Venezuela hikes minimum wage, backed by cryptocurrency Petro

Southern American country Venezuela is now seeing an 18-times increase in minimum wage after the country’s president Nicolas Maduro pegged it to 50% of the national cryptocurrency Petro (PTR).

With the hike, the monthly minimum wage for the country has been shot up to 126 bolivars ($28), Bloomberg was the first to report Friday.

Petro is an official cryptocurrency created on the DASH blockchain and backed by Venezuela’s oil, natural gas, and mineral reserves. It was launched in 2018 after the country suffered from massive hyperinflation and a decline in the creditworthiness of its currency, the Bolivar.

Petro was launched as a way to revive the country’s flailing economy and cope with the international sanctions. However, the cryptocurrency only gained temporary hype with not many active users at the time of publication.

President Maduro has now remarked that the recent increase will push all the salary tables upwards, during his speech in front of 10,000 government workers. The country’s minimum wage was previously increased to $2 in April last year.

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