 Hi everyone, welcome to CodePink's What The F is Going On in Latin America. This is our 20 minutes of hot news from south of the border every Wednesday, 12 p.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Today we are going to be discussing Venezuela's cryptocurrency, the Petro. This was something particularly of interest to me having just returned from Venezuela over the holiday season. I spent two weeks there and saw a robust holiday economy that has not been seen for a couple years. And the biggest stimulus was the petrol currency that many citizens had access to and were using. And so today on our Facebook live, we are really honored to introduce to you Daniel Peña. He is the Vice Director of the Academy and let me make sure I get this right, Daniel. Universidad Nacional Experimental de Telecomunicaciones y Informática. And so we are going to talk about cryptocurrency, blockchain, and the whole history of the Petro in Venezuela, where it came from, why it's necessary, and how it's being used today. We have a wonderful PowerPoint presentation available for all of you to watch. I'd like Daniel to go through his PowerPoint presentation for all of us about 15, 20 minutes and then we'll be open for some Q&A after that. So Daniel, why don't you introduce us to the Petro? Thank you. Thank you. Well, I want to show you about the website, the Petro. You can check and look everything, information, many information about cryptocurrency, about the information of the calculator of the Petro, some normative that we can download here, about the cryptocurrency here in Venezuela, because we are the first country to deploy a system of blockchain of cryptocurrency to make it very comfortable or very interested about the Petro. Because Petro is the first cryptocurrency that is your bucket by the state. This bucket was a country natural resource reserve that Venezuela have the most reserve of petroleum in the world. And right now our president, Nicolás Maduro, proposed this cryptocurrency bucket to try to get more investment here in Venezuela. Against all the bad information or the news or the newspapers have to make an option from Venezuelan people to exchange for food, medicine here in Venezuela. Right now here you can download the white paper. The white paper for us is the most important information, because here you can, in world cryptocurrency, you can know about it. Because right now the Petro for us is the tower of the current digital revolution, because here we can explain all about the Petro, which technology base we are using, because it's an influential policy. What is the Petro, which Petro you can buy with the usability that we are working, how to buy Petros, how the price of the Petro you can, we are using how the bucket or the commodities resource. We make the price of the Petro because the Petro is like a stable point, because we are using and we are going to check here and in this white paper, all information about this, what are these things that we are making with all the investors, international investors and how many coins from this cryptocurrency ecosystem that we are working. And right now in Venezuela, we are deployed, because the most important thing in all cryptocurrency is the usability, how we can deploy, how many citizens can buy things in the shopping, at the government, and all the information that we have. Here is some introduction, you can check it after, but I want to start here the technology base that we are deploying this technology in bucket, but it's passed in the blockchain, which allow international value and information making possible the defense of the third party. The third party that was blocking our country is the old economical system, because the project was that we had a financial sanctions against all the money that we have in many banks around the world. We had like a two thousand billions of dollars blocked in banks, international banks, that we cannot buy medicine for our childs, our children, for the people, we cannot buy with our money, money that we receive exchanging petroleum. So let me just interrupt for a minute to give a little bit to our audience that, so what some of these things, issues that Danielle is discussing, not having access to Venezuelans own foreign currency, not being able to repatriate foreign profits, not being able to transfer funds through the overnight banking system, all of this, you're unable to do any of that as a nation, because of the financial sanctions that are imposed on the country. And so I just want people to understand that there are all of these crippling variables in the international market that are prohibiting Venezuela from operating with US dollars overseas and or impossible to repatriate your own money, including gold sitting in the Bank of London. So there is a real need to develop an alternative system. Yeah, that's because the blockchain, you can do that because it's a transfer to digital financial that we can certify our commodities using for the facility, but this is an exchange made for medicine. So this idea was original, the original president who would travel via creating a stone point back by the Venezuelan average. This idea goes back about the proposal of all the global financial and monetary coordination, because in 2009, the president said that he had an idea to use some or to make some coin that we can exchange around the all the commercial petroleum with the petroleum country, where you can buy petroleum with this pageant as a coin, as a digital coin, not as a cryptocurrency, because the cryptocurrency idea like Bitcoin was very at the beginning of