Latam Insights — Petro Liquidation Imminent, Ripple Partners With Colombian Central Bank

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Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of Latin America’s most relevant crypto and economic news during the last week. In this issue, reports indicate that the Venezuelan government will liquidate the petro, Ripple partners with the Central Bank of Colombia, and Brazil issues a cryptocurrency legal decree.

Venezuelan Government to Liquidate the Petro

The Venezuelan petro, one of the first cryptocurrencies issued by a nation and backed by natural resources such as oil and gold, is allegedly set to be liquidated. According to reports from Bloomberg Linea, a Latam-focused news outlet, three people linked with Sunacrip, the Venezuelan cryptocurrency watchdog, stated the decision has already been made.

The Petro blockchain will be stopped after the government reimburses big petro holders, including department stores that received petro payments.

The liquidation of the Venezuelan petro comes three months after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro named a new restructuring board for Sunacrip due to its alleged involvement in a $20 billion “Crypto-PDVSA” corruption scheme. The former head of the institution, Joselit Ramirez, was also arrested in relation to this scheme.

The petro faced operational problems in May, with its blockchain stopping a couple of times, and reports of hundreds of accounts being blocked after these incidents.

Ripple Partners With Central Bank of Colombia to Research Blockchain Tech

Ripple, a cryptocurrency-focused company, has partnered with the Central Bank of Colombia to research and implement its technology in blockchain applications. The partnership will be part of the third phase of blockchain experimentation led by the Colombian Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies.

The Central Bank of Colombia will develop pilot applications to evaluate the efficiency of blockchain-based protocols in the payment tech and data management fields. A press release explained the Ripple central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform will be tested in a controlled environment without compromising public resources.

In July, the Colombian government announced the development of a Ripple-based system to issue land registry certificates.

Brazil Issues Cryptocurrency Legal Decree

The government of Brazil has issued a new cryptocurrency decree that defines the rules left out of the previously approved cryptocurrency law. The document, signed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, Economy Minister Fernando Haddad, and Central Bank President Roberto Campos Neto, designates the Central Bank of Brazil as the regulator of the cryptocurrency industry in the market.

The central bank will authorize exchanges to operate in the country and will also have supervisory power over other operations of the crypto market. The securities regulator (CVM) will only have authority over digital assets classified as securities.

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