Only two days after Venezuelan President Maduro put the country’s new oil-backed Petro crypto-currency up for sale – raising $735 million in the process – he has now stated that his government will be issuing a second, this time gold-backed version.
In his televised speech the President claimed that“ … next week I‘m going to launch the Petro Gold, backed by gold, which is even more powerful, that will strengthen the Petro.”
Waiting on Details
Although the object of some debate, it is thought that the Orinoco Arc and other parts of Venezuela represent the world’s second largest reserve of unharvested gold deposits.
However, no further details appear to have been offered up at this stage and Maduro’s viewers were left to speculate whether he was referring to gold reserves already held by the Venezuelan Central Bank, estimated at around 187.5 tonnes, or to the country’s as yet undeveloped mineral deposits.
It appears likely, however, that the latter will be the case as the oil-backed Petro is itself being pegged to oil that is still sitting below ground.
Some of the technical details relating to both Petro and Petro Gold have also been the object of speculation. Previous announcements had indicated that the Venezuelan government was intending to platform its sovereign crypto-currencies on the Ethereum blockchain.
However, a subsequent tweet from President Maduro’s own press team now appears to indicate that these will be platformed on the NEM blockchain instead, in what appears to be yet another sign that Ethereum’s dominance may be under threat.
The government itself appears to have confirmed with at least one Spanish-language media source that the implementation of the crypto-currencies is currently still under development.
