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Venezuela Orders Government Services to Accept Any Cryptocurrency

Nicolas Maduro’s move to increase the price of the petro, the country’s oil-backed cryptocurrency designed to counter inflation, has sparked intense debate. Experts and tech-savvy Venezuelans alike are less than enthusiastic about the Venezuelan president’s decision.

Also read: Maduro Orders Price of Venezuela’s ‘Cryptocurrency’ to More Than Double

Venezuelans Unimpressed by President’s Latest Proclamation

Venezuelans Remain Skeptical After President Maduro Raises Petro’s ValueVenezuelans have blasted President Nicolas Maduro and his new cryptocurrency after the leader of Venezuela upped the petro’s price last week. A number of Venezuelans and experts told news.Bitcoin.com that the idea of a petroleum-backed cryptocurrency was a bad idea from the start and that the government never truly had any idea what it was doing – with one even saying that it was just a trick to launder the government’s dirty money.

Last week, President Maduro said that the price of the petro, his country’s national “cryptocurrency,” had been increased from 3,600 sovereign bolivars to 9,000. The wallet for the petro is still unavailable but the Venezuelan government continues to sell the digital currency and issue certificates of purchase to buyers. But experts are skeptical on whether the cryptocurrency can even be trusted, and Venezuelans working in the field of technology have said they would never use it.

Fabian Camacho, a 28-year-old software developer and systems engineer now working in Colombia, said: “I wouldn’t plan to use [the petro] and I don’t believe the exchange houses use them in Venezuela – they prefer to buy dollars to resell them and play with the exchange rate that is handled here according to the price of the peso compared to the bolivar and the dollar.”

He added: “I don’t have faith in any ideas of the government and that [petro] crypto coin is one more move to steal

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