Petro dump incoming!
He does that as a help to the citizens but i don't think that this is going to happen, due to the fact that everyone is going to sell it and buy food or dollars. We know the story with the airdrops.
The coin is meant to be "stable" as far as I can tell. It's basically backed by oil, so it probably moves along with the price of crude oil or something.
The most important in my opinion is for the coin to be run as typical cryptocurrency otherwise it can't be valued much internationally.
It has to be transparently ran. It has to be immutable, censorship resistant and permissionless.
If it end up working within the country it could work outside as well. The government just needs to avoid running the coin itself. It should be ran by the people especially by the creative and innovative ones in the country.
Transparency: It is know by rumor and superficial analysis, that they copied Dash code and made unknown changes. While they are required by Venezuelan law, they did not release the source code with the changes. In case you didn't notice, the judicial and legislative branches here are a bad joke. And they have publicly stated everything else is like a child to the executive, who is "father" (this is not a joke, they did proclaim that).
Immutable: The coin has suffered at least 3 complete remakes. Not only are they able to change rules on the fly, they have already dumped the project entirely and started from scratch. In fact they contradict themselves, they claim something, and later its completely different. Without the code it is unknown, but very likely they can undo transactions and generate as many coins as they want.
Censorship: They did not release wallets. There is only a single online wallet, in a server stored in the country. Of course if you live in another country, blocking access to this single server is trivial. Also, they did not release the software for running nodes, what few nodes they have, according to rumor running in a single data center, should be trivial to block as well.
Permisionless: The equivalent of KYC is an absolute requirement. If you do what they say, you will get a single online wallet absolutely tied to the ID you gave. I think you also get a single address too. Of course if you lose the ability to login there, you lose your money. They do have the power to ban you or restrict you at anytime without notice, and you have no choice but to try and complain in person at their institution in Caracas, where you will enjoy a bureaucratic experience, to say the least...
If you want to learn what makes a crypto fail, look no further, petro it is.
When you own a petro, you do not own an oil barrel. You get a "promise" from the Venezuelan government that its backed with it. There is no way to audit that, they might as well promise you moon rocks, because you are never going to see any oil barrels. Not unlike the Tulips...
"Crypto" backed in "anything" lies in a promise made by the individuals or organization that promotes it. Be it "stable" coins, "fiat" or any other assets. Its pure words and no substance. In fact its worse, because some people "believe" in this lie. At least with Bitcoin, you get the truth upfront, no surprises.
And yes this is the same people that made the world's currently worst hyperinflation. They went for crypto because they discovered they could do worse with virtual currency than pesky printing fiat money. At least they don't need to spend money to print banknotes anymore...
Even if they gave 100 petros to everyone, it wouldn't make a difference. But they try to keep appearances, as that has always been their game: the facade for the outside, the facade for the inside. Just don't ask what lies in between those.
The 30$ would be the theoretical value. The petro is exchanged at an official rate, that oscillates inside some bands. Their official page currently says 1 petro is VES: 2863728.64 which is probably close to what you get if you use their official exchange, that means currently half a petro is around 29$. But when you exchange person to person, the value is much lower, or if a merchant is willing to accept it. US dollars are trusted far more than petros in Venezuela. You read that right, that's the sad truth.
And now that Maduro is dumping, the price will likely go even lower outside the official channels, which are restricted and encumbered as usual; if you know how a monetary exchange restricted by bands works, it means they can halt transactions for the day, and in the dirty variation the State itself buys/sells like a whale to influence the market (burning reserves). I don't know what they do in case of petro, but they have full centralized control of both their fiat and their own crypto and this cannot be good.
The "common" folk doesn't know "petros" nor wants them (because they can't use them), so they will be sold even cheaper. Some will buy them and resell them again a bit higher, rinse and repeat. Something like that occurs in Localbitcoins, as there is a path of exchange petros into bitcoin and ves which gets exploited endlessly by those with the capital to do so.
No matter where you look it stinks. The system gives you the sickness and sells you the medicine, that only half works so you get to buy it again and again while you can only get sicker and sicker.
This is how the purchasing power of workers in Venezuela went from 250 USD a month to 2 in the span of less than 10 years, and how those responsible for the crime continue the destruction of what little is left of the economy. And the worst thing is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, its pitch dark...
