The Venezuelan News Agency (AVN) reports that the pre-sale of the national cryptocurrency El Petro raised more than $3.3 billion.
According to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the proceeds will be sent to the country's Central Bank for subsequent sale through auctions of the additional DICOM exchange system.
El Petro is the first state cryptocurrency that is backed by reserves of Venezuelan natural resources. Today, the cost of Venezuelan El Petro is equal to the cost of one barrel of oil. The issue is planned at 100 million coins. Its official sales started on February 20. Applications for the purchase of cryptocurrency were submitted from 127 countries and on the first day the sales volume amounted to $735 million.
Maduro emphasized that the Central Bank of Venezuela will be able to buy gold for petro, and all government institutions will have to enter into foreign exchange contracts in this cryptocurrency. In addition, in April, real estate sales started in the republic for el Petro, for example, for “petro” you can buy an apartment.
The government has opened training centers to help the public, especially young people, learn more about virtual currencies and how to carry out transactions. In Venezuela, anyone can buy Petro on its website using currencies such as the Chinese yuan, Russian ruble, Turkish lira and euro, or virtual currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum.
The Venezuelan government launched the digital currency in an attempt to overcome economic difficulties caused by sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union.
The country hopes that El Petro will help overcome the financial blockade by the United States and improve the difficult financial situation.
The cryptocurrency situation has already been improved and confirmed by the Russian Association of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain (RACIB), which awarded the developers of the national cryptocurrency Satoshi Prize Nakamoto "for his outstanding contributions to the development of the blockchain industry."
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