Venezuela's ICO - Will Petro Be a Success Or Failure?

The Venezuelan government is joining the crypto bandwagon, coming out with its own ICO - The Petro. It has already attracted foreign investors - especially businesspeople from Brazil (of around $300 million). 

The petro, an oil-backed state cryptocurrency set to be released in both a pre-sale and an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), was first announced by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in December 2017. The petro’s white paper released Jan. 30.  

Hugo Chavez is believed to be the mastermind behind the Petro. Minister of Foreign Trade and International Investment, José Vielma Mora, listed Poland, Denmark, Honduras, Norway, and Vietnam as foreign countries that would be willing to receive petro in exchange for food and medicine.

 The petro’s pre-sale will take place from Feb. 20 at -04:00 UTC to Mar. 19 at -04:00 UTC, and there will be 38.4 mln tokens available. Pre-sale tokens “may be exchanged for petro [coins] at any time between the launch date and the closing of the initial offer,” according to the white paper. 

However, the fact that the petro will be regulated by the Venezuelan government goes against the very crux of blockchain - decentralization. The idea of the blockchain technology is to bypass regulatory bodies and give power to the common people.