If you were looking for one final reason to pack your bags and get the next train, plane, or boat out of Venezuela – this is definitely it. Nicolas Maduro – the president of Venezuela – has created a pension reform that automatically converts all monthly pension payments into Petro – meaning pensioners will now receive the country’s Petro instead of Bolivars. Pensioners have been increasingly relying on their government pension following hyperinflation wiping out the value of their savings and private pension plans, but this new move will undoubtedly scare many of them.
How About DASH Instead?
One of biggest issues with this new move from Maduro is that virtually nowhere in Venezuela accepts the Petro due to its lack of support from the retail community. Instead, DASH is the cryptocurrency of choice in the country, as countless stores, chains, and restaurants are now accepting the crypto. Currently, the only item you can buy with Petro is a passport – perhaps it’s worth using your next pension installment to buy a passport and a ticket out of the country.
Impossible to Calculate the Value
While pensioners can cash their monthly pension payments into any currency they want thanks to a number of crypto exchanges, how many pensioners actually have the knowledge to do so? On top of this, calculating the actual value of the Petro is virtually impossible. This is due to the fact that it’s allegedly pegged 50% to the value of oil, 20% iron, 20% gold, and 10% diamonds – if you can do the math then you’re smarter than us, that’s for sure.
Creating a Guide for Pensioners
You have to give credit where credit is due, Maduro is trying his hardest to make the Petro work and become a viable cryptocurrency in Venezuela. In fact, in order to gain the support of the pensioners he has created a relatively simple step-by-step guide that explains to pensioners how they can access Petros and exchange them into any other crypto or fiat they desire. Maduro and his party created the step-by-step guide as a note on Facebook, but this could still be out of the reach of many pensioners who desperately rely on this government income.
The Petro is allegedly giving the homeless a second chance, as Maduro is paying contractors with Petro to build new homes. Despite this, the Petro is still ridiculed around the world as one of the biggest crypto scams of all time, and Venezuelans have no choice but to participate in it.
