Venezuela is Patient Zero Challenging The Western Financial System with Bitcoin

Nicolas Maduro launched the Petro (₽), an oil backed cryptocurrency, in 2018. Venezuela’s creation of the Petro, its formation of a national cryptocurrency exchange, and its nationalization of crypto-mining are part of an imminent international effort to evade US sanctions using digital currency. Countries that support Venezuela, in particular Russia, contributed to building this infrastructure and see it as a prototype for designing a similar national crypto financial infrastructure in the future. The US can and should respond by shutting down those tests where it can and by promoting innovation at home.