Venezuela crisis: Petro cryptocurrency ‘making things WORSE’ as economy faces COLLAPSE |…

President Nicolas Maduro brought in the Petro as Venezuela’s second unit of currency this week in a bid to curb crippling hyperinflation and skirt US sanctions.

But the cryptocurrency is nothing more than a “smoke and mirrors” scheme by the debt-ridden government and its introduction has already failed in its main aims, Lianna Brinded said.

The Head of Finance at Yahoo Finance told Express.co.uk the unprecedented introduction of a government-backed cryptocurrency is actually making Venezuela’s problems worse.

And she warned the Petro is most likely a scam because the country’s government controls ‘production’ of the virtual currency and the tokens cannot be traded.

Ms Brinded said: “The Petro cryptocurrency isn’t working. It’s made thing worse.

“It’s a smoke and mirrors operation. They are trying to cure their economic ills but this is not the way to go.

“All the Petro is doing is making a bad situation absolutely horrific.

“There are ways to escape…