Quote from: taseenb on February 26, 2018, 07:15:47 PM

Quote from: happyminer1 on February 26, 2018, 07:02:43 PM

The government is not even promising this. It only promises to accept petros at a rate they themselves set and at a discount as payment of "national taxes, fees, contributions and public services".

This is quite misleading. The Petro is a new crypto currency, this means:

- EXHANGES: Petro will be traded in the secondary market: exchanges around the world and in Venezuela.
- MASS ADOPTION: Petro will be accepted for payments of taxes, fees, public services and more from day 1, therefore offering a large adoption (larger than any other existing crypto).
- BIG NUMBERS: Petro will be accepted for Venezuelan oil trade (which is in the range of 8-25 billion US dollars).
- ATTRACTIVE PRICE: The ICO will offer Petros at an attractive, discounted price: companies with Petros will then be able to buy oil at it's normal price with Petros.
- PRIVATE SECTOR ADOPTION: Private companies in Venezuela (like shops) could start accepting Petros, once they are launched in the market, increasing the adoption even more.
- EXPANSION OF PUBLIC SECTOR ADOPTION: Eventually, the State could even decide to pay public employees and social benefits with Petros and expand further its use.
- ANTI-INFLATION: Because of its anti-inflationary nature, the Petro could be much more interesting for Venezuelans than Bolivares and more convenient and safe than US dollars

Petro could become the most used crypto in the world, at least until other countries like Russia or Iran do the same.

All of this might be the case (or not), some of it probably will be the case (assuming that the thing goes ahead, anyway), but most of it is irrelevant for the question whether petros will be backed by oil (which was the point I was discussing here).

Quote from: taseenb on February 26, 2018, 07:15:47 PM

Therefore all this polemic about the barrel is not the main point here! There is much more behind the Petro. Let's not forget that the oil barrel is just the base value of Petro, its value can be higher. If this works, and Petro starts to be used even by a small part of the Venezuelan people and for a small percentage of the oil trade, the value of Petro could grow in time.

As the petro is not really backed by Venezuelan oil in any meaningful way (this was the discussion) the value of a barrel of Venezuelan oil will not be the base value of the petro. Its value might be lower. (But of course, as you say, it might be also higher.)