"Petro" TAG

The appearance of Venezuela’s Petro, an early attempt to create a state-backed cryptocurrency, draws attention to several significant trends in the cryptocurrency space, trends both central to Petro’s larger story, yet also worthy of independent consideration. Commentaries on the Petro itself have too often struggled to explore the full range of relevant issues; many authors...

Venezuela’s proposed Petro cryptocurrency has elicited numerous, impassioned reactions, but beyond the particularities of the Venezuelan context the Petro raises a number of more far-reaching trends related to state-backed, commodity-based, cryptocurrencies. This article begins to consider some of these wider issues.