Venezuela now allows the purchase of its oil via its crypto Petro

According to recent reports, Venezuela plans to start allowing people to purchase its oil through its own oil-backed national cryptocurrency, Petro. The country’s own president, Nicolas Maduro, confirmed this, adding that precious and industrial metals will also be added to the offer.

In fact, according to El Nacional, the South American country is already offering metals like iron and steel in exchange for Petro. However, President Maduro stated that new metals will be included, such as aluminium, and even gold.

During the announcement, Maduro also said that the move was possible because of the success of the government’s earlier initiatives to make the use of cryptocurrency popular in Venezuela. He claims that cryptocurrencies were proven to be useful in daily use throughout the country.

So far, this claim remains unverified, although it is worth noting that the CCN report from July 2019 did say that the country’s biggest department store started accepting Petros.

US sanctions scaring away potential customers

Unfortunately, Maduro did not reveal which countries or companies — if any — are buying Venezuela’s minerals via Petro. He did not even hint which firms of countries are intending to start using Venezuela’s national crypto in the future.

What is known is that Venezuela still remains under the US sanctions, which has likely scared away most potential buyers. In other words, even if someone is buying it, they are unlikely to reveal themselves anytime soon.

One proof of the fact that potential clients were scared off by the sanctions is a Reuters report from November 2019. The report indicates that Venezuela’s storage tanks contained over 30 million barrels of oil at the time, due to the lack of customers.

Besides, the fact that Petro was invented in order to bypass sanctions is no secret. Further, Maduro was also quite open regarding the plans to use Petro for selling the country’s oil, as he announced it over a year ago.