Trump ban Venezuela’s national cryptocurrency

According to theverge reports, recently President of the United States Trump issued a ban on cryptocurrency purchases in Venezuela – any American or U.S. personnel will not be able to purchase cryptocurrency Petro from Venezuela’s official launch. It is reported that this is the first administrative order issued by a president to be related to cryptocurrency.

The Trump Executive Order stated that the Petro ICO was an initiative taken by Venezuelan’s President Nicolas Maduro to try to circumvent US sanctions, and it also announced that all transactions related to it were illegal. In addition, the executive order also revealed that, in fact, the Venezuelan Congress did not support the release of the petro.

In February of this year, according to Maduro’s tweet, it was learned that Petro’s issue of Venezuela raised $735 million in funds, and many experts expressed doubts about this. Maduro once said that the cryptocurrency will be used as a means to “overcome the financial blockade” in Venezuela, and it is most likely to target the sanctions imposed on the country by the United States and European Union countries. It is reported that the current value of the national currency of Venezuela is only 0.00003 US dollars.

An expert on cryptocurrency supervision stated that Trump’s ban was expected. Jerry Brito, executive director of the Coin Center, a think-tank, said that although Venezuela’s release of cryptocurrencies looks fresh, it is nothing new for the United States to impose financial restrictions on the sanctioned countries. In its view, issuing cryptocurrency will not help Venezuela to escape the sanctions.

In February of this year, the U.S. Treasury Department warned its domestic investors not to touch the petro to prevent violations of sanctions regulations. “the petro digital currency would appear to be an extension of credit to the Venezuelan government, could, therefore, expose US persons to legal risk.”