this, because the Bitcoin, so many people, the technical people said that the Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency, and the problem, but some pseudonymus, a Japanese pseudonymus, but because we are working at the some invitations that we're making here in in our university, we explore many things that say that this pseudonymus is a Japanese pseudonymus, Satoshi Nakamoto, that nobody knows, nobody knows him, said we are right now very very more active that this pseudonymus said that the the project of Bitcoin is all the the corporation around the Microsoft, because if you check where the standard of the blockchain that in the white paper of Bitcoin is making by MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and if you check how many ATM are in Japan, only 12, if you check how many ATM are in the United States, around 4,000, so all the idea of the Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency, we are checking in our university and setting it around the the digital information corporation that deployed this, where very our investigation makes that the people that is around this of Bitcoin is Microsoft and I want to show you more interest, but taking around a go back here to for the presentation, our presentation is going to look at the way to answer the dominance operation towards our world economy, because the petrol is an expression of modernization of the politics for the nation of this economy and mix the Venezuelan people, our medicine of all of this, this information that this management is considered as the first government to support our sovereign digital coin. We are the first country or government that decides to make a sovereign digital coin, that's another important issue and that's why the president of the United States, one day before we launched the petrol, exactly in February 19th, he made a decision that anybody who buys or invests, makes some investment in petrol, we want to receive a financial sanction, so that the president of the United States used around 20 minutes in his speech to make sanctions around the petrol. It's the first step that we explained for all people who said that the blockchain, the cryptocurrency are free, it has no desire to make a decision about the government and the government of the United States, this day make one first step against of the cryptocurrency a blockchain system. So, okay. I wonder, you've said a couple of things that I wonder if we could tie together here for our audience. So, the president of the United States has made purchasing of the petrol illegal, subject to sanctions, I know that for a fact because I have some small investments and every time I talk to anyone that handles investments in the United States, they show you a disclosure paper that you have to sign off on that says they cannot recommend investment in cryptocurrencies and the petrol is one of the first on the list that they're not allowed to talk about and that is a paper issued by the security and exchange commission. But what's really fascinating to me and I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't know more about this but it kind of ties more to my understanding of what happened to the global economy in 2008. I was also alive when the global economy crashed in 1989. And so, as we were talking earlier, this was a vision of job as is president job is in 2008. And so, this is not anything new but it's interesting to see, you know, that that that point in time is when it was introduced as an alternative and it would make total sense that it would be to get off the US dollar, the petrol dollar specifically as the global currency. I mean, we looked at Wall Street destroyed the global economy twice in 20 years. And so, you also mentioned at one point that this was a revolutionary currency and method of growing a revolutionary economy. And so maybe we could talk a little bit about how that how the petrol was used to stimulate the holiday season this past December. Our president decided to make some social bonus for so many people. The first was our audience people. So, this bonus make a half petrol for everyone to make some tests how the the deployment or the petrol, how the people are agreed to use this cryptocurrency because in Venezuela has a very important deployment in technologies. So, many people have at least two cell phones, has computers or President Chavez give our choices and ask make it give you some computers, laptops. So, the Venezuelan people are Venezuelan people, technology people, but in Greek currency, Venezuela was deploying and what is started since 2015 are making so many people have money deploying some mining farm in Venezuela since 2016. In Venezuela was exchanging Bolivaris our our our our coin Bolivaris exchange to Bitcoin quickly at least three millions dollars since 2016. That's that's that's one of the economic people was in fact because the the financial financial was one of the first action that the government of the United States implement here in Venezuela. We started here in Venezuela because one thing are the using the dollars as a exchange Bolivaris by dollars. So, many people was taking dollars to buy medicine and the price of the our our sovereign currency that is the Bolivaris was making some impact because they are devaluing our currency our currency and many people in Venezuela start to use dollars things because let me ask you about this what appeared to me I guess about a year ago visiting kind of a de facto dollarization of the Venezuelan economy. I know unofficially many many businesses stores restaurants were taking US dollars for payment small