Petro Becomes More Accessible But Still Faces Scrutiny

Venezuela’s tryst with the disastrous economy has made the country look towards cryptocurrencies for revival. The government tried to fix the issue by launching its own cryptocurrency petro, which it claimed to be backed by the national oil reserves.

However, the launch of Petro was marred into controversy as the white paper was confusing at best. There was no information on the technology used, the blockchain on which it was created was unclear and as a result, many called it a scam.

Many citizens in the following month confirmed that they haven’t seen any widespread use of the state-owned Petro. However, recently a report has been published which details how citizens can get access to the crypto.

Despite the recent reports over the increase in accessibility the larger population are still critical over Petro’s adoption. The main reason being the uncertainty over the technology and how the Petro functions.

Petro: A Money laundering scheme?

The controversy started when the creators couldn’t provide clear evidence of the technology used behind the creation. In the beginning, it was being speculated to be based on Ethereum blockchain. At the day of launch, the white paper suggested that the crypto asset is based on the NEM network. However, that stance was changed as well and the creators said that it is a copy of the DASH network.

A recent report audited by stemmit suggests that the petro is a very bad copy of DASH blockchain and there is a centralization aspect which might hint of a potential scam. Another detailed analysis by a Latin American investment house suggests that the Petro blockchain shows comprehensive signs of money laundering using the US dollar and other irregularities. The analysis pointed at least 8 signs that show petro is nothing more than a scam.

The Petro Buying Platform is Bogus Too

The technical analysis also suggests that the government platform for accessing Petro in exchange for BTC and LTC is a rip-off of “Uphold”, a legitimate UK based trading platform.

The citizens who want to get hold of petro in exchange for Bitcoin and litecoin need to have a government-issued political card. The citizens who are willing to get a political card needs to provide detailed personal information.

Final Thoughts

It’s been 6 months since the Venezuelan government announced the launch of its state-backed crypto known as petro. The decision was taken to avoid US sanctions and an ever declining economy. However, the government was so focused on getting past the sanctions that the cryptocurrency it created was an utter failure.

The developers do not seem to put any effort in creating a digital currency which can help it solve the financial woes and instead they blatantly copied the existing cryptocurrencies that too without paying heed to the technical aspects. As a result, the US government has also put sanction over the Petro use in the global market.