President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday that Venezuela would issue 100 million units of its new oil-backed cryptocurrency in coming days, although it is unclear whether any investors will want to purchase the “petro” at a time when the OPEC member is going through a deep economic crisis and its leftist government has little credibility. Socialist Maduro surprised many last month when he announced the launch of the cryptocurrency, to be backed by Venezuela’s oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves, as a way to circumvent U.S. sanctions that have hurt Venezuela’s access to international banks. Maduro specified on Friday that each unit of the currency would be pegged to Venezuela’s oil basket, which this week averaged $59.07 per barrel, according to the oil ministry. That implies the total cryptocurrency issued would be worth just over $5.9 billion. There is much confusion, however, over how the mechanism […]