Venezuela's New Cryptocurrency Is 'Dead on Arrival'
*By Amanda Weston*
Faced with a financial crisis, Venezuela has turned to cryptocurrency to fight rising inflation. But Eduardo Gómez, head of support at [Purse](https://purse.io/shop), said it may not be the best solution.
"The Venezuelan government is really now in a desperate situation," Gómez said Tuesday in an interview on Cheddar. "They're trying to get cash. They're trying to get money from international markets, and due to the U.S. sanctions, they're not able to do so."
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro outlined policies for the new digital currency, the petro, last Friday. One unit would equal the price of one barrel of oil, about $60 dollars, effectively devaluing the nation's existing currency, the bolivar, [by 96 percent](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-currency/maduro-orders-96-percent-devaluation-in-hyperinflation-stricken-venezuela-idUSKBN1L22EZ).
Gómez said the government is trying to minimize the impact of economic sanctions from the U.S. It's an understandable priority ー The International Monetary Fund [estimates](https://blogs.imf.org/2018/07/23/outlook-for-the-americas-a-tougher-recovery/) inflation in Venezuela will reach 1 million percent this year. But Gómez said success for the latest petro strategy is highly unlikely.
"So far it has been a total failure," he said. "There's no real token out there. There's no real system in place. The technology has not been created yet. As, of now, it looks very bad for the government."
Venezuela's own parliament [believes](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/20/venezuela-is-pegging-its-economic-recovery-to-a-cryptocurrency--thats-widely-considered-a-scam.html) petro is being used illegally, and ICOindex has [labeled the currency a scam](https://icoindex.com/profile/petro-ptr).
Among the other moves announced by Maduro: raising the corporate tax rate, increasing previously-subsidized gas prices, and hiking the minimum wage by 3,000 percent.
Gómez pointed out that the current minimum wage, on which 70 percent of Venezuelans live, is about $1 per month. Such a low salary is the biggest hurdle for cryptocurrency adoption, Gómez said, since so many residents have barely any savings.
"Pretty much, petro is dead on arrival, as of now," Gómez said.
For full interview, [click here] (https://cheddar.com/videos/venezuela-looks-to-cryptocurrency-amid-financial-crisis).
Renewable energy company Heliogen has gone public via a SPAC merger with blank check company Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. on the NYSE. Joining Cheddar, founder and CEO Bill Gross went into why he felt the end of 2021 was the best time to get into the public markets. "If you think of the Industrial Revolution and the digital revolution, this renewable revolution is probably going to be as big or larger than that," he said. "So we're going to use this capital to scale our business, to meet more customer demand, to do more projects in parallel, and to scale our research and development to continue to drive down the price to be competitive with fossil fuels."
Carl "The Moon" Runefelt, a Bitcoin investment expert, recently made a hefty purchase of a $2 million Bugatti sports car at a Dubai dealership. The Swedish crypto evangelist joined Cheddar to talk about how he made the big acquisition of a luxury item he had long had his eye on and why he chose the dealership, The Car Vault, to make the unprecedented transaction. "They accepted crypto directly, and that was important to me," he said. "I am not going to go to any car dealership that don't accept crypto, and that's kind of a principle I have today."
2021 proved that crypto currency is here to stay. This year saw more and more adoptions of crypto, from top athletes looking to be paid in bitcoin, to Elon Musk even experimenting with bitcoin and dogecoin payments for a bit over at Tesla. And it wasn't all bitcoin either - other cryptos like Cardano and Solana saw some action in 2021 as well. Patrick McConlogue, CEO of Overline and former Citadel Investment Group Engineer explains why 2021 was such a good year for crypto, and what to expect in 2022.
2021 saw markets continue to be impacted by the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic -most recently in the form of the Omicron variant- in addition to the global supply chain shortage, and increased inflation. But it wasn't all bad news, as crypto soared throughout the year, and meme stocks continued to have a moment. With the year coming to a close, investors are keeping an eye out to see if they should expect more of the same in the new year. Chris Vecchio, Senior Analyst, at DailyFX tells us what market trends to be on the watch for in 2022.
2021 proved to be yet another formidable year for Tesla. In a year that saw electric vehicles carve out their own space in the transportation world, the company made further strides, keeping its spot on top even as new companies threatened competition. Tesla was able to hit the trillion dollar valuation mark, increase vehicle deliveries even as the world grappled with supply chain and delivery issues and sign a major deal with Hertz this year. And of course, you can't talk about Tesla without talking about Elon Musk, CEO and founder of the company, richest man in the world and Time Magazine Person of the Year, who saw plenty of successes in 2021 as well. Al Root, Senior Writer at Barron’s, explains just how good a year it was for Tesla.
