Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan President, raises Petro price by announcing an increase of Venezuela’s national cryptocurrency known as the Petro. The price, which came into effect on Friday, November 30, was announced by the President on state television. Maduro also increased the monthly minimum wage of the country by 150 percent, making it the sixth time the rate has been hiked this year.

According to Bloomberg, “The price for the Petro cryptocurrency will rise from 3,600 sovereign bolivars [Bs.s] to 9,000.”

Bolívar Anchored to Nothing

Back in August, the President linked the price of the sovereign bolivar (bolívar soberano) to the Petro. The bolivar has been Venezuela’s main currency since August 20 this year. At the time, Maduro said, “Each Petro, as the anchor point of the sovereign bolivar, will have a value of 3,600 Bs.s.”

This news has understandably upset many citizens.

Leonardo Buniak, a Venezuelan economist, shared his views on the latest announcement. A local news outlet, Atodomomento, quoted him saying that the “Petro was worth 3,600 Bs.s because the Dicom dollar cost 60 and the oil cost 60.” Buniak added, “Now a Petro is decreed at 9,000 Bs.s. You have just devalued the sovereign bolivar with respect to the Petro by more than 100%.” He explained, “Anchoring the bolivar to the Petro is anchoring it to nothing.”

Buniak also claimed that the “Petro cannot be called a cryptocurrency because the value was set by President Maduro, not by supply and demand.”

No Wallet, No Code, No Petro

The announcement has triggered criticism from all corners. At the time of writing, no wallet is available for the Petro. Attempts to download the wallet for Linux and Windows show a pop-up message. It says, “This wallet will soon be available for your operating system.” Venezuela’s Economic Minister and former Vice President, Tarek El Aissami, blamed Google. He said Google removed the wallet’s Android app from its Play Store.

Maduro raises Petro price, yet independent confirmation of the functionality or existence of the coin is virtually impossible since the Petro code has not been made public. In addition, there are no published data or charts that show the Petro network’s health such as transaction throughput, network activity, mining hash rate, confirmation times, or any other normal crypto statistics.

The block explorer of the Venezuelan government, on its own part, shows “a total of 3,138 block despite the Petro’s white paper’s description of one block per minute.”

In conclusion

President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has ordered the price of the country’s national cryptocurrency to increase from 3,600 sovereign bolivars to 9,000. He made the announcement on state television. This comes despite the fact that the wallet for the cryptocurrency is still unavailable.

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