Venezuela’s oil-backed cryptocurrency keeps making headlines, as the country’s , Carlos Vargas, recently announced that airlines in Venezuela can now accept the Petro (PTR) and other cryptocurrencies as a payment method.
The cryptocurrency superintendent announced the move according to instructions from the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Via Twitter, he revealed it stating that “airlines are allowed to sell tickets on domestic and international flights in «Petro» and other cryptocurrencies.”
Siguiendo instrucciones del presidente Nicolás Maduro, se autoriza a las Aerolíneas el cobro de los boletos nacionales e internacionales en Petro y otras Criptomonedas
— Carlos Vargas (@SupCarlosV)
Earlier this month, Maduro to transact in Petro when buying and selling products and services. These businesses include PDVSA, a state-owned oil and natural gas company, as well as the Corporacion Venezolana de Guyana (CVG), a decentralized conglomerate whose subsidiaries include precious metal producers.
According to local news source , since the Petro was launched on February 20, investors and entrepreneurs from 127 different countries have shown interest in the cryptocurrency. As recently , this meant over 171,000 individuals and companies registered for the pre-sale.
On Twitter, the government further revealed that 40.8 percent of contributors plan on transacting with the USD, while 6.5 percent would purchase their PTR tokens with EUR. bitcoin and Ethereum followed, with 33.8 and 18.4 of pre-registrations.
Per Nicolás Maduro, Petro’s token-sale . Telesur reports that the cryptocurrency has now “generated business over $3 billion.” None of these claims is backed by any evidence.
Following some confusion regarding , observers found that a believed to belong to the Venezuelan government has yet to distribute any of the millions of Petro tokens in the pre-sale.
Petro Gold Announced Last Week
Venezuela’s cryptocurrency was issued as a tool to evade economic sanctions levied against the country by the US. Senators in the US have denounced the cryptocurrency, while Venezuela’s opposition-run congress declared its sale is an “” instrument to mortgage the country’s oil reserves.
Nevertheless, Maduro has announced a second state-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro Gold, set to be backed by precious metals. As , the Petro Gold was announced “next week” on February 22. At the time, the Venezuelan leader stated:
“Next week I‘m going to launch the petro gold, backed by gold, which is even more powerful, that will strengthen the petro.”
Since the launch of Petro’s pre-sale, other countries revealed plans to launch their own cryptocurrencies. These include Iran, which recently , and Turkey.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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Published at Fri, 02 Mar 2018 14:45:13 +0000
Accepts bitcoin
