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Venezuela Pegs Minimum Wages to National Cryptocurrency: Report
The Venezuelan national cryptocurrency is based on the DASH blockchain, and has many characteristics of a CBDC.
By Sam Reynolds
Updated May 11, 2023, 4:44 p.m. Published Mar 4, 2022, 6:54 a.m.
Venezuela said its minimum wage would now be 50% pegged to the national petro (PTR) cryptocurrency, according to a report from Bloomberg on Friday.
- The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, announced the new monthly minimum wage of 126 Venezuelan bolivars ($28). This represents a 18-fold increase to the national minimum wage, which would be 50% pegged to petro, the government cryptocurrency.
- At the time of writing, the Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to request for further details.
- Petro is built on top of the DASH blockchain and is centralized around government issuance, making it more like a central bank digital currency (CBDC) than a cryptocurrency.
- Not much is known about the petro because its advertised block explorer is inaccessible. While the WayBack internet archive shows something that looked like a block explorer available in April 2020, the page has been blank ever since.
- In theory, it is possible to purchase PTR with bitcoin and from either the Venezuelan central bank or local exchanges, however the prices vary wildly between the central bank rate and private exchange rate.
- According to reports, most Venezuelans do not use PTR by choice rather out of necessity. For instance, pension payments are made in PTR.
- It is also illegal for U.S. residents to hold or trade PTR due to sanctions imposed by the previous U.S. administration under Donald Trump.
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UPDATE (March 4, 07:00 UTC): Adds 50% detail in the lead.
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