Two American Senators came out in direct opposition last week to Venezuela\'s proposed digital Petro currency. Marco Rubio, a Republican representing Florida, and Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, sent an open letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, asking how the Department was monitoring the plan.

At the beginning of December, Venezuela\'s President Maduro announced his intention of creating a cryptocurrency system based on the country\'s oil, gold, gas and diamond reserves. He was reported by Reuters in Caracas as saying that this would help his country to \"advance in issues of monetary sovereignty, to make financial transactions and overcome the financial blockade.\"

The financial blockade includes American-led sanctions, instituted in 2015 when Venezuela was declared a \"threat to national security,\" but which Maduro claimed was an attempt to unseat his socialist government. Although the Petro is supposed to help the Venezuelan economic crisis these sanctions have helped to intensify, the two senators ask the Treasury what they are going to do to prevent Venezuela from creating and using the cryptocurrency.

The project is not without opposition even in Venezuela, with their congress calling the cryptocurrency plan illegal unless there is a vote for its creation by the legislature. A white paper for a Petro ICO was published earlier in January on social media but was denounced as false.