currency you know small bills ones fives maybe some tens there was no ability to really change bills larger than that and this past year it's been more it's this particularly in December just fairly overtly being used so has the economy been officially dollarized and or simply de facto dollarization and again is the petrol being used to help offset that influence of the US dollar yeah in the fact that we had a dollarization in fact no it's official because we have the financial sanctions if any Venezuelan people has one dollar the the government of the United States can take take it because the we are Venezuelan people are not the owner of the dollars and in Venezuela this side and people use the dollars to exchange for anything you said we can buy the small a small shopping mall or any commerce you can buy with dollars and the people the fact that all the the price in the fact are saying in dollars that's why in in our decision to take the petrol as a cryptocurrency is we are making a cryptocurrency backing by the resource the resource was the resource was making an important an important value for our people would because to to try go to an apartment with a with a dollar with all the the all the formation the body formation of Venezuela to make an investment here we make another formation another promotion another currency to promote and to use the in this moment the petrol to get a gold positioning for investment investment option because we the people don't have a mechanism a saving mechanism to exchange to make for any providers services so we decided to use petrol to make a this is cryptocurrency with this a different for all 50 000 for us that in the blockchain system i think right now deployed because this is the one way and the in this first test our president made in this December on the December uh it's a what wasn't the the the way of the people to get a cryptocurrency uh so many cryptocurrency and the the government explained what you can do with this petrol and one way was there for the social bonus that were presented to the people and the people rose to for safer commodities some some companies enterprise you can travel cryptocurrency some people take this cryptocurrency and exchange for bolivaris to buy many things of the christmas you can make some save because this is a stable coin and the price is difficult to go to go down to the price and i want to explain right now the price how you can define the price of the of the petrol but right now we are trying to deploy and this one whose ability that the president decides that in this ecosystem you can get in a wallet or an exchange payment to make different uh you can quote for in bolivaris uh currency or another cryptocurrency and you can transport this uh from possession of funds of different people but the president decided that you can push it for goods and services taxes public service payments is it a it is proposed uh another system to serve remittance because so many venezuelan people are in different countries around the world and you can use this as a throw this platform to raise a two secret region of banking population is another important thing that to make or to have a one wallet or petrol you only need your id and a an appointment with this id you don't need all the payment that all the paper for the sorry all the paper that the banks uh decides needs to and the other use that we can use the petrol is our our company our petrol company pdb pdb for massive companies using uh to buy many things that our president said uh for this and um and uh deploy a supralternation national equity there is a an intended to make a smart contract and regulate another a order all of this natural transaction that you can use to buy many commodity that venezuelan have all iron and you can buy this with the pet and right now the system of the petrol you can use petrol to exchange for another to get petrol exchanging with grand dollar a euro with dollar bitcoin like coin dash you can uh ripple bitcoin around the world you can make anything of tc you can get a dependent wallet because if we are using uh our wallet and as you see in in venezuela payment system that is deployed for different exchange certified by the superintendents of the cryptocurrency to the people uh get and buy as many things that he wants that they want so let me just share with you daniel and our audience some of the things just just following up on on your discussion about you know buying pretty much anything that is needed and wanted i i can truly attestified to that having gone shopping right after new years with some neighbors and um and their petros and it is it's all electronic what was interesting to me i think i heard i think you said 50,000 i've heard 50,000 60,000 vendors businesses across the country accepted as a form of payment and what how you pay is exactly how you said it's with your card you have to show proof of residency with your sedgula but it's all done electronically on the existing electronic system in place all the point-of-sale machines that are already in place to handle the bank cards from the three venezuelan banks were just easily reprogrammed to accept payment by the petro so there was no need to purchase or invest in additional software or equipment it was just a matter of reprogram the existing equipment i will say and i say this with a little bit of embarrassment but it was kind of fun i actually used um a friend's part of a friend's petro too for the first time in about half a year ago and have a manicure for the holidays and we were able to pay for that with petros and so it's not just food