Venezuela devalues bolivar and pegs it to cryptocurrency

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced a series of drastic economic reforms over the weekend, in another desperate attempt to prop up the country’s flailing economy.

The key changes, which will come into effect from today:

• Devalue Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar, by a whopping 95%. The new currency will be renamed the “sovereign bolivar.”
• Instead of an exchange rate of 250,000 bolivars per US dollar, it will increase to around 6 million.
• According to Bloomberg, the new bolivar will be pegged to the government’s own cryptocurrency, the petro.
• The sovereign bolivar will move in line with changes in the petro, which itself is linked to movements in oil prices.
• The petro is valued by the Venezuelan government at around $60, or 3,600 sovereign bolivars.
• To make things more complicated, the new sovereign dollar will also be re-denominated, which will remove about five zeros from its unit measurement.
• At the same time, President Maduro also announced a huge 3,000% increase to…