Venezuela – which has more oil reserves than any other
Venezuela – which has more oil reserves than any other country on Earth – has also been making noises indicating its desire to conduct the hydrocarbon trade only in Petro tokens. Reports say that’s the Eurasian Economic Union, or EEU, may be on the course to adopt a unified digital currency by 2020-2. These conjectures were based on what Alexei Moiseyev, the deputy Finance Minister of Russia told reporters yesterday. He said that negotiations would be conducted throughout 2019 to effect the new measures.
The economic block of countries, comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia – and based in Moscow – added that even other countries outside the EEU – “other key trading partners” – were being considered to join the new trade regime. Moiseyev likened the possible (crypto-)currency euro was adopted in 1999.
Such measures are very clearly a response to the growing number of US- and Western-backed sanctions on several countries in Asia and Eurasia – including Russia. Economic sanctions are stimulating a certain kind of innovation, and government-level interest in the sort of irrevocable transactions that cryptocurrencies are capable of.
Moiseyev said:
The number of organizations that are under sanctions is also growing […] Accordingly, we must respond to this by creating reliable international payment systems that are not tied to the US dollar.
The recent example of integrating into, and then cut out of Western-dominated monetary transfer vehicles is the recent example of SWIFT blocking Iranian banks. The US recently muscled the Belgium-based company into blocking Iranian banks and entities, causing a moderate political rift in the process with the European Union, many of whose members are against the move.
SWIFT is a financial messaging service and “part of the world’s financial plumbing,” connecting 11,000 financial institutions globally. Thus, being excluded from SWIFT can cause a ruinous halt in trade and economic activity.
CryptoGlobe has also reported on Venezuela’s efforts to produce a state-backed, centralized cryptocurrency – the Petro (PTR) – in response to similar sanctions against Venezuelan entities and individuals. Venezuela – which has more oil reserves than any other country on Earth – has also been making noises indicating its desire to conduct the hydrocarbon trade only in Petro tokens.