UPDATED 21:51 EDT / MARCH 19 2018

EMERGING TECH

Trump bans US purchases of Venezuela’s ‘Petro’ cryptocurrency

U.S. President Donald Trump today banned Americans from trading Venezuela’s “Petro” cryptocurrency in a blow to what was already a dubious moneymaking scheme.

The executive order, signed Monday, retrospectively dates to Jan. 9 a ban on all U.S. citizens undertaking any transactions, financing or other dealings in any digital currency, digital coin or digital token issued by or on behalf of the government of Venezuela. The order goes on to cover any methods or means that have the purpose of evading or avoiding the order.

Venezuela announced its intention to launch the Petro, a cryptocurrency allegedly tied to the country’s oil reserves, before launching a presale Feb. 20. The presale offered 82.4 million tokens out of what is claimed will be a total of 100 million tokens worth $6 billion, meaning that Venezuela would raise $4.9 billion, much-needed foreign currency for the struggling socialist state.

Trump’s order is no surprise, since Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro had previously said that the initial coin offering and cryptocurrency were squarely aimed at bypassing U.S. trade sanctions to “advance in issues of monetary sovereignty, to make financial transactions and overcome the financial blockade.”

The use of ICOs and cryptocurrencies to facilitate financial transactions has recently caught the attention of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a bureau within the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It said in a letter earlier this month that ICOs need to be registered as money transmitters and also comply with anti-money-laundering statutes and know-your-customer rules. “An exchange that sells ICO coins or tokens, or exchanges them for other virtual currency, fiat currency, or other value that substitutes for currency, would typically also be a money transmitter,” FinCEN said.

Photo: The Photographer/Wikimedia Commons

Since you’re here …

… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.

If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.