Maduro announced on Monday the official launch of the petro, supposedly an oil-backed cryptocurrency created in February. In a televised address, he said:
Venezuela makes history! Today we take a step forward with the launch of petro as a national currency and platform for strengthening our financial sovereignty.
Telesur TV subsequently quoted him declaring that the petro, “unlike other digital currencies, doesn’t need to be mined because it already has a value; it is shielded with Venezuelan oil and mining wealth.” According to the publication, Maduro was also referring to “the country’s gold, diamond, iron, and aluminum.”
Following Monday’s announcement, the Venezuelan government published a new whitepaper for the petro. In contrast to the previous whitepaper, the new version states that the petro is using Dash’s X11 mining algorithm for Proof of Work, as well as a staked masternode system for Proof of Stake verification. The hybrid system will employ four-megabyte blocks and a one-minute block interval.
A page of the new whitepaper, describing the basic concepts of the technology behind the petro, displays illustrations taken directly from the Dash and Bitcoin whitepapers.
“Lol Venezuela’s new petro token is a blatant Dash clone,” tweeted Ethereum developer Joey Zhou upon reading the document.
Lol Venezuela's new Petro token is a blatant Dash clone (at least the whitepaper, page 11) https://t.co/j64CoaYfeP vs. https://t.co/9nwCVnPYi6
— Joey Zhou (@josephzhou) October 2, 2018
Furthermore, the petro is no longer backed fully by a barrel of oil. Instead, it is now backed by 50 percent oil, 20 percent gold, 20 percent iron, and 10 percent diamond, the new whitepaper details.