezuela and its relations with the US. Most people (mostly people in crypto) know very little about South America and politics in general, so their comments tend to be improvisations inspired by what they see on TV or read on the US mainstream press (massively biased). Sorry for the poor English.

From 1998 to 2013:
- Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserve on the planet, and one of the largest reserves in gold, diamond and other metals.
- The US have a huge interest in Venezuelan resources, in particular Exxon Mobil (the company Rex Tillerson was CEO when Chavez became president of Venezuela, before becoming Trump's Secretary of State).
- Chavez first won elections in 1998 and then won elections until his death in 2013. He radically changed Venezuela, from a de-facto US colony with US puppet governments to a country with sovereign and independent policies. Chavez raised the fees for the oil companies operating in Venezuela and invested heavily in social development. The US (in particular Exxon Mobil) did not like it. All oil companies accepted the new conditions, except Exxon Mobil that decided to leave the country (losing a lot of money).
- In 2002 the US organised a military coup to overthrow the constitutional government of Chavez. The military arrested Chavez, dissolved the Congress, dissolved the Supreme Court, put a millionaire as non-elected President, starting a military dictatorship. Several people were killed by snipers in the process.
- Millions of people went on the streets to protest and part of loyal military managed to take the presidential palace, bringing Chavez back after few days. The coup had failed.
- Since then, the relations between Venezuela and US were very delicate. The US had imported oil from Venezuela for a century and Venezuela has always been very happy to sell its oil to the US and still was.
- The US still keep supporting people and movements of the Venezuelan opposition (many of them were involved in the coup) with millions of dollars. The US keep meddling and sabotaging the political process, in every way possible.
- Because of the violent hostility of the US and to avoid frauds (that were normal before Chavez), Chavez's Venezuela developed one of the most advanced and transparent electronic electoral systems in the world in early 2000s. All elections involve hundreds of international observers. Jimmy Carter, ex-US President, participated as observer in dozens of countries and declared that the Venezuelan electoral system was the best they had ever audited.
- Despite years of hostile propaganda on US media about Chavez and Venezuela (filled with a caricature of Chavez, described as a dictator without any fact supporting that), Venezuela and US companies kept trading without any major problem until 2014.

