Trump Bans Venezuela’s Petro Cryptocurrency
Trump Votes “No” for Petro
U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, issued an executive order today banning any activity relating to Venezuela’s oil-backed cryptocurrency known as the “petro”. This marks the first time a U.S. president has issued an executive order regarding cryptocurrencies. The executive order characterizes the Venezuelan cryptocurrency as an attempt by Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, “to attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions”.
All transactions related to, provision of financing for, and other dealings in, by a United States person or within the United States, any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token, that was issued by, for, or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela on or after January 9, 2018, are prohibited as of the effective date of this order.
The Petro and the Petrodollar
President Trump’s executive order follows another recent blow to Venezuela’s attempt to issue its own cryptocurrency. On March 6th, the Venezuelan National Assembly issued a declaration undermining the legitimacy of the petro, stating that it was unconstitutional and a fraud. The fact the the petro’s centralized, government-controlled structure seems antithetical to the decentralized, trustless nature of the blockchain lends credence to the National Assembly’s position.
But Trump’s asserted justification for the ban, as Trump’s executive order states, is because Trump believes the petro is an attempt by the Maduro regime to circumvent U.S. sanctions. Those sanctions are in place supposedly because the Maduro regime is violating the rights of the Venezuelan people, as the Trump Administration has asserted on numerous occassions. But do American sanctions against Venezuela really have to do with concerns for the human rights of Venezuelans?
Or does it have to do with the fact that the Maduro government recently declared that it would no longer trade its oil for U.S. dollars? Isn’t it a coincidence that several other recent targets of Uncle Sam’s ire — Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Russia, just to name a few — have also either publicly talked about moving away from the petrodollar world reserve currency standard or have actually done so?
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