But one analyst thinks the petro is an “excellent idea” and could serve as a precursor to similar projects from other world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin and Maduro have very similar problems,” Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at social trading firm eToro, told CNBC in an email last week. “They both have a high dependence on the price of crude oil, which has been rather unstable in the last few years. They both have issues with U.S. sanctions and with the U.S. dollar being the world reserve currency.”
He added: “To think that of all the governments and banks who are toying with the idea it would be Nicolas Maduro who gets there first. I suppose desperation breeds innovation.”
Reports have emerged in recent months of Russia considering a digital version of its own currency, the rouble. Russia’s “cryptorouble” could be used as a means for the country to circumvent Western sanctions, a report in the Financial Times said last month, echoing Maduro’s own plans for Venezuela’s petro token.
CNBC contacted the Russian government’s press office for comment but a spokesperson was not immediately available.
Greenspan gave praise for the country’s plan to back petro tokens with its commodity reserves. Maduro has said petro tokens will each be pegged to the price of one barrel of Venezuelan oil.
“It’s an excellent idea to back the crypto with a hard commodity as the world is currently flooded with baseless money,” he said. “Surprisingly, we’ve seen very little support for this initiative in the crypto community, most likely because it seems the Venezuelans themselves don’t seem to have made up their minds just yet.”
Greenspan added: “In any case, I believe that the petro is actually targeting more institutional investors and other governments. They have more to spend then the crypto-billionaires anyway. No matter what happens, this is going to be an excellent pilot for Putin.”
