The pensioners of the state-owned oil company of Venezuela, PDVSA, have started receiving a Christmas bonus in petros (PTR), the first national cryptocurrency launched back in 2018. The petro, which is backed by Venezuelan oil and other resources, can be traded in local exchanges for these pensioners to access fiat currency, as the reach of the currency as a means of exchange is still limited according to local reports.
Venezuelan Pensioners To Get 2 Petros This Christmas
A group of Venezuelan pensioners stemming from the PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, will receive a bonus paid in petro (PTR), Venezuela’s national cryptocurrency launched back in 2018. The pensioners will receive this bonus as a Christmas gift via the Motherland platform, where they will be able to manage the two Petro (worth approximately $120) that started being deposited on December 23.
The pensioners destined to get this bonus will receive an alert via the platform so they can move their two PTR out of it. While there is a healthy amount of activity linked to the petro in national exchanges, its reach as a means of exchange is very limited at the moment, as many pensioners have indicated they intend to exchange it to purchase goods and pay for services.
The History And Price Movements of The Petro
Launched back in 2018, the Petro was the first state-backed cryptocurrency network, years before El Salvador adopted bitcoin (BTC) as a legal tender. At first, the Petro was intended to maintain a stable price of $60 backed by a basket of oil and other resources available in Venezuela. However, the market did not assimilate this very well, and due to the limited utility of the currency, it has traded at a fraction of the intended price.
This trend was reversed recently when petro reached record prices in national exchanges. The local cryptocurrency portal Morocotacoin stated that the crypto asset was trading for more than $50 in some exchanges, reaching $56 in some instances. This is not the first time that the Venezuelan government has used the petro to give bonuses to Venezuelan citizens in December.
In fact, two years ago in 2019, the government did the same thing, giving half of a petro unit ($30) to all the pensioners and state workers as a Christmas gift. On that occasion, the government distrubuted payments in petros through the POS systems of state-owned banks, so workers could use it more easily, and merchants could exchange the petro for fiat currency automatically.
What do you think about using the Petro to pay pensioners in Venezuela? Tell us in the comments section below.
Sergio Goschenko
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
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