Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Crypto Exchange ShapeShift Rebuts WSJ Report of Money Laundering Cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift has issued a denial in response to a Wall Street Journal article that the exchange had laundered around $9 million in ill-received funds. The article, which calculated a total of $88.6 million funneled through 46 exchanges, pinpointed $9 million as going …

Venezuelan state-owned cryptocurrency Petro has apparently plagiarized parts of its white paper from the GitHub repository of Dash. Core developer of Ethereum Joey Zhou pointed this out in a tweet posted Tuesday, Oct. 2. Zhou has tweeted that Petro, which has just been officially launched by president Nicolas Maduro, is "a blatant Dash clone." To illustrate this, he posted a link to the Venezuelan coin’s white paper, which had an exact copy of an image from Dash's repository on Github. An image from Dash’s repository on Github, added to p. 11 of Petro’s white paper with an added title in …

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has appeared on national television to announce the official launch of the national cryptocurrency Petro, according to a brief summary of his speech posted on Venezuela’s government website Monday, October 1. Maduro stated that the official website for the Petro has already been launched, and the official Petro wallet is also available in Google Play. However, the public sale will only start November 5. Maduro also stressed that Petro will be available on six major crypto exchanges starting Monday, October 1. The Venezuelan president did not specify which ones will eventually trade oil-backed currency, nor was …

Venezuela’s oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro, will be used for international commercial transactions starting in October 2018, according to a September 21 statement made by Nicolas Maduro. The Venezuelan president appeared on the national VTV channel to deliver his speech on the latest economic issues. As cited by the VTV website, he then announced the upcoming use of Petro on an international level, stating: "Petro comes into play as a currency for exchange, purchase and convertible currencies for the world." However, the Venezuelan leader did not specify the areas where the Petro will be used, nor did he name any of …

Venezuela has been living with hyperinflation since at least 2014. Its national currency — the Venezuelan bolívar — hit an official inflation rate of 57.3 percent in February 2014, while independent currency analysts were reporting that, by that September, the real inflation rate had already topped 100 percent. In other words, the bolívar (VEF) was depreciating rapidly in value, and ordinary Venezuelans needed something to fill the void it had left as a one-time viable means of exchange. By definition, hyperinflation is a state in which, as described by the International Accounting Standards Board, "the general population prefers to keep …

Reuters has today, August 30, published an investigative report into Venezuela’s national oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro (PTR), attempting to square government claims with facts on the ground and evidence of the Petro’s transaction history to date. Reuters dispatched reporters to the central Venezuelan hamlet of Atapirire, which sits at the heart of the 380-square-kilometer territory that the president has said can provide the 5 billion barrels of petroleum needed to back the new cryptocurrency. Amid rampant hyperinflation in the Venezuelan economy, President Maduro last week introduced a rebranded fiat currency – the sovereign bolívar, which will have five fewer zeros …

Venezuela’s national oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro (PTR), has been scathingly denounced as an opaque “stunt” backed by a centralized and debt-saddled entity, the Wired reports today, August 22. Amid rampant hyperinflation in the Venezuelan economy, President Nicolas Maduro has this week introduced a rebranded fiat currency – the sovereign bolívar – which will have five fewer zeros than its ailing predecessor, the Bolívar Fuerte (VEF). The new currency has in turn been anchored to the Petro, which is now valued at $60 or 3,600 sovereign bolivars. The plan effectively devalues the bolívar (VEF) from 285,000 per dollar to 6 million …

Venezuela has become the second biggest market for Dash (DASH), with almost one hundred merchants accepting the cryptocurrency each week, a spokesman told mainstream media Wednesday, August 22. Speaking to Business Insider, Ryan Taylor, CEO of Dash Core Group, which is the legal entity behind Dash’s core development team, said interest from both businesses and consumers was rising week by week. “We are seeing tens of thousands of wallet downloads from the country each month,” he told the publication. “Earlier this year, Venezuela became our number two market even ahead of China and Russia, which are of course huge into …

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has announced that the national oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro, will be used as a unit of account within the country, news outlet ABC International reported August 14. Nicolás Maduro reportedly announced in a television address, that the state oil company PDVSA will use the Petro as a unit of account. Additionally, the government will introduce a new salary system and a pricing system for goods and services that are anchored to the Petro. ABC quotes Maduro: “As of next Monday, Venezuela will have a second accounting unit based on the price, the value of the Petro. …

The president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro has announced that the country’s new cryptocurrency-backed national currency will start circulating August 20, local state news agency Telesur reported July 25. Telesur reports that