Nicolas Maduro: You Can Now Buy Our Venezuelan Oil in Crypto Petro

• 2020 could be the year Venezuelan oil will be finally exchanged for the Petro crypto.
• The national cryptocurrency is yet to find a use outside its borders.
• U.S. sanctions are scaring would-be buyers with the number of oil barrels sitting in storage tanks growing by the day.

Venezuela’s plans to sell its mineral resources for its cryptocurrency Petro will reportedly take off this year.

According to the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the country’s oil will be sold in the national cryptocurrency. Other products including precious metals as well as industrial metals will also be sold in Petros.

Venezuela’s national cryptocurrency already buying industrial metals

Per El Nacional, the socialist pleader revealed that the South American country has already been selling iron and steel in petros:

We are going to sell Venezuelan oil in petros. We’re already selling the iron and steel of Venezuela in petros. We also have a signed contract for the sale of oil, steel, iron, aluminum and we are going to sell part of the gold production in petros.

While making the announcement, the Venezuelan president attributed the move to the success of earlier initiatives by the government to popularize the use of the national cryptocurrency by citizens. According to Maduro, the crypto has proved successful in daily use. Though this could not be verified, last year in July CCN reported that Venezuela’s biggest department store was accepting petros for payments.

Who is buying with the Petro?

Based on the El Nacional report, Maduro did not name the companies or countries that are buying or planning to buy the country’s minerals in petros. In the case of oil, for instance, U.S. sanctions have scared away potential buyers.

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This means that even if customers were willing to buy oil in the Venezuelan cryptocurrency, sanctions were already discouraging them from doing business with the country. By November 2019, the amount of oil lying in storage tanks in Venezuela over lack of customers had reached 30 million barrels.

Interestingly, the primary purpose of the national cryptocurrency is to evade U.S. sanctions. Maduro declared his intent to sell Venezuela’s oil for Petro a little over a year ago.

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.

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