As Maduro’s power hangs in the balance, what will happen to Venezuela’s crypto asset?

Venezuela's opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, has announced himself the country's Interim President in a bid to oust the ruling head, Nicolás Maduro, who many blame for the ongoing financial chaos in the South American nation. Maduro's fate is yet to be decided as the world's most powerful nations stand divided over the leadership struggle: Russia vowed to defend Maduro, while the US Government has declared their support for Guaidó.

But if Guaidó succeeds, the future of the controversial Venezuelan cryptocurrency, the Petro, is uncertain. His party has long been a vocal critic of the Petro, allegedly backed by a barrel of crude oil per coin, claiming it is nothing more than another way for Maduro's government to exploit the public. 

In a tweet posted at the end of 2017 for insteance, Guaidó called the Petro "the joke-currency of the Maduro regime used to continue cheating the people." He began publicly discrediting the Petro as early as 2014, although the coin didn't officially launch until February 2017

El Petro es la #GuisoMoneda del régimen de Maduro paga seguir estafando al pueblo. Basta de burlas https://t.co/4liciaqzSk

— Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) December 27, 2017

Maduro's government began selling Petros to citizens in October last year, purchased either directly from the country’s treasury for bitcoin and litecoin or from six exchanges that were pre-approved by the government (Bancar, Afx Trade, Cave Blockchain, Amberes Coin, Cryptia, and Criptolago). By November, Maduro's government announced it would begin selling its oil products for Petro tokens instead of US dollars by March of this year. State-run media reported that Maduro was seeking to amplify the role of cryptoassets in the industry to minimize national and international dependence on the dollar. 

The opposition, led by Guaidó, has called the sale of Petros illegal, with citizens currently required to use the token to acquire passports. In December 2018, reports surfaced that the Venezuelan government had started paying pensions in Petro without public consent. Meanwhile, the coin remains largely inoperable.

"To this date, petro buyers haven’t received tradeable tokens. The petro cryptocurrency remains an obscure proof of concept, whose miners are in secret government locations. With no working wallets to speak of, nobody knows how to make transactions. There are no working exchanges to the hyperinflating local currency, the bolívar, or to any other currency, fiat or crypto. Nothing," Alejandro Machado wrote in December 2018 for The Block.

If Guaidó indeed takes power, the world’s first state-backed cryptocurrency faces being discontinued, or at the very least dramatically remodelled.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has long been popular in Venezuela, where crippling inflation of the local peso and US-sanctions have drawn large numbers towards the popular digital asset, fearing the value of their savings being wiped out.

Guidó has appeared enthusiastic about the asset, tweeting his support when the first bitcoin exchange arrived in Venezuela in 2014.