Petro cryptocurrency. Opinion. Long read.

Interesting facts

$3,3 – 3,6 billion was claimed to be already raised. Out of 100 million coins that should cost $60 – as claimed in the whitepaper or around $66 according to the current price. So, the “hard cap” should be around either $6 billion or $6,6 billion. And, according to the whitepaper, 49% of the coins to be distributed and 51% should go to different reserves. There’s either some mismatch in figures or claims.

Only one crypto exchange agreed to list Petro – Coinsecure. Bitfinex officially banned the token from its platform in the wake of US sanctions. Other exchanges – including Coinbase, Bittrex and Kraken – reportedly declined to comment as to why they have chosen not to list the Petro. Speaking of US sanctions, don’t forget that around 60% of cryptocurrency owners are citizens of USA, that are prohibited to buy Petro.

According to Reuters, Petro, is 50% backed by crude oil, rely on the oil field Ayacucho I Bloc, next to Atapirire. The thing is, the oil field is abandoned and has no infrastructure. Some may note, that $6 billion is a huge sum of money and everything is possible with that. Let’s use some random data of some random company. Let it be Chevron. This is what the report says:

Chevron is leading a combined initial investment of $84 billion in the Gorgon and Wheatstone natural gas projects and together these represent the largest single investment by a company in Australia’s history

Yes, there are two projects and it is Australia, that’s why logistics to Venezuela might cost less. So, we will use only half of that amount and deduct, let’s say, 20% that might be spent on logistics to Australia. We will get 84/2 – 20% that equals to $33,6 billion of investments so a single natural gas project. Yes, salaries in Australia are high, so let it be $30 billion for Venezuela. But the hard cap of the Petro project is five times less! What is it? A joke?

April 29 was a disaster for Petro. The Business Standard article says:

Venezuela offers India 30% discount on crude … oil purchases made in Petro

Isn’t it too much?

Conclusion

No matter how hard I tried to stay optimistic about Petro, it seems to be a major fail by now. Checking the results of Petro project activity in 9 months, we can see that nothing has been made. Even the website is in terrible condition, comparing to an average ICO website. Why I pay so much attention to the website? Because there’s nothing else showing that some work had been done. The homepage says:

The Petro is for everyone everywhere, it offers all the safety and transparency for your transactions

But, in reality, it is nowhere, for nobody and it’s impossible to measure or even see the transparent and safe transactions.

We’ve seen things worse, we’ve seen huge project failing to launch their mainnet after getting $4 billion of investments, there are more examples and fails in the crypto world. But all those projects were never made by governments. Instead of something great and professionally – made, we see only great disappointment. Let’s hope that Iran will be more successful or, at least, more prepared.

It seems that nothing can save the ruined reputation of Petro now.

Let’s see how the public sale goes.