In Venezuela started presales "backed by oil" cryptocurrency El Petro

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the launch of a private pre-sale of the national cryptocurrency El Petro.
According to Venezuela's oil-rich leader, this digital currency is designed to strengthen the country's economy suffering from the crisis and us sanctions.

The recently published whitepaper project States that" endowed with oil and other minerals " El Petro will be accepted as a means of payment for taxes, fines, deposits and utilities.

The price of El Petro is tied to oil prices, one barrel of which is currently trading at slightly above $60. A total of 100 million tokens will be issued by order of the head of state, which will be "supported" by 5.3 billion barrels of crude oil.

According to the Latin American source Telesur, 82.4 million tokens will be available to investors in the first stage of sales in the period from February 20 to March 19. The main stage of the ICO is scheduled for March.

We will remind, for the first time about plans to launch El Petro became known in December last year. Soon more than 860 thousand local miners became interested in the extraction of this digital asset.

In January, the country's Parliament voted against the release of the "oil-backed" national cryptocurrency El Petro. Thus, according to some members of the Venezuelan National Assembly, the production of cryptocurrency, which is "ideal for corruption", is illegal and violates the Constitution of the country.

Contrary to the decision of the Parliament, Maduro did not abandon his plans and suggested that OPEC consider the creation of a platform for trading with oil-provided cryptocurrencies.