Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has called on 10 additional countries to adopt his oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro. The announcement follows a decision by the country’s National Assembly declaring the new digital currency illegal.
Maduro’s proposal
Maduro held a meeting with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) on Friday. ALBA’s membership includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela, Grenada, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. During the meeting, Maduro urged ALBA member states to jointly support the creation of the Petro, according to Prensa Latina. According to El Comercio, Maduro invited all these countries to consider the Petro as a currency for regional integration of their peoples. He stressed that they should treat the proposal as a top priority.
Below is the video published by NewsBitcoin detailing the announcement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBD29K72PJI
Maduro is credited with initiating ALBA. He said his goal is to bring member countries together to adopt this national cryptocurrency as a bold and creative step into the 21st century.
An ongoing controversy
Since its announcement in early December, Venezuela’s national virtual currency has been the subject of controversy. The Venezuelan president enacted several measures to support the launch, including allocating more than 5 billion barrels of crude oil as backing for the currency. Maduro also ordered the issuance of the first 100 million Petros and organized a meeting with miners.
Officials have said the Petro is expected to launch within six weeks and will be pre-mined. However, one day before this announcement, the Venezuelan National Assembly declared the cryptocurrency illegal. Lawmakers voted unanimously to annul the decree authorizing issuance of the Petro. Observers will be watching to see how the situation develops following Maduro’s latest call to ALBA members.