With Venezuela’s announcement of the pre-sale of its petro cryptocurrency, this week has seen other governments around the world expressing interest in issuing their own national cryptocurrencies. Turkey’s former Industry Minister announced a plan to draft a proposal for a Turkish national cryptocurrency known as Turkcoin. That follows comments from Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister that Turkey would seek to issue its own national cryptocurrency.
Like most proposals that we hear about, details were largely non-existent, aside from a plan to back the cryptocurrency with asset-backed securities from large firms such as Turkish Airlines. That’s certainly a unique proposal, so we’ll see how far that goes.
Iran has also announced plans for its own national cryptocurrency issued by the government in Tehran. Once again, details are sparse. But given Iran’s oil reserves and the difficulty it has had with US sanctions, a new cryptocurrency could be part of an attempt to get around those sanctions, perhaps modeled on what Venezuela has already done. Venezuela’s success or lack thereof with its new cryptocurrency could provide a roadmap for Iran on what to do or what not to do.
Speaking of Venezuela, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered state-owned companies to accept the petro, among them PDVSA, the parent company of Citgo. Those companies will now be required to convert a certain percentage of their sales and purchases into the petro. That is supposed to enable Venezuelan citizens to purchase fuel, airline tickets, and other services. It remains to be seen whether the Venezuelan government will accept the currency in payment of taxes.
While none of these national cryptocurrencies may be of any interest to Bitcoin IRA investors, they still highlight the importance of cryptocurrencies to governments, their potential use in world trade, and the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies around the world. Paper money will increasingly become a thing of the past as cryptocurrencies continue to make headway.