The registration for the first pre-sale started on Feb. 20 at -04:00 UTC and ends at Mar. 19 at -04:00 UTC.
At the current stage of the pre-sale you cannot buy Petros ($PTR), you can only make an offer (minimum and maximum amount you'd want to buy).


Petro is the first State-issued cryptoasset


Background

What is it?
Petro ($PTR) will be a sovereign crypto asset backed by oil assets and issued by the Venezuelan State.

Venezuela
Venezuela possesses the largest proven reserves of crude oil in the world (300,900,000,000 barrels), as well as great advantages in terms of energy, including an electric system subsidised by the same oil revenues. Therefore Venezuela is the cheapest country to mine Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies (https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/02/21/venezuela-named-cheapest-country-mine-crypto-petro-launched/). With the introduction of Petro, the Venezuelan government is also legalising and regulating the crypto miners in the country (mining was largely practiced but it was formally illegal). The Venezuelan state will accept payments for taxes, fees, contributions, public services and international trade in crypto currencies and Petro, boosting the mass adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Supply and blockchain
A total of one hundred million (100,000,000) Petro will be issued, from which eighty-two thousand four hundred million (82,400,000) will be offered to the market in two stages: a private pre-sale and a public Initial Offer, and will be distributed according to the following list:

• 44.0% will be available for the initial public offering of the cryptoasset.
• 38.4% will be available for private sale
• 17.6% will be retained by the Venezuelan Superintendency of Currency and Related Activities (SUPCACVEN)

The Petro launch will be divided into two stages: a Pre-sale and an Initial Coin Offer (ICO)

Presale
The Pre-sale will start on February 20,2018 and will consist of the creation and sale of smart-asset on the NEM blockchain platform. This process will promote and guarantee demand for Petro’s Initial offering, which will be carried out later. The tokens that meet the requirements of the mosaic on NEM blockchain standard are non minable digital cards that are issued in their entirety through a smart contract on this platform. The pre-sale token will not be part of the Petro network until Petro distribution during the Initial Offer process. The token may be exchanged for Petro at any time between the launch date and the closing of the Initial Offer.

Initial offer
Petro’s Initial Offer will be made later until the eighty-two million four hundred thousand (82,400,000) units available for sale are exhausted. Petro’s on sale during the Initial Offer will be created and sold through an auditable mechanism in the blockchain.

Restrictions
The Venezuelan State will not be able to make new emissions of Petro.

(Source: the official Petro white paper)


Official links

Official Petro website [SPANISH]: http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/
Official Petro website [ENGLISH]: http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/index-en.html
White paper (in English): http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/Whitepaper_Petro_en.pdf
Buyers manual (still only in Spanish): http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/docs/MANUAL%20COMPRADOR%20VERSION%20BETA.pdf


BEWARE!

At the time of writing (February 23rd, 2018), there is no way to buy Petros. Not yet. All people posting Ethereum addresses and websites claiming to sell/exhange Petros $PTR at the moment are literally scammers. The only legit source is the official Petro website by the Government of Venezuela (see above: Links).
This massive project has been launched in less than 3 months before the first announcement, so expect delays and non-working pages (mostly in the first days/weeks).


Pre-sale registration

Current steps to register and participate to this ICO pre-sale:
1 - You can register to participate in the pre-sale, by clicking on the link "PRESALE" (top right of the page in the English version of the Petro website): http://www.elpetro.gob.ve/
2 - You will receive an email after several hours. The email should contain a link with a code, pointing to the same official website.
3 - If the link does not work (it didn't in my case), be patient and you will receive another email with a working link.
4 - The link will bring you to a page where you'll be able to make an offer in fiat money or crypto (you will not buy yet, so you don't have to pay anything).


I will try to keep this thread up to date with the latest information from official sources and invite everybody to do the same. Please, be responsible and avoid spamming or posting unofficial payment instructions!