Venezuela’s Failed Cryptocurrency Is the Future of Money
El Petro couldn’t save Venezuela, but may save the world.
Shakespeare tells us, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” Venezuela’s 20-year slide from peaceful, prosperous democracy to violent, impoverished dictatorship has caused misery on a vast scale. And it brought together the protagonists in the story of el petro—a mashup of fringe economists and cypherpunks, socialists and libertarians, real-asset fundamentalists and next-generation financial engineers, the “Dutch disease” and exorbitant privilege. Their experiment ended in failure, but their ideas deserve exposure.
Consider the French Revolution in 1789. Its political accomplishments were short-lived: a century alternating among monarchy, republic, and empire. But the metric system it introduced spread throughout the world and persists today.