Venezuelan pensioners and government employees will receive Petro oil cryptocurrency as a New Year's gift.Such crypto-Christmas bonuses were promised by the president of the Latin American state in another attempt to popularize the national cryptocurrency.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro continues to try to introduce his digital currency Petro into circulation and considers it the basis for the economic future of Venezuela.
However, the situation of cryptocurrencies in Venezuela remainsunstable. Bitcoin is widely popular in the country, given hyperinflation and the general state of the local economy, but mainly MTC is traded underground through peer-to-peer services.
The weekly MTC trading volume in Venezuela hit a record high in the second week of November, when it recorded a volume of 144,150,090,255.
Meanwhile, the Maduro government is mainly focused on Petro– a controversial, state-controlled cryptocurrency whose mission is to preserve the Venezuelan economy.
Maduro recently allocated about 1 million Petro tomonthly payments to the states of the country. Last month, the president announced the creation of Petro funds for social housing, industrial and agricultural development.