From 2013 until today:
- 2014 marks an historic collapse in oil prices: oil price had been over 100 USD for a decade and it fell to 30-40 USD in a matter of days.
- Despite all efforts to diversify the economy, Venezuela suffered for more than a century of a strong dependency on oil export.
- Oil export represented about 90% of the total Venezuelan exports in USD and about a 15-20% of its GDP.
- In 2014-2015, with the oil price collapse, Venezuela lost more than 15% of its GDP, entering in an economic crisis.
- Maduro was elected president in 2013 and won by a small margin (he was much less popular than Chavez), he was new and still unexperienced as a President, despite his long experience in the institutions, as President of the National Assembly and Foreign Minister with Chavez for many years.
- In order to exploit the weakness, Obama formally declared Venezuela a "threat for the US" in 2015. There was obviously no threat against the largest military and economic power on the planet, but that formula allowed his administration to apply "sanctions". Sanctions, as applied by the US, are completely illegal, according to the international law.
- The weakened Venezuelan economy was hammered by a strong inflation, partly due to the loss in value of the Bolivar, partly the result of a fabricated black exchange market defined through websites managed in Miami and Cucuta (Colombia).
- A massive attrition war and series of PSYOPs started in 2013-2014 (something the US applied hundreds of times in many South American countries): it's a mix of actions coordinated by Venezuelan opposition parties, some violent gangs (called "guarimbas") and terrorism funded by opposition leaders, US and Venezuelan private media propaganda, some Venezuelan private companies owned by people close to the opposition, whose representative are mostly millionaires and wealthy families.
- In this context, Venezuela started having problems in getting payments in US dollars: US banks (that control transactions through the SWIFT system) often blocked transactions and made payments difficult. This made it always more complicated for Venezuela to get US dollars to import goods, even medicines and food.
- On top of the real economic crisis, some Venezuelan companies started to participate in the sabotage by disrupting the distribution of some essential goods: you could find napkins but not toilet paper, you can find cookies but not flour, etc.
- Maduro was suffering from his political weakness that led the opposition to win the legislative elections in December 2015.
- Despite several efforts to start programs to support the population in need, the situation was complicated further by the institutional conflict between the Supreme Court and the National Assembly, because of 4 irregular deputies being nominated.
- In 2017 amid a series of peaceful protests, the most violent opposition funded gangs (called "guarimbas") start to kill and destroy with the clear goal of transforming the crisis in total chaos. The "Truth" commission reports that 176 people were killed in those violent 5 months, more than a half were not participants of the protests, most of them were killed by opposition gangs or accidents provoked by them, while blocking roads, burning cars and destroying things. 9 people were burned alive, some were lynched, some electrocuted, some killed with fire arms, about 20 belonged to security forces.
- The international media only reports stories and images that were supposed to show a terrible repression, while the Venezuelan government (also aware of the international media pressure) actually tried to contain the violence minimising the victims and only using tear gas, or rubber bullets in the worst cases. It is likely that a similar level of violence (which was created by groups of hundreds of young men armed with a mix of bats, firearms, bombs, home made bazookas, molotovs) would have produced a much worse bloodbath in any other country, certainly in a country with a militarised police like the US.
- Maduro decides to call for a new election of the Constituent Assembly, as defined by the Constitution, that would have higher powers than any other institution (including the government) and be able to legislate and finally solve the institutional conflict with the National Assembly. It would also represent a democratic way to get out from the impasse.
- Maduro's decision was very smart, probably his last chance, because it forced the opposition to throw the mask and exposed their game.
- The opposition, supported by the US and international media, started a campaign to delegitimise the election, claiming (falsely) that it was unconstitutional.
- The US and the opposition went literally crazy after Maduro's decision to call the elections. They were in a very complicated position: they would have to prepare for a democratic election, but they had just told their people that there was no democracy and the only thing to do was to take the streets to overthrow the government. There was no political program whatsoever, only a promise. Many believed it, also thanks to the media that was feeding them with many lies and hatred: violence skyrocketed. Gangs and terrorist attacks continued on a daily basis until the 30th of July, election day, disrupting the everyday life for millions of Venezuelas. The opposition did not register a single candidate, but their subversive strategy failed miserably, leaving dozens of dead people behind, losing the support of many who've witnessed the violence and the destruction, while the media kept accusing the government of every death and the whole violence.
- The Constituent Assembly got elected and was composed only by the candidates of the government parties, the opposition was absent.
- The large participation in the election represented a major victory for Maduro. Despite the opposition placing bombs, destroying or burning dozens of electoral centres, threatening voters, even killing 2 chavista candidates on election day, 8 million people managed to vote that day.
- Immediately after the election Trump imposes new sanctions, that makes it almost impossible to trade with the US.
- The violence quickly fades after the election because of the total defeat of the opposition. The Constituent Assembly literally brings the Peace, as Maduro repeats over and over again, reassuring millions of people terrorised and angry after months of guarimbas. In the following local elections, Maduro's forces get another victory in most of the States and cities, also because of the divisions within the opposition, whose supporters are now confused on the strategy to follow: terrorism, coups or democracy.
- In the last months of 2017, Maduro manages to stop the subversion and fights back with the promise of peace and recovery, winning 3 elections in quick succession and earning an unexpected, very strong political position.

Trump sanctions are the main reason why the Venezuelan government decided to create the Petro ($PTR), a way to give the Venezuelan people an anti-inflationary currency (independent from the dollar) that would also allow them to trade regardless US sanctions and US banks blockade.


Democracy in Venezuela: the elections in the last years

2013 April - Presidential Election: after Chavez death in March, elections are anticipated and Maduro wins by a small margin against millionaire Capriles
2015 December - National Assembly Election: the opposition coalition wins and gets the majority in the National Assembly
2017 July - Constituent Assembly Election: the opposition refuses to participate and the chavista forces win and get 100% of the seats
2017 October - Mayors Election: first election after several months of violence in the streets, chavista forces win in about 60% of the cities. The opposition strategy has failed
2017 December - State Governors Election: chavista forces win most of the States but lose a couple of important states like Tachira (at the border with Colombia, where the smuggling crime happens)

NEXT ELECTION: 2018 April - Presidential Election: Maduro vs ?

