The government of Venezuela will shift the payment of social benefits by utilizing its own Petro cryptocurrency, announced President Nicolas Maduro. This measure is aimed at countering hyperinflation, which in last year, according to official data from the Central Bank of the country, amounted to a staggering 2,960%.
“Today I signed a proposal that will aid the financial and economic stability – to “petrolize” social payments to workers of the centralized, the decentralized national administration and the public sector,” Maduro declared in a speech on the national television on the occasion of the past International Workers Day.
To counter the growing poverty levels, the country’s parliament suggested pegging the level of basic salaries to the national cryptocurrency. Its price is reliant on the value of oil, diamonds, iron and gold. Nevertheless, the conforming draft law is still yet to be adopted.
