Venezuela’s Petro Cryptocurrency Is a Gift to Future Generations

Leon Markovitz is a serial entrepreneur and marketing professional. Born in Venezuela, he now lives in Israel where he is researching and marketing stablecoin projects.

I really got into cryptocurrencies when I heard about Venezuela’s stablecoin attempt, the petro, late last year.

The idea that the dictatorship was going to try using blockchain to further centralize its power was terrifying, and it’s pushed me to research solutions that could work in Venezuela’s near future.

The petro was launched in March and, until recently, it was all but forgotten – with the project lead fired for having failed to raise $5 billion for a national cryptocurrency project.

But late last month, President Nicolas Maduro announced on live TV the slashing of five zeros from the hyper-inflated currency, and announced a “Hail Mary” attempt to revive the petro by tethering the new bolivar’s value to it, calling a meeting with all banks to improvise something.

The dictatorship in Venezuela is actually…