President of Venezuela Raises Minimum Wage to Half a Petro
Coinspeaker
President of Venezuela Raises Minimum Wage to Half a Petro
The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Madura, increased the minimum wage of workers in the country to half a Petro, which is the national cryptocurrency of Venezuela. According to a report by Bloomberg, the Venezuelan President revealed an altogether new monthly minimum wage of 126 Venezuelan bolivars ($28). This signifies an almost 18 times raise to the previous national minimum wage, and would be fifty percent fixed to Petro.
The government of Venezuela, however, has not been responding to the questions or giving out additional information.
Along with the rise in the minimum wage, there is also a promise of equalization to the salary of all bonuses presently offered to the Venezuelan workers via Sistema Patria (Homeland System). In an assembly held in Caracas, President Nicolas Maduro asserted that the wage recovery scheme will ultimately stop inflation in the country. The head of the state also said that this was the time to roll out salaries as part of the bonus distributed among the workers’ society.
Petro is designed over the DASH blockchain and is centralized around government distribution. This means it is more of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) than a decentralized, public-run cryptocurrency. Not a lot of information is disseminated about the Petro since its disclosed block explorer can not be accessed. Even though the WayBack internet library reveals something that appears to be a block explorer functional in April 2020, the page has, however, not been active ever since.
Technically, Petro can be bought with the help of Bitcoin and Litecoin from both the Venezuelan Central Bank and the local exchanges. However, the difference in the rate of the currency varies massively between the central bank rate and the private exchange rate.
The Petro was brought into action by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro himself. The Petro was suggested in late 2017 during a national TV broadcast. Following a long contemplation over which blockchains to build it on (Ethereum or NEM), in October 2018, the government decided to utilize its own permissioned blockchain which was based on a rendition of the DASH blockchain.
According to reports, a majority of Venezuelans are not aware of or do not utilize PTR, and even if they do, it is out of compulsion rather than personal choice. For example, pension payments are rolled out via the Petro cryptocurrency. Interestingly, it is forbidden and deemed illegal for citizens of the United States to possess or trade-in Petro cryptocurrency due to the sanction implemented by the Trump government.