Trump Bans Purchase Of Venezuela’s New National Cryptocurrency; The Petro

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to ban Venezuela’s new national cryptocurrency, the petro, from being purchased by Americans or by anyone inside a US territory. The ban is the first cryptocurrency-related executive order a president has issued.

As of today, U.S. citizens, residents and companies can’t buy or sell Petro. The executive order made by President Trump says that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is trying all he can to avoid the U.S cautions on its new cryptocurrency.

Before the ban, back in January, the U. S Treasury department has warned U.S investors. In December, Maduro unveiled its first cryptocurrency. He said “that despite the country going through an economic crisis, that petro will help bounce back the economic and also added that the token will be backed up with the oil and mineral reserves. But the main issue for the ban of the token is that Venezuelan government unilaterally fixes the price of the Petro.

The government despite publishing multiple whitepapers, it’s still unclear if Petro is based on the Ethereum blockchain or NEM blockchain. And they raised over a hundreds of millions of dollars during the pre-sale. And Presale began with one token going for $60. The government is trying to sell $2.3 billion worth.

Venezuela’s government has been slowly running out of money for years. But the pace of the cash drain is accelerating as Venezuelan oil production has fell down in high speed in recent months. The country’s central bank only has $9.4 billion left in reserves, most of which is held in gold bars.

 “Venezuela’s government Instead of correcting course to avoid further catastrophe, the Maduro regime is attempting to circumvent sanctions through the Petro digital currency — a ploy that Venezuela’s democratically-elected National Assembly has denounced and Treasury has cautioned US persons to avoid. “Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin said during a press release statement.