157B vs 110B, they've never been so close indeed. Very interesting, seems BTC might lose its position as number 1. And since it already failed as a payment system, there will be no value left when ETH passes it

Venezuela’s economy is in deep trouble. To dig itself out, on Tuesday the Venezuelan government unveiled its full plans for the Petro, a bespoke digital currency backed by the country’s oil resources.

The white paper reveals that prior to the Petro’s launch, Venezuela will create a token on the Ethereum blockchain and sell it. Tokens are not cryptocurrencies, like the Petro will be—they’re digital assets created out of thin air and their value is only whatever people are willing to pay for them.

Most token sales on Ethereum (events known as Initial Coin Offerings) are used to raise money to fund development, but the real fundraiser for Venezuela will be the public offering of Petro itself. Instead, according to the white paper, the token pre-sale “will promote and guarantee demand for the Petro Initial Offer, which will be made later.”

The idea seems to be that people will snap up tokens in order to trade them in for Petros later, when those go on sale. The “reference sale price” for the tokens will be the same as Petro—$60—but discounts will be applied to promote token ownership, and in return Petro. Basically, it’s guaranteeing demand for the Petro by manufacturing a financial incentive.