El Petro-lifeline for Venezuela or a lot of noise from nothing?[↻70%]

in #sbdgiveaway7 years ago

Recently, the expanse of the Internet covered an avalanche of news that suffering from the crisis and us sanctions Venezuela raised $735 million on the first day of the presale of the national cryptocurrency El Petro.
Indeed, this event can be considered extraordinary, and there are a number of reasons:
this is the second largest in the history of cryptocurrency presale — so far more managed to collect only Pavel Durov with his ICO messenger Telegram ($850 million);
designed to help Venezuela break out of the oppression of sanctions and economic isolation tokens El Petro were released contrary to the decision of the Parliament;
until now, it is not clear which platform was used to issue tokens — Ethereum (as indicated in the" white paper " of the project) or NEM (as described in the guide for investors on the El Petro website);
given the reputation and "dizzying success" of Nicolas Maduro in running the country, which caused endless mass protests, total poverty and hyperinflation, the project still attracted considerable attention of investors from different countries.
Let's try to understand what is happening, highlighting some interesting points about the El Petro project and gathering interesting opinions of representatives of the crypto community.
The background of the emergence of El Petro
For the first time about plans to launch a "secure oil" of the digital currency El Petro became known in mid-October last year. Then the Venezuelan Central Bank said that the measure is forced and it is due to "insurmountable" hyperinflation.
The government also stated that it was considering various opportunities for mining development. It should be noted that before the local police several times raided to curb the activities of miners of cryptocurrencies, many of which mining was almost the only means for survival.
At the beginning of December 2017, Maduro said that the cryptocurrency provided with oil and other minerals is designed to "strengthen monetary sovereignty, overcome the economic blockade" and help the country move to "new forms of international financing".

A month after the official announcement, the authorities of this Latin American country began to prepare everything necessary to launch the "digital money of the new generation".
So, according to Maduro, more than 860 thousand miners (almost 3% of the population) were interested in the production of El Petro, and their number continues to grow. For those wishing to "help the economy" was introduced mandatory state registration, which, according to the authorities, is designed to provide miners with legal protection and formalize their status.
Also, a regulatory body was created — the General Directorate for cryptocurrency, which was headed by Deputy of the Constituent Assembly Carlos Vargas.
According to various media reports, Maduro decided to "back up" 100 million tokens El Petro 5.3 billion barrels of crude oil (about $267 billion) Ayacucho deposits in one of the basins of the Orinoco river. The Ministry of oil of Venezuela noted that the basis for determining the price of El Petro will be the price of one barrel of crude oil traded in the region of $60.
Soon Maduro ordered the execution of all consular services at the embassies of Venezuela worldwide in El Petro, has approved the proposal, the Venezuelan airlines Association to buy fuel for planes for the cryptocurrency and noted the appropriateness of the use of "kryptonite" when paying for travel services.
After presale it became known that the President ordered a number of Venezuelan companies to use the digital token El Petro for calculations.
Populism, or common sense?
On the first day of presale, the Venezuelan leader published a cascade of tweets about the" victory over the tyranny of the dollar"," strengthening Venezuela's economic sovereignty"," technological revolution"," reducing the gap between rich and poor", as well as the"new economic model".
On Thursday, February 22, Nicolas Maduro said that the interest of foreign investors in transactions with "backed by reserves of oil" Venezuelan cryptocurrency has already exceeded one billion dollars.
"Only one day of sales El Petro collected $735 million Today cryptocurrency is born that can compete with Superman»,

  • Venezuelan President said," fat " hinting at the us dollar.
    Maduro also said that about 292 thousand investors participated in the press. At the same time, 36% of transactions were made in US dollars, 15% — in euros, 18% — in Ethereum cryptocurrency, and 31% — in bitcoin. Crypto-investors from Colombia, Brazil, Japan, China, Palestine, Spain, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines showed interest in the "Savior of Venezuela".

    On Thursday, February 22, Nicolas Maduro said that the interest of foreign investors in transactions with "backed by reserves of oil" Venezuelan cryptocurrency has already exceeded one billion dollars.
    "Only one day of sales El Petro collected $735 million Today cryptocurrency is born that can compete with Superman»,
  • Venezuelan President said," fat " hinting at the us dollar.
    Maduro also said that about 292 thousand investors participated in the press. At the same time, 36% of transactions were made in US dollars, 15% — in euros, 18% — in Ethereum cryptocurrency, and 31% — in bitcoin. Crypto investors from Colombia, Brazil, Japan, China, Palestine, Spain, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines showed interest in the "Savior of Venezuela".

