Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced his first major cryptocurrency initiative of the new year – a casino that will run on cryptocurrencies.
According to a report, Maduro recently announced that the Humboldt Hotel in the Ávila National Park in the capital Caracas will soon become an international casino that will operate using the country’s state-backed stablecoin, the Petro. The news source did not confirm if the casino will also support other digital assets, but considering the Venezuelan government’s aggressive push for cryptocurrencies during this period, it would not be shocking if they included a Bitcoin casino.
Changing attitudes about casinos
The announcement comes about a decade after former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Maduro's predecessor and mentor, banned casinos and betting shops. At the time, Chavez called places like casinos ports of entry for drugs, prostitution and crime, and eventually banned them altogether, leaving about 100,000 Venezuelans jobless.
However, Maduro, now in a rapid decline, hopes to change that with the Petro. While it’s easy to question this plan and raise questions about how it can succeed, it’s also worth remembering the significant progress the Maduro government has made with the Petro and its adoption in the country.
A model for other countries to follow
This time last year, Venezuela’s oil-backed stablecoin was effectively a dead end. Unaccepted by any major cryptocurrency exchange, no one was accepting it, and it became the first real example of how a state-backed digital asset could be a bad example. However, Maduro has managed to bring the asset back to life, with several entities in the country, including Burger King, Truckee (one of Venezuela’s largest retail outlets), and the Bank of Venezuela, now backing the asset.
Venezuela now also has a cryptocurrency ATM, and the petro has been used as a primary source of funding and revenue for several projects, including the government. While no major cryptocurrency exchange currently lists the asset (and that likely won’t change now that the petro has been added to the sanctions list by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), the progress Venezuela has made with this asset — and indeed cryptocurrency as a whole in Venezuela — is undoubtedly admirable.
Now, if Maduro can use all of this for the public good, he could show the world that state-backed assets can be a good thing. Venezuela is currently in an economic crisis, with its official currency losing value every day and the government becoming increasingly unpopular in the international community. If it can manage to turn things around, its case could well inspire other countries to try out the prospects of state-backed digital assets.
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