It's quite tiring to read the spam and the political propaganda from hysterical supporters of the Venezuelan opposition everywhere, trying to smear everything the Venezuelan government does, no matter what (with a good deal of help and convenient lies from the US and European mainstream media). Anyway, this is a discussion about the Petro currency. The irrelevant parts of the political polemic should stay out.

Pre-sale update

The pre-sale is finally working!

I received a second email (in Spanish) saying that my registration was successful and a link, that should be something like: https://regpetro.mppeuct.gob.ve/aplicacion/[code here]
Image: https://image.ibb.co/hewWnc/petro_mail_confirmation.jpg

You land on a page entitled "OFERTA" (OFFER in Spanish) with a form with the following options to make your offer:

• Tipo de moneda (type of currency): crypto or fiat
• Moneda (currency): Dollar, Euro, Yuan (fiat) or Bitcoin, Ethereum (crypto)
• Monto minimo (minimum amount)
• Monto maximo (maximum amount)

Image: https://preview.ibb.co/d3aVfx/petro_buy.jpg

Basically the pre-sale means you cannot buy yet, you can just make an offer. You will be able to buy actual $PTR only in the following stage, when the Petro blockchain and wallets will be ready.


As for me, I made my offer with a minimum and maximum amount that I would like to invest, in Ethereum.

About the value of Petro

Petro’s most important contribution to the crypto assets market and the new digital economy will be the support offered by a sovereign state.
The Petro is a crypto asset backed by oil assets, but what does it mean?
It is expected that the base price of the Petro (its support price) will be 1 Venezuelan barrel of oil (the price is regularly published in the official website of The Ministry of the popular power for Oil).
The government will not pay in oil obviously, but in its value in Bolivares (Venezuelan national currency). The process is still unclear, but there have been rumours that the government could also buy Petros with other cryptos to support confidence.
The Petro will be traded in exchanges around the world so its price will fluctuate on top of the oil barrel. It's unlikely that it'll be lower than the price the Government would pay for it. It will likely go beyond (maybe a lot beyond) the price of a barrel of oil.

Official Venezuelan oil price, updated every day (in Spanish): http://www.mpetromin.gob.ve/portalmenpet/secciones.php?option=view&idS=45
As you can see, from 2018 the Venezuelan oil price is defined in Yuan, not in US dollars. This is due to latest US sanctions that forced Venezuela to trade in other currencies and one of the reasons to create the Petro.

Example
As of today (February 23rd, 2018), the Venezuelan oil barrel is 369,25 Yuan. The official exchange (also published in the Ministry page) is 1 USD = 6,33 Yuan (CNY).

So, the base price of a Petro would be:
1 $PTR >= 369,25 CNY
1 $PTR >= 58,33 USD

The (purely theoretical) market capitalisation of the Petro would be: 100,000,000 * 58,33 USD = 5,833,000,000 USD


Note: this information is based on the White Paper and on generic statements from Venezuelan officials. Beware that statements are not always technically precise, not only because of the technical complexity, but because the Petro is still under a test phase and will not be actually ready before May 2018. Some elements could still change.

Please note:
1) Beware scammers: You can only buy Petros from the official page (see Links below), nobody else can sell Petros (until licensed exchanges will be announced).
2) I have no connection with the Petro project or the Venezuelan government. I am just someone very interested in Venezuelan and Latin American affairs, crypto currencies and blockchain technology. Therefore I am interested in Petro.
3) Venezuela is definitely not a "communist dictatorship", not even close.
Beware propaganda/fake news: Read more: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3006037.msg30999077#msg30999077


Petro (PTR)
The first State-issued cryptoasset




Official links

Official Petro website [SPANISH]: https://www.petro.gob.ve/
Official Petro website [ENGLISH]: https://www.petro.gob.ve/index_eng.html

White paper (ATTENTION: this gets often updated): https://www.petro.gob.ve/whitepaper_eng.html
Petro Wallet: https://www.petro.gob.ve/wallet_eng.html

NEW! REGISTRY EXPLORER: http://explorador.petro.gob.ve/


Official social media accounts



Twitter SPANISH: @cryptopetroes https://twitter.com/cryptopetroes/
Twitter ENGLISH: @cryptopetroen https://twitter.com/cryptopetroen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cryptopetro/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cryptopetro/


Background

What is it?
Petro ($PTR) will be a sovereign crypto asset backed by oil assets and issued by the Venezuelan State.

