Too Long; Didn't Read
Back in December 2017, Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro announced the country’s very own native cryptocurrency, the Petro. A stablecoin of sorts, the Petro would be backed by the nation’s oil reserves (the largest in the world), as well as reserves of gasoline and precious metals. Exactly how this would work in practice was not clear at the time, but it hardly mattered — December 2017, of course, was the golden age of crypto. One could figuratively roll a dice, bet on any coin at random and triple the investment in a week. Blockchains were being discussed on mainstream TV stations — CNBC even hosted a trading expert who <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/11/bitcoin-could-exceed-100000-dollars-by-2018-says-trader.html" target="_blank">predicted $100,000 Bitcoin prices in 2018</a>. If ever there were a time to announce a national cryptocurrency, this was it. The details could be hashed out later.