it's not just gasoline i mean it's a wide range of services and it's a fantastic um alternative and so let me just ask you we've got a couple minutes left i just want to ask you what the value of the petro is today since it's based on the price per barrel of oil and we all know what what has happened in the Middle East with the destabilization perhaps of oil that um so is the is the petro um increasing in value now as a you know as an indirect unplanned yes yeah it's kind of a cob thing for me to bring up but i mean it is all tied to the global economy and the price of oil is spiking and so um yeah the the price of the petro i'm going to show you this the price of the petro can you see this yeah yes we can see okay the price of the petro is a reference because this basket will constitute the resource initially with oil gold iron and diamonds the price of the petro it has a factor with the price the petro's price at the time with the price of the commodity in the in at the time had a weight of the commodity on the basket and had a correction factor of this commodity that's why the petro or the price of the petro is more stable it's like a stable so because the price of the of the venezuela world market expressed in u.s. dollar but the factor is is a 0.45 so the the 50 percent of the price of the petro is in fact always had the factor of the price of this commodity in 50 percent so this is a way to prevent the sabotaging of the of the currency due to global manipulation of oil prices the first the first time that we decided to use the petro was at the 100 percent of the oil of the of the price of the venezuelan oil basket had the price of the petro the problem was there a united states government decided to use the fracking and the manipulate the price of the oil around the world and get the exam and go down to the all the price and we can know we decided to deep to to change the the how the price the petro price is decided and make another implementation to make a process of commodity and like in this moment in the 50 percent this is in fact with the price of venezuelan oil the 20 percent is with the ounce of gold oh okay okay the 20 percent with the matrix tone of okay okay so as so if go if the oil price is manipulated to deteriorate on the goal on the on the global market generally when oil goes down people of huge capitalist means start investing in diamonds and gold and so that's the balancing factor to prevent the sabotaging i understand oh wow fascinating oh it's pretty immune to being sabotaged by petroleum and that's why the price the price right now with the commander who was killing iraq right now the price of the petro if you compare with the dollars or euro the price is going to be of the petro right now it's not like a bitcoin that is at price that goes immediately because the bitcoin if you check the data of bitcoin i'm going to show you this check here right now if you check the the price of the bitcoin right now you can see this is no no we still see the okay let me tell them the chance change the maintenance so really you've built in you know a very stable yeah it's a cryptocurrency that's not particularly volatile you've really managed the volatility of it yeah that's the most important well i wonder the sec doesn't want me to buy any that's why so many investors are interested in the petro because it's invasive it's on many things that you can make a refuse if you use a bitcoin you can refuse the bitcoin going down the price the bitcoin going down you can refuse in the petro or if there's so many another currency in the at the forest market you can buy so many petros and your your stable so this is a this is a really very clever brilliant way to encourage foreign investment in the country yeah yeah the big wow the possibilities are amazing with this oh i see here's the big yeah we use this one to check and trade because so many people at the university were prepared we are making financial education people because as chinese people had an army to get in the economic war that is right now working here if you check here in 24 hours the exchange of of dollars is around the 19 976 billions of dollars that right now in 24 hours making people are buying and selling the price right now the of the of the bitcoin is going down if you check what happened in this moment in this moment you can see the price of the of the far more volatile right now it seems that the our commander was killing in iraq the price of the bitcoin because the people in iraq so many people use cryptocurrency okay so now here so people in iran use cryptocurrency now are they using a cryptocurrency in iran for the same reasons to work around the sanctions against them and not being able to participate in the global economy with us dollars yeah same reason how many people get by so many bitcoins and the price of the bitcoin for it up right now so no no no deal not the price is going down so people use this to exchange or to take out because it's not the same to get 100 million dollars in cash and to get 100 million in a wallet an electronic wallet or hot wallet or cold wallet that you can take out as a usb drive and to get our goal for another country so this is one of the people we are trying to to explain how the difference between cryptocurrency like like bitcoin i'm going to show you another another important page that is coin market cap this is the the place when you can check the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization you can see here the first one bitcoin and the market capital bitcoin is 147 billion of dollars but the volume that we are using in 24 