Venezuela
Venezuela possesses the largest proven reserves of crude oil in the world (300,900,000,000 barrels), as well as great advantages in terms of energy, including an electric system subsidised by the same oil revenues. Therefore Venezuela is the cheapest country to mine Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies (https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/02/21/venezuela-named-cheapest-country-mine-crypto-petro-launched/). With the introduction of Petro, the Venezuelan government is also legalising and regulating the crypto miners in the country (mining was largely practiced but it was formally illegal). The Venezuelan state will accept payments for taxes, fees, contributions, public services and international trade in crypto currencies and Petro, boosting the mass adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain technology
The Petro will be based on the NEM (New Economy Movement) platform. See the White Paper for more details. And read more about NEM: https://nem.io/

Supply
A total of one hundred million (100,000,000) Petro will be issued. The Venezuelan State will not be able to make new emissions of Petro.
82,400,000 tokens will be offered to the market in two stages, a pre-sale and a public ICO. They will be distributed according to the following list:

• 44.0% will be available for the initial public offering of the cryptoasset.
• 38.4% will be available for private sale
• 17.6% will be retained by the Venezuelan Superintendency of Currency and Related Activities (SUPCACVEN)

The Petro launch will be divided into two stages: a Pre-sale and an Initial Coin Offer (ICO)

Pre-sale
This process will allow all people to register and make an offer (in USD, EUR, BTC or ETH).
Tokens available: 38.400.000
Reference Selling Price: USD 60 - discount (approx.)
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).

ICO
Total Petro available for sale: 44,000,000
Reference Selling Price: USD 60 - discount (approx.)
Start date and time: March 20, 2018 at 08:30 a.m. (Venezuela time, -04:00 GMT)  < WE ARE HERE!
Closure date and time: Until the Petros of the first emission are exhausted

Incentives

An incentive system has been designed for investors who purchase Petro on a private sale basis and ICO. From the White Paper (page 21):





(Source: the official Petro white paper)


I will try to keep this thread up to date with the latest information from official sources and invite everybody to do the same. Please, be responsible and avoid spamming or posting unofficial payment instructions!

In this discussion there is a lot of old and incorrect information.


About the Petro $PTR

Petro ICO first pre-sale was launched on February 20th, 2018.
Petro is based on the NEM blockchain (not Ethereum).
100 million Petros are pre-mined.
The official government page of the Petro is: http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/
Petro will be accepted for any payment by the government (including taxes) and by most government owned companies, including the huge oil company PDVSA (for international trade) and the national airline. This means that the Petro will have a very large adoption, virtually from day one. It could be the most used crypto in the world for payments, at least for some time.

The registration for miners in Venezuela (that someone was referring to), actually refers to the process of regulation of existing and future miners for any crypto currency. Venezuela is regulating the crypto market and will accept Petro and other cryptos for tax payments and other services. Venezuela is the cheapest country in the world for miners, because of the low cost of electricity.


About my experience with the Petro ICO so far

I tried to register and after a few hours I received a mail with a link and a code, but it doesn't work. Many other poeple are experiencing the same and reporting in other forums. It is probably just a temporary issue.


After the launch

Anyway, the Petro $PTR is receiving a lot of interest: the official Venezuelan press agency reports that offers and negotiations for $PTR are over 1 Billion dollars after less than 24 hours from launch. You probably won't find this on US or European mainstream media.

http://www.avn.info.ve/contenido/ofertas-y-negociaciones-torno-al-petro-superan-1000-millones