Venezuela’s biggest bank forced to accept Petro nationwide

Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has ordered the country’s biggest bank, Banco de Venezuela, to accept Petros in each of its 790 agencies across the country. Maduro stated:

“I am giving the explicit order to open Petro transaction desks at all Banco de Venezuela agencies.”

As a result, Petro (PTR) rose 25% on local exchanges. The strategy is part of a plan to promote the use of crypto throughout the country. President Maduro announced the decision to distribute crypto wallets to one million young citizens and to educate them in areas related to crypto adoption.

The Venezuelan crypto-ecosystem was optimistic about the announcement. José Angel Alvarez, president of the National Cryptocurrency Association (ASONACRIP), said:

“It is a bold and correct decision to move forward towards a hybrid economy where the fiduciary currency of a country competes face to face with cryptocurrency.

We should also note that Banco de Venezuela is the most important bank in the Venezuelan financial system and has the most significant number of clients. With this decision, this bank would become one of the exchanges with more physical offices in the world”.

Alvarez also added that focus should be put more on crypto education instead of airdrops if the government wants this to succeed:

“The greatest challenge is the spread of knowledge; also, the Petro needs to make its way down to ordinary citizens; however, there have already been positive trials in which many ordinary Venezuelans started to see with good eyes how their Petro savings in the Patria System have preserved the value of their money…..The future is promising, Venezuelans paying and collecting salaries in petros and from petros to bitcoins will be a single step with which Venezuela will continue in the vanguard to put an end to world financial hegemony.”