hours is 32 million dollars the second one is ethereum but if you check if the united states government decided didn't decide to make a financial sanction of the petro the value the total value of the petro if you use a private sixty two dollars by by petro the emission of the total petro are 100 million if you will multiply by sixteen dollars the capital of the market capital that the petro has is six thousand or six billion dollars if with the petro we didn't have the the financial sanction of the our cryptocurrency the petro in the first day you want to be here in the first place in the market around the cryptocurrency because the price of the total of the market that the petro has is six thousand or six billion dollars so that's why the president of united states decided to know a small country in the south america with a black people that has action cannot manipulate themselves you understand yeah yes yeah it's very so let me ask you know gosh daniel you've given us 40 minutes instead of our 20 to 30 minutes so i'm so thankful for your time is there anything any one last comment or one last point that that you'd like to make or that we should discuss with our audience no the most important if you want to explain more about the petro i decided to share with you is a white paper the petro we are right now some information important information that is a people or system need to know the investment what the president is going to do with the person may show because for us the ecosystem that we are making the the the the regulations of the tv the legal of the the cryptocurrency in venezuela design right now and all the the information of petro are in this place i want to show you another thing that is just so the audience knows i'll post the link for this white paper in the comment section of our of our recorded video on code pink's facebook page so that people can take a look at that here right now you can download the white paper i'm going to show you it is this is the regulation regulation what the system or the normative that we said another thing that are the exchanges because venezuela has to deploy because with the financial situation we have to use our own exchanges right that was my next question since you're not listed you know on um on the um coin market cap where what platform but you have your own platform yeah we are trying to make it this because the president first day said that not only the assumption it's the problem you know that it was a phrase that overmade the i remember of the the ceo of the big coin cash we have some by the conference within that they they they wasn't interested in buying so many petrol but say that how the government can relate the this uh system and we decided if we have a permission to get in one exchange international exchange we're going to try and we're going to make it uh some platform of the how the cryptocurrency is very free but right now we are showing our all the world that the cryptocurrency are not free they are decided so the government can enter or different governments around the international the coin cap uh international system that decide if the cryptocurrency are making or you can use it for exchange for money so that's one of the the thing they're going to show the value of the petrol we can explain right now here this is the calculator of petrol you can check how the price of i work so many for uh what is it in dollar right now so right after new years i think it was thursday or friday of last week um i did this with some friends and their neighbors with their half petrol and uh with their petrol and um it was just under 50 us was like 48.7 so it's gone up yeah okay wow this is all just very fascinating to me so so listen i would love to keep talking to you for a whole another hour about this but um i know i have to uh on this webinar for 45 minutes now and i um would just like to um thank you for participating and also put to a huge thank you to michelle elner for um inviting you to come join us and have this conversation today it was just such a poignant experience i had the last two weeks in venezuela and really really wanted to share it with our audience and have someone of your expertise explain um all of it and so i just so thank you uh for your conversation today and i hope that we can stay in touch and have some follow-up conversation good for me uh the venezuelan people are very interested that did this uh information about the petrol about the how they our government our people are doing uh with our hands as we said in venezuela we are trying to make this to this information goes to uh around the world thank you with michelle thank you for the cold pink uh here had a soldier to help all the information that you need about the critical currency we can make another especially information that we need that you need we need uh we are very grateful our university is yours and if you have another information about telecommunication or or software that you want to to explain i think the very important uh the right now that it was happening and what we're going to happen with all this well it's going to be fascinating to watch you know as the volatility of other um you know global currencies how yeah it's going to be a very very fascinating the next few days few weeks so so again thank you so much daniel and um i'd like to stay in touch for additional materials because there's some things that i would like to post as follow-up to this lecture additional information um for our audience to research materials for our audience okay thank you okay thank you so much we'll talk again okay okay ciao