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The petro (symbol: ₽; abbreviation: PTR) is a Venezuelan token based on blockchain technology and, according to laws approved by the Venezuelan government in that sense, backed by the reserves of various natural resources of the country such as oil , gold, diamonds and gas. The government claims that each petro would be backed by a barrel of oil from the Venezuelan crude basket. The virtual currency has been the subject of criticism, some of which argue that the petro is not a cryptocurrency because it is not decentralized, and websites like ICOindex they have described the petro as a scam. In August 2018, five zeros were eliminated from the currency and the value of the petro was about 4.3 million BsF. By January 27, 2020, a petro was worth 4.4 million BsS, an approximate equivalent of 60 US dollars, which is worth a barrel of oil for the beginning of 2020. Currently, a petro is worth around 24 million BsS. According to the statements of the Venezuelan economist Jesús Casique, the petro is not a cryptocurrency because it lacks support. Oil cannot be the basis of virtual currency because there is no legal instrument to guarantee it, he also said, which violates the Hydrocarbons Law. Why is the Petro not a cryptocurrency? PETRO is defined as a crypto-asset exchangeable for other goods and services and for fiat money in national and international crypto-asset exchange houses, backed by barrels of Venezuelan oil. Each PETRO unit would be backed by one (1) purchase-sale contract for a barrel of the oil basket or any other commodity it decides. The essence of cryptocurrencies is that they do not have support in physical assets, since the trust of economic agents in them derives from the robustness and transparency that the technology that supports them allows. In other words, the cryptocurrency derives its success from its performance in the market, from free competition, which in the game of supply and demand allows its price to emerge. The support of these virtual currencies is in three very important elements, totally contradictory to the intentions of the current Venezuelan government: 1. They do not depend on a monetary authority that carries out the issuance. The issuance is decentralized in private agents, the fact that it is carried out by a government, contradicts the democratic essence of cryptocurrencies. 2. Cryptocurrencies are booming because they generate fast and low-cost transactions, and Venezuela is currently one of the countries in the region with the slowest Internet and the weakest electricity service, which could cause the already deteriorated telecommunications system to collapse from the country 3. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are successful because their issuance is limited, which encourages their accumulation, since their relative scarcity accumulates value. The rule for the issuance of Bitcoins is public and is not at the discretion of any government, which would not happen with PETRO, which would be a centralized currency.