Venezuela Is Jumping Into the Crypto Craze

It was a surreal scene in an increasingly surreal country. Three prominent cryptocurrency proponents turned up at a forum at Venezuela’s central bank in late December, extolling the virtues of digital tokens as a way for the beleaguered country to fix its broken economy. Even for a government known for magical thinking, the idea was pretty rich: By starting the world’s first sovereign cryptocurrency, Venezuela could overcome its dire economic problems, from soaring inflation to cratering economic growth and perhaps the biggest drag of all, a raft of U.S. sanctions cutting it off from the global financial system.

A couple weeks earlier, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro made a surprise announcement on state TV, saying that his socialist government would soon introduce a digital token called the Petro, which would be backed by some of the country’s massive crude oil reserves. The trio of crypto proponents sitting on stage had been brought in to give credence to the idea. In retrospect, the irony is thick: anti-authority blockchain evangelists mingling with bureaucrats from one one of the world’s most repressive governments.