Abstract: Don't buy it! It could be a huge pit!
Recently, the world's first statutory digital currency, the "El Petro" issued by the Venezuelan government, has attracted widespread attention. According to official disclosure, the total issue of El Petro is about 100 million, and each El Petro is endorsed by a barrel of Venezuela's oil reserves. What is the difference between such endorsed El Petro and ordinary digital currencies? Can it win the approval of the market? Before answering these questions, let's take a look at the motives of Venezuela's issuance.
The motive of the issuance of the El Petro
Venezuela is one of the countries with the largest oil reserves and very serious dependence on oil revenues in the world.Oil revenues account for more than 95% of its total export revenue. But in recent years, as the United States and the European Union continue to impose economic sanctions on Venezuela, plus the radical government measures of the Venezuelan government, the country has been deeply trapped in the economic crisis, with a vicious inflation, the original statutory monetary system has long collapsed, and it also faces serious food shortages and the basic livelihood of the people can not be guaranteed . In order to break the US financial blockade, the Maduro administration came up with the way to issue "El Petro" to alleviate the crisis.
The credit background of the El Petro
In order to master first-hand information, the author starts from the official website of the El Petro (http://www.elptro..gob.ve/). First of all, it is Maduro's huge head and the symbol of the El Petro. Then we can see the download link of the white paper.
It can be seen from the white paper that although the Venezuelan government claims that a barrel of crude oil is endorsed behind each piece of El Petro , the currency cannot be exchanged directly from the Venezuelan government. The government only promises to use the currency to pay national taxes, expenses, donations and public service expenses, and the currency is converted to Boli at this time.
The formula for Wahl (Venezuela's legal tender) is as follows:
Converted oil price = oil price * El Petro exchange price * (1- discount rate) The price of the "El Petro exchange" is the weighted average price of the currency of several exchanges made by the Venezuelan government, and the discount rate is formulated by the Venezuelan government. That is to say, the actual price of El Petro is entirely controlled by the Venezuelan government.
The intelligent contract of the El Petro The El Petro official network provides a link to the Etherscan website, indicating that the El Petro is a standard ERC20 token of the ethereum, the contract address
0xf083605BC8b10d72b4aB72147b19B4bDAd1218E9.
It is gratifying to note that the Venezuelan government has also provided the source code of contracts closely.
As you can see from the source code, the full name of the El Petro is PETRO, the code name is PTR, the total issue volume is 100 million, and each El Petro can be subdivided into 100 million parts. It is worth mentioning that the contract source code is not long, a total of 98 lines, the regular supply of the 2 basic functions of ERC20 token - transfer, query balance, the code is very concise, no loopholes, also can not see the back door. This is to say that the government of Madrid is much more sincere than many ICO air coins.
Advance sale of El Petro
38 million 400 thousand of El Petro will be sold from February 20th to March 19th, with a reference price of $60.2627 of each El Petro, in which a diminishing discount will be used to stimulate early investment.
The president of Venezuela, Maduro, announced that it had raised $735 million on the first day of the sale, but he did not disclose any details of the initial investor and did not provide evidence to confirm the figure.
We can see the actual pre-sale results from the ethersan website. Until the time of dispatch, there were 11 addresses holding El Petro.
The first address is the address for the issuance of the El Petro, with a initial 100 million coins and nearly 96 million remaining, indicating that a total of 4 million El Petro were sold in advance. Even if the discount is not considered, the 4 million coins are $60 per coin and the total is $240 million. Where did the $735 million Maduro claim come from?
From the point of view of the address distribution, only 3 addresses have a high balance of 2 million 210 thousand, 1 million and 800 thousand, and the remaining 7 addresses are only 270, which shows that the pre-sale of the El Petro is not ideal, and few people actively participate. This shows that after the baptism of last year's ICO boom, leeks are not so easily cut.
The market price of the El Petro
People do not know how much the actual price of the El Petro which sold in advance, but the official website provides two links to the central exchange with etherdelta and 0x to facilitate the purchase of El Petro. In fact, the above 4 million El Petro were basically purchased through etherdelta .
To this end, the author log on to etherdelta website to see the current trading situation of El Petro. As can be seen from the above chart, the market price of El Petro is between several cents to 1 dollars, far less than the issuing price of 60 dollars. This shows that El Petro are not recognized by the secondary market at all.
The credit of any kind of currency is closely related to the credit of the issuer: the credit of the precious metal currency is derived from the scarcity of precious metals. The credit of the gold standard paper money is derived from the redeemable gold reserve. The credit of the national legal currency is derived from the stability of the government, and the digital currency is no exception, such as the ratio. The credit of the digita currency is derived from the mathematically proved scarcity and non replicability.
The El Petro, the so-called oil endorsement, does not have the ability to cash it. There is no scene out of Venezuela, and the ability to cash in the country is entirely dependent on the price of the government. In view of the poor administration of the Venezuelan government, it is believed that the currency will eventually become another form of Bolivar, devalued. That is the fundamental reason why the market does not agree.
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