this is what Petro (Venezuela) is about - coercion and robbery

[bitmover]

Venezuela Forcibly Converts Pensions into Petro


The nasty surprise is that those waiting for their pension payments in December got an email message with the description of “Saving in petro.”

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What this means is that the government decided to convert the pension payments into the Petro cryptocurrency. This was done without any prior notice or the consent of the people receiving the pensions.

Senior citizens who get a pension now have to navigate through the carnet de la patria system and find the process that allows them to convert the Petro into bolivars and then send the fiat to a local bank. (This is necessary as you can’t use the Petro for anything currently.) Needless to say, the site does everything possible make this as hard as it can be.

Compounding the issue is that people who had not signed up to be part of the carnet de la patria system found their pensions converted. This means that they have to create an account and deal with the official government website in order to access the funds they’re entitled to.
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Centralizing cryptocurrency just allows a despotic government to fully control the monetary decisions a citizen can make. With just the flip of a switch, Venezuela could stop all access to controlled accounts, thus leaving the average person high and dry without any means to procure funds.

The socialist policies of President Nicolás Maduro, following in the footsteps of Chavez, continues to bring misery to the country’s populace. Basic food items, medicine, and fuel are almost impossible to get. Inflation is so rampant that the government literally lopped off five zeroes from the bolivar. In 2017 alone, the average Venezuelan lost 19 pounds due to the dire economic situation and lack of foodstuffs.
https://bitcoinerx.com/altcoin/venezuela-forcibly-converts-pensions-into-petro/

Imagine being forced to convert your life savings in a centralized shitcoin created by a corrupt socialist dictator.

When we think things cannot get worse....

In a few days Bolsonaro, the elected President of Brazil (conservative biased), is going to become president. Russia sent weapons and bombers to Venezuela last week. Coincidence?

I hope the ascension of right wing politicians in the Continent will weaken this craziness in Venezuela.

[Jet Cash]

It looks as if Dash is becoming the crypto for Venezuela. I'm getting tempted, but I haven't read much about it.

[bitart]

They already use bitcoin and the other major cryptocurrencies, so it's understandable that they accept DASH. DASH is still better than their state owned centralized crypto, way better...

[The Sceptical Chymist]

They already use bitcoin and the other major cryptocurrencies, so it's understandable that they accept DASH. DASH is still better than their state owned centralized crypto, way better...

Yeah, depending on how stable Dash (or any other crypto) behaves, it'd be great.  If there was a cryptocurrency stable enough, what would be even better would be if employers paid their workers in crypto and merchants priced their items in terms of crypto instead of the bolivar or whatever they're currently doing. 

I heard the US dollar is pretty popular in Venezuela right now, too, and that makes way more sense than holding something like bitcoin or Dash as a currency--and I hate to say that, but you can easily lose purchasing power while it's sitting in your wallet unspent.  It could gain too, but it's more of a gamble than owning USD at the moment.

I feel bad for that entire country.  Being forced by the government to adopt that petro currency is just another slap in the face to the populace, and they've already suffered too much under the rule of Maduro.  It's no wonder people are border-hopping as fast as they can.