Trump Signs Executive Order to Ban Venezuela’s Petro Cryptocurrency

Soon after President Maduro made an announcement to recruits its Venezuelan citizens to build crypto mining farms, Venezuela is in the news again. Apparently, U.S. president Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning American citizens from using Venezuelan cryptocurrencies. This is the first time the U.S. president Trump has been officially linked with cryptocurrency.

The Petro cryptocurrency which was only recently launched has already faced a ban in The US, which is otherwise a hotspot for cryptocurrencies. The controversial cryptocurrency was widely seen as a means to evade economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. The executive order is the latest and a stringent decision by the Trump’s cabinet to cut off Maduro’s funding.

The order that published on the White House website today, March 19, begins with,

“I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, in order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13692 of March 8, 2015, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13808 of August 24, 2017, and in light of recent actions taken by the Maduro regime to attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions by issuing a digital currency in a process that Venezuela’s democratically elected National Assembly has denounced as unlawful, hereby order as follows,”

The order continues,

“All transactions related to, provision of financing for, and other dealings in, by a United States person or within the United States, any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token, that was issued by, for, or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela on or after January 9, 2018, are prohibited as of the effective date of this order.”

But due to anonymous nature of all cryptocurrencies, it would be difficult to trace the transactions happening from the US soil.

The Petro Cryptocurrency may not survive

The announcement to kill the Petro cryptocurrency came without a warning. The significance of this being the first executive order to prohibit use of a cryptocurrency is notable, even though it is a regime, and not crypto, that’s the direct target.

Also, in a previous order signed by President Obama enabled authorities to confiscate crypto, but referred only to “cyber-enabled activities”. The petro cryptocurrency isn’t explicitly named in the executive order, although Petroleos de Venezuela is. This ban is not believed to affect the US investors very much.

Moreover with the executive order putting a ban on Petro cryptocurrency, banning other cryptocurrencies in US shouldn’t come as a surprise.

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