Venezuela Begins Paying Pensioners With Crypto ‘Petro’
Venezuelan government has reportedly started converting pensioners’ monthly payments from the country’s currency, the bolivar, to its oil-backed cryptocurrency Petro.
The Caracas Chronicles, a politics and economics-focused website based in Venezuela said the country’s pensioners are notified every time their monthly payments arrive, but this time received a second notification informing them the funds were “for the concept of Savings in Petro.”
It is reported that the pensioners have started depending on government bonuses after years of hyperinflation saw their savings become worthless.
The dependence on these payments saw pensioners regularly visit a government-owned portal, paria.org.ve, which they have to use to transfer the funds to their bank accounts. The Caracas Chronicles claims the Venezuelan government deposited the bolivars to the pensioners’ accounts, and then converted them to its oil-backed cryptocurrency.
It reported “They sent people the bolivars, and then, from their accounts, they exchanged them to petros.”
The country is set to present its oil-backed cryptocurrency as a unit of account for oil to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and has offered India a 30% discount on oil if the country paid in the cryptocurrency.
Venezuela has been doing everything possible to make the full adoption of Petro cryptocurrency a reality.