President Donald Trump has just prohibited the purchases of Venezuela's Cryptocurrency (Petro), that was released in February, 2018, as tensions increase over economic sanctions that was placed onto Venezuela.
President Maduro had issued the currency, originally as a way to curb the United States sanctions against the nation. It was to serve as a medium of exchange, where Venezuela is claiming that it will be backed with the value of oil, diamond, gasoline and gold reserves, which would help jump start the crumbling Venezuelan economy. Maduro had ordered all nationalized corporations to accept the Petro. The Petro is based off NEM and members of it's team are going to create a cryptocurrency exchange and expand its marketing across other exchanges. The Petro is set to possibly replace the failing Venezuelan Bolivar which suffered major devaluations over the past few years.
The US Treasury Department had called the Petro "another attempt to prop up the Maduro regime...". The IRS, in general, has been attempting to give gag orders to companies who do not disclose their private information to the IRS for tax purposes. With this order by Trump could mean very dangerous times for cryptocurrency users. If there is a serious witch-hunt on any individual then that could mean a major conflict between cryptocurrency privacy advocates and national governments seeking resolutions to their "national security".
Poverty has dramatically increased in Venezuela for the past few decades, and inflation has skyrocketed to over 6,000% in February. Long lines for those living in poverty hoping to eat, and so many people malnourished that food is scarce and so is medicine. Its a modern tragedy. Maduro's regime is no doubt one of many governments in the world that need to collapse, but there are some very moral positions we must make clear in regards to the cryptocurrency.
This cryptocurrency sure is a controversial one as it is being backed by a national government who has consistently opposed US interference within their economy (while committing multiple acts of atrocities against its own citizens), but there is something quite immoral about Trump's actions. This could have some serious ramifications for average cryptocurrency users if we are to be vilified just for owning a particular cryptocurrency. Imagine being arrested for owning, buying or selling a Chinese Yuan, it doesn't seem to be justified. It depends how serious they take this move by Venezuela, if they see the threat as a serious national security risk, then we may see a massive purge against cryptocurrency users by the US government, or possibly the United Nations.