Petro Cryptocurrency in Venezuela: Government Program, Restrictions, and Real-World Impact

When Venezuela launched the Petro in 2018, it wasn’t just trying to create a new digital currency. It was trying to bypass sanctions, stop the collapse of its currency, and rewrite the rules of international finance-all with a coin backed by oil, gold, and diamonds. Five years later, the Petro is still around, but not because people want to use it. It’s because the government says they have to.

How the Petro Was Supposed to Save Venezuela

In December 2017, President Nicolás Maduro announced the Petro as Venezuela’s answer to economic collapse. The bolívar had lost 99% of its value since 2012. Inflation hit 1,000,000%. The country owed $140 billion in foreign debt. The U.S. and other nations had frozen Venezuelan assets and blocked access to global banking systems. The Petro was presented as a lifeline: a state-backed cryptocurrency tied to Venezuela’s natural resources, designed to attract foreign investment and let the government trade oil without using the dollar.

The plan was simple on paper. The government would mint 100 million Petro tokens, each supposedly worth $60-based on the value of one barrel of oil. It claimed the entire issuance was worth $6 billion. The Petro would run on a federated blockchain, meaning only government-approved nodes could validate transactions. That gave the state total control. No decentralization. No anonymity. Just a digital version of state power.

The Legal War Inside Venezuela

Even before the Petro launched, it was controversial inside Venezuela. The opposition-controlled National Assembly declared it illegal in March 2018, calling it an unconstitutional debt issuance. They argued the government was creating money without congressional approval, violating the constitution. The Supreme Court, loyal to Maduro, sided with the executive branch. That created a legal gray zone: the Petro is legal under presidential decree but illegal under the country’s own constitution.

To enforce it, the government created SUPCACVEN-the Superintendence of Crypto Assets and Related Activities. This agency controls everything: who can mine Petro, where exchanges can operate, and who gets to hold the tokens. It also collects fees and keeps records of miners and traders. But SUPCACVEN doesn’t answer to the public. It answers to the Vice President. There’s no transparency. No audits. No independent oversight.

Forced Adoption: Paying for Gas and Paperwork in Petro

By January 2020, the government made Petro mandatory for certain services. You couldn’t get a passport, renew your driver’s license, or buy airplane fuel without paying in Petros. This wasn’t encouragement. It was coercion. People didn’t choose the Petro-they were forced into it.

Why? Because the government needed to create artificial demand. No one was buying Petros on their own. The open market didn’t trust them. So the state made itself the only buyer-and the only seller. Citizens had to exchange their worthless bolívares for Petros just to do basic things. The Petro became a tax tool, not a currency.

The Petro Zones: Empty Promises on Paper

Maduro announced four special zones where the Petro would thrive: Margarita Island, Los Roques, the Paraguaná Peninsula, and the border area with Colombia. These zones were supposed to be crypto havens. Mining equipment imported there would be tax-free. Businesses could accept Petros. Foreigners could invest. The government promised a boom.

But five years later, there’s no evidence of real activity. No crowds of miners. No crypto cafes. No foreign investors lining up. Reports from locals and journalists show the zones are mostly empty. The tax breaks were never fully implemented. The promised infrastructure never arrived. The Petro Zones exist mostly as a PR stunt-photographs of empty buildings with signs saying "Petro Zone"-used in state media to pretend the program is working.

Why No One Trusts the Petro

Even inside Venezuela, people don’t use the Petro for daily life. They use Bitcoin. Or USDT (Tether). Or even cash from family abroad. Why? Because those options are real. They’re liquid. They’re accepted globally. The Petro is not.

Leaked documents from Venezuela’s crypto advisory group, VIBE, revealed the truth. The government planned to sell $2.3 billion in Petros privately-at discounts of up to 60%. That means the market believed the Petro was worth only $24 per token, not $60. The government knew it. They just didn’t tell the public.

Experts outside Venezuela were even harsher. The U.S. Treasury labeled the Petro a tool for sanctions evasion. In 2018, the U.S. banned Americans from dealing in Petros. Congress passed S.37 in 2020 to make those sanctions permanent. The European Union and Canada followed with their own restrictions. No major exchange lists the Petro. Not Binance. Not Coinbase. Not Kraken. The token can’t be traded. It can’t be converted. It can’t be used outside Venezuela’s borders.

The Blockchain That Isn’t a Blockchain

The Petro runs on a federated blockchain. That sounds technical, but it just means the government controls every node. There’s no decentralization. No open participation. No mining by ordinary people. You can’t run a Petro node unless the state approves you. That’s the opposite of Bitcoin. It’s more like a digital spreadsheet owned by the Ministry of Finance.

Most people who care about cryptocurrency want freedom-from censorship, from control, from inflation. The Petro offers none of that. It’s a tool of control. That’s why crypto enthusiasts around the world ignore it. Even in Venezuela, people who understand blockchain avoid it. They use Bitcoin because it’s censorship-resistant. The Petro? It’s censorship enforced.

The Reality in 2026

As of 2026, the Petro still exists. The government still requires it for some services. The Petro Zones still have their signs. SUPCACVEN still collects fees. But the currency has no market value, no international presence, and no public trust.

What’s worse, the Petro has damaged Venezuela’s credibility in the global crypto space. When countries like El Salvador adopted Bitcoin, they were praised. When Venezuela launched the Petro, the world saw it as a scam. That’s made it harder for legitimate Venezuelan crypto projects to get attention or funding.

The Petro didn’t save Venezuela’s economy. It didn’t attract foreign capital. It didn’t stabilize the bolívar. Instead, it became a symbol of economic desperation and authoritarian control. The only thing it’s good for is giving the government a way to extract value from its own people under the guise of innovation.

What’s Next for the Petro?

Unless Venezuela’s economy recovers, sanctions are lifted, and trust is rebuilt, the Petro won’t change. It’s not going to become a global currency. It’s not going to be listed on exchanges. It’s not going to be used by businesses outside the government’s control.

Its future depends on two things: political stability and international relations. If Maduro’s government falls, the Petro will likely be scrapped. If sanctions are lifted and the economy opens up, maybe someone will try to rebrand it. But right now, the Petro is a relic-a failed experiment in digital authoritarianism.

For Venezuelans, the real crypto revolution isn’t the Petro. It’s Bitcoin. It’s stablecoins. It’s the hidden networks of people sending money across borders, using apps they downloaded on secondhand phones, avoiding the state’s control. That’s where the real innovation is happening-not in the government’s blockchain.