    The enthusiasm of Maduro for the ideas of issuing and promoting a "competitor to the dollar" is evidenced by the fact that shortly before the start of presale, the head of Venezuela appealed to OPEC with a proposal to create a platform for trading oil-rich cryptocurrencies. It is also noteworthy that even before the start of the main part of crowdsale, Maduro announced the release of the next "oil" cryptocurrency called Petro Oro.
    It should be noted that this seemingly brilliant initiative to revive the economy on the verge of collapse faced sharp criticism both from various authorities and from many members of the crypto community.
    As mentioned earlier, the Venezuelan Parliament unanimously voted against the release of this digital asset. According to the people's deputies, the release of El Petro is illegal, violates the Constitution of the country and, in fact, legitimizes illegal financial transactions.
    "This is not a cryptocurrency. This is a forward contract for Venezuelan oil. It is ideal for corrupt practices»,
  • Venezuelan legislator Jorge Millan noted.
    Under Venezuelan law, the country's Parliament approves any public loans. However, as Reuters reports, "Maduro has regularly ignored the legislature since his party lost control of it in 2016."
    The Venezuelan opposition has also repeatedly harshly criticized the idea of issuing a national cryptocurrency. So, the lawyer ángel Alvarado told Reuters that "Maduro is having a clown".
    U.S. lawmakers also expressed concern about the prospects for the emergence of a tool to circumvent international sanctions:
    "We seriously doubt that Venezuela is able to launch such a project, but in any case it is extremely important that the Treasury has all the necessary tools and mechanisms of pressure to prevent circumvention of US sanctions with the help of such a cryptocurrency»,
    — said in an open letter to senators Marco Rubio and Robert menéndez Secretary of the Treasury USA Stephen Mnuchin.
    Grounds for doubt
    A detailed study of the" background " of the El Petro project sheds light on some serious obvious inconsistencies and technical shortcomings.
    So, an interesting point is evident-in the white paper project it was initially stated that the tokens will be of the ERC20 standard, that is, released on the Ethereum platform. However, the manual posted on the website of the project States that the nem blockchain will be used to issue El Petro coins.
    The latter was confirmed by a tweet on behalf of the NEM Foundation, which also States that the technology they develop is "free and open to any individual organization."


    This obvious contradiction is not the only factor in doubt about the professionalism of the project team and El Petro infrastructure developers. So, according to many crypto enthusiasts who want to diversify their investment portfolios with oil, on the day of the press, the project website was constantly making a mistake.

    Also note, HYIP around the project gave rise to a lot of fraudulent projects that disguise as El Petro and provide inexperienced investors fake addresses for sending funds.
    But not only obvious technical "mistakes" alerted blockchain specialists from different countries. Thus, the founder of the Argentine startup Signature urged the crypto community to be extremely careful with El Petro, " especially given the track record of the Venezuelan government."
    Many articles by Venezuelan programmer Alejandro Machado, resident in Panama, as well as his series of tweets incriminating El Petro and Maduro's regime, have had a sobering effect.
    In particular, he notes that anyone could register on the project website under a fake name and documents and "say that he is going to buy a myriad of PTR". Alejandro Machado doubts the security of El Petro reserves of Venezuelan oil.
    The author also notes that all 100 million coins issued on the nem blockchain are controlled by the same address.



    Machado and sudden change of platform from Ethereum to NEM is alarming. This is done, he does not rule out, at the insistence of President Maduro.

    According to the researcher, "one of the country's largest blockchain companies Aerotrading"appears in the speeches of the President and his supporters, filled with pathos.



    According to the publication CoinDesk, a concern that the project proponent is the Maduro and his party is associated with corruption, widespread violation of human rights and the monstrous hyperinflation.
    Researcher Michaela fry expressed confidence that the El Petro project is only intended to create the appearance of democracy. In fact, according to fry, this digital currency is designed to support the dictatorial regime and the ubiquitous "big Brother".
    If we sum up the above, it will be interesting to see how the experiment will eventually lead to results for the Venezuelan economy. At the same time, it does not leave the idea that a centralized cryptocurrency managed by the state, at least in this performance, is not the most successful idea to date.
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Translated from: https://forklog.com/el-petro-spasatelnyj-krug-dlya-venesuely-ili-mnogo-shuma-iz-nichego/

I'm flagging this and other posts that contain plagiarism for @steemcleaners. This and your other posts are generating spam on the blockchain with vote & memo spam. You are also enabling bad actors in the community. Over 70% of your votes come from accounts belonging to a group of spammers that have more than 20,000 accounts.

This account will be added to @mack-bot to remove rewards if this continues.