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).
Fold CEO & Co-founder Will Reeves joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses what his company's augmented reality metaverse involves and elaborates on Fold's goals surrounding the new initiative.
Donald Pettey, Program Manager for Strategic Initiatives for MassDOT, and Mohammed Siddiqui, Vice President of Public Relations at Ko-Solar, join Cheddar Climate, where they discuss their plan to test highway barriers that absorb sound and solar energy, with construction expected to begin in the first half of 2022.
President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" bill could mean cheaper electric bicycles and scooters as the nation attempts to shift away from gas-powered cars. Noa Banayan, the director of federal affairs at PeopleForBikes, joined Cheddar's "Closing Bell" to provide some background on the E-Bike Act included in Biden's reconciliation bill that would provide tax credits for qualified purchases. "We want to make sure, from the bike industry's perspective, that this is a technology and a product that is available to the majority of Americans who want to lower their carbon footprint and get around town faster and do everything that they would normally do in a short car trip but by bike, because it's healthier, it's fast, it's efficient, you're not in traffic," she said.
It's being called the next big trend in crypto. A decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, is an internet community of different types of groups and businesses. The purpose is to allow people to commit funds to a specific cause in a safe way. Now, one social platform is creating a do-it-yourself kit for those who want to step into the space. Upstream Collective just launched the beta mode of its platform with the goal of putting all facets of running a DAO in one place. Alex Taub, co-founder and CEO of Upstream, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
Walmart and Zipline have teamed up to launch a drone delivery service in Pea Ridge, Arkansas. The service delivers products to customers within a 50-mile radius of the store. Liam O'Connor, COO of Zipline, joins Cheddar News to talk more about the partnership.
A NASA spacecraft that will deliberately crash into an asteroid is preparing to launch this week. The goal of the DART mission, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is to hit the smaller of the two asteroids, Dimorphos, with the spacecraft at about 15,000 miles per hour and see how the impact changes the asteroid’s trajectory. Joey Roulette, space reporter at The New York Times, joins Cheddar News to talk more about it.
On this episode of Cheddar Reveals, Yair Nechmad, Nayax CEO, discusses the future of cashless payments, and how cashless payments give retailers a competitive edge and allow merchants to scale business; Jason Thomas, Global CEO of Tappit, breaks down how the pandemic accelerated the transition to cash-free live events, and why that trend is here to stay; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Steam's 'Blockchain Revolution.'
