Why Venezuela’s Oil Based Cryptocurrency Is Still Alive

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Mary Anastasia O’Grady writes that Venezuela’s “National Superintendency for the Defense of Socio-Economic Rights is reportedly pressuring stores to accept the government’s new digital fiat currency, the Petro.” The Venezuelan government claims its digital currency, which launched in early 2018, is backed one-for-one by a barrel of oil. The petro is also intended to circulate at a fixed exchange rate with the bolívar soberano, the latest iteration…