Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the country will sell oil and gold in exchange for its national cryptocurrency Petro.
According to a report by Russian news agency TASS, Maduro told the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional on Jan. 3 that the country has already signed contracts for the sale of oil, gold, and other goods in exchange for petro.
He said,
We will sell Venezuelan oil in exchange for petros. We already sell Venezuela’s iron ore and steel for petros. We have already signed contracts for the sale of oil, steel, iron and aluminum, and we will sell part of the gold for petros.
Maduro claims the government has been successfully introducing the state-run cryptocurrency into the daily lives of Venezuelans. According to the President, at least 6 million Venezuelan families used the Petro as a form of payment during the New Years holidays. In December, authorities used the cryptocurrency as a form of benefit for pensioners and public sector employees
Since beginning its sale in February 2018, each Preto is allegedly tied to the price of a barrel of oil produced by the country, as the government claims its backed by a reserve of 30 million barrels of oil.
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