[PRE-SALE][ICO] Petro $PTR - Oil backed crypto currency launched by Venezuela

[taseenb]

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

https://i.imgur.com/TWn7Gh9.jpg


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

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/972177897023619072/GQcJ0OVR_400x400.jpg

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):

https://i.imgur.com/SrBMxaL.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/JzCyv7t.jpg

(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!

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[taseenb]

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.

[taseenb]

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.

[alemacgo]

1. This is a bad investment. As the OP acknowledged, the government will not give you oil for your petros, but bolivars. The same bolivars that has experienced some 3000% inflation because the government can't print enough of it.

2. This is an immoral investment. I'm Venezuelan and am appalled at the fact that some in the crypto community appear to be taking the word of a totalitarian dictator and helping him fund the oppression of my fellow citizens. Venezuelans are starving because of Maduro's policies, and know that if you buy the petro, Venezuelans will pay with their lives.

For those that think that this can be an opportunity to shift the economy around, the government has been in power for 20 years, and all they've done is leave us poor and hungry. They show no signs of wanting to change, opening up society or the economy. After total control of our oil, of our private industries, and of the narco trade, the Venezuelan government is desperate for funding and wants to scam foreign investors like yourselves using this cryptoasset.

The government also routinely threatens and mistreats the petro developers after they were naive enough to think they could create a truly decentralized coin for Venezuelans. A few friends are in hiding, some others have been beaten up and had their Bitcoin mining equipment stolen.

Don't take it from me, though, take it from a Bitcoin Core dev: https://twitter.com/jmcorgan/status/965960864552534017
Or from Vitalik: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/966308397103570944

Do not fund hunger and death.

Thank you.

[taseenb]

Do not fund hunger and death.

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.

[taseenb]

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 ?

[coinve]

as taseenb said, the political polemic should stay out.
if you don't like the venezuelan government, just don't buy petros and forget about it.
nobody is pushing you to buy petros.
there are others coins you can buy.
it's just simple logic.

The registration for the first pre-sale started on Feb. 20 at -04:00 UTC and ends at Mar. 19 at -04:00 UTC.
At the current stage of the pre-sale you cannot buy Petros ($PTR), you can only make an offer (minimum and maximum amount you'd want to buy).

taseenb is right.
right know it's just an offer to buy.
there are not petros or transactions in a blockchain at the moment.

if you want to offer, this is the only web site: http://elpetro.gob.ve/
it is .gob with the letter "B" from the spanish word "gobierno" (government in english).
.ve = venezuela.
anything else is scam.

if you don't want to deal with the venezuelan government bureaucracy and their issues.
just fucking wait for "exchanges" selling petros.

stay tuned for more news.

[rme]

This is an obvious scam, the PTR is not reedemable and all exchanges must be registered with the dictatorship. (Read more here http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/docs/MANUAL%20CASA%20INTERCAMBIO.pdf)

[coinve]

This is an obvious scam, the PTR is not reedemable

¿how do you know it? ¿did you already try to redeem it? ¿why redeem it when you can sell it?
¿is the BTC reedemable? ¿BTC scam too?

and all exchanges must be registered with the dictatorship.

that's only for the exchanges in venezuela.
if you know spanish, in the first page says:
"para las casas de intercambio de criptomoneda en venezuela"
for the cryptocurrency exchanges in venezuela.

BTC is not reedemable.
BTC is fiat digital currency backed by nothing.
SCAM ALERT.

[cbair3]

I can't imagine why anyone would invest in the Petro unless it's to make some pro-Maduro political statement.  There are too many good opportunities out there.  Problems with this coin include:

(1) The Maduro regime says the Petro "backed by oil" and that claim is being repeated by those following the story, but there is no official communication on how that backing works.  There seems to be a perception that one Petro will be equal to one barrel of crude oil, but I can't find anything from the Venezuelan government that explicitly makes that commitment.  In fact, there is a formula in the white paper for the redemption value in Bolivares and that equation has a "Dv" discount factor that is set by the Venezuelan government.  In other words, they set the value of the Petro.  To actually back the Petro in oil it must be directly redeemable.  Not necessarily by individual investors, but as an example - if China were buying 1mm barrels of crude oil from Venezuela and paying in Petros, the price should be 1mm Petros.  There is no document that makes that commitment.

(2) Even if the Maduro regime made a commitment to redeem the Petro for oil, who would hold them accountable?  Their typical pattern would be to start off with a commitment like that and then declare some sort of emergency or economic warfare that means they need to devalue the coin.  No matter what you think about the politics and the truth behind those stories, the fact of the matter will be that the Petro gets devalued and investors lose money.

(3) The idea is that the Petro will be issued on its own blockchain, but that blockchain does not yet exist and there are no technical details available about its design.  What is being sold now is a token on another blockchain.  (See my next point for the problems with that.) What we do know from the white paper is that it won't be mineable - the government issues all the coins.  They say that the supply will be capped, but until they show us code that locks them in to a fixed supply there is no reason to believe that.  Also, if it is not mineable and it will only allow for proof-of-stake at the discretion of the Venezuelan government, what will be the incentive to run nodes?  If the Petro can't attract a critical mass of independent node operators around the globe then it won't be a true decentralized cryptocurrency.

(4) The Petro website and white paper both specifically said that the token would be issued on the Ethereum blockchain.  Then, the day of the resale it was announced that it would instead be on the NEM blockchain.  At that point the white paper and website still said Ethereum.  (They have now updated things.)  I'm no expert on the technology, but going from one blockchain to another for your tokens is not something you just switch last-minute.  The NEM plan was in place for some time in advance for reasons unknown and unexplained.  It's a clear example of the lack of transparency around this cryptocurrency.

(5) This coin is brought to you by the same team that manages the Bolivar which has collapsed in value.  You can debate whose fault that is all you want, but the fact of the matter is that if you have been holding Bolivars for the past few years your investment is now near-worthless.  Since the Petro is not really backed by hard assets and the regime has explicitly stated that they will set it's value (in the white paper) there is no reason to think that its value will hold any better.  For more of my thoughts on the Maduro regime's money management skills, see:

http://bair.com/2018/02/12/the-venezuelan-bolivar-one-reason-im-a-crypto-believer/

I do think that one bit of good may come from this crypto-scam.  Now non-Venezuelans who believe in the Maduro regime can invest in the Petro and experience a little bit of what Venezuelans have suffered for many years.  When people start losing their money, it may start to change some minds.
 
I obviously have some strong opinions on this given that my wife is from Venezuela.  But, no matter which side of the politics you are on I can't see a rational reason to invest in this coin.  There are many options that are truly decentralized, transparent, and proven.

[taseenb]

“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.

[coinve]

I can't imagine why anyone would invest in the Petro...

Why is everyone investing in bitcoins and others cryptocurrencies backed by nothing?
Did you imagine people investing in bitcoins soon after its release? Where were you in 2009?
In 2009, Did you imagine bitcoin at $20,000?

Petro will be released no matter what you can or can't imagine.
It will be used massively by the venezuelan people as a local currency.

If you don't like Petro, just buy something else.
Simple fucking logic.

------------

A message to U.S. citizens reading this:

Please don't buy Petros or anything from Venezuela.
You could be sanctioned by the U.S. dictatorship.
That's the "liberty" you have.
The venezuelan people are "very glad" by the sanctions imposed arbitrary
and violating all the internacional laws by your fascist and racist authoritarian corporate dictatorship.
That's the main reason by the venezuelan goverment is creating its own cryptocurrency and legalizing cryptocurrencies in Venezuela.
To counter the financial blockade imposed by the U.S. dictatorship.
So, thanks for that.

[taseenb]

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.

[wilberthh]

The rumor has it that this is not a cryptocurrencies at all because the price is controlled by the government, so supply and demand thing doesn't really matter here (basically this is a centralized stuff). And it's quite confusing as well, because according to this website : http://theconversation.com/dont-be-fooled-venezuelas-petro-is-not-really-a-cryptocurrency-92310 , it says that this "cryptocurrency" has raised over $735 millions in just one day! so, which one is true? or the sale is just not yet open to public yet?

[taseenb]

So, if you don't like Petro, wait for PetroGold.
If you don't like PetroGold, just buy something else.
Simple fucking logic.

Sounds pretty good

[taseenb]

The rumor has it that this is not a cryptocurrencies at all because the price is controlled by the government, so supply and demand thing doesn't really matter here (basically this is a centralized stuff). And it's quite confusing as well, because according to this website : http://theconversation.com/dont-be-fooled-venezuelas-petro-is-not-really-a-cryptocurrency-92310 , it says that this "cryptocurrency" has raised over $735 millions in just one day! so, which one is true? or the sale is just not yet open to public yet?

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.

[Kujokin]

I would think this is a straight out money scam. Really a sad day for crypto.

[cbair3]

I can't imagine why anyone would invest in the Petro...

Why is everyone investing in bitcoins and others fiat cryptocurrencies backed by nothing?

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other successful cryptocurrencies are backed by open source code that defines a controlled money supply, distributed via proof-of-work or proof-of-stake, to the nodes that support the network.  They represent digital scarcity that is controlled by code, not by people. The current Petro is a token on NEM with the supply entirely controlled by the Venezuelan government.  There is a promise to move to it's own blockchain, but there are no details available about that blockchain.

If you like the Maduro dictatorship and believe their promises, I recommend you buy as much Petro as you can possibly afford.  Then, I suggest you save up and buy as much of their gold "backed" coin as you can as well.  You will get the same reward as all Venezuelans have - both Chavista and opposition.

[taseenb]

If you like the Maduro dictatorship

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.

[coinve]

The rumor has it that this is not a cryptocurrencies at all...

¿Petro will be "crypto"? (transactions encrypted, anonymous...)
i don't know.
If this worry you, just wait until it's more clear.

¿Petro will be a "currency"?
at least for the venezuelan people, yes.
a local currency.

after being released, some "international exchanges" will be starting selling it.
¿how the Petro will be centralized? ¿centralized what? ¿its blockchain?
¿how the venezuelan goverment will centralized "international exchanges"?
¿what's your worry? ¿that the venezuelan government fuck it up after selling all the petros?
then just wait until it's more clear.

it says that this "cryptocurrency" has raised over $735 millions in just one day! so, which one is true? or the sale is just not yet open to public yet?

as far as i know, it's a "offer to buy".
no money, no tokens, no petros, no transactions in a blockchain, no blockchain, no nothing at the moment.
just a legal document saying how many petros do you want to buy and how you will pay.
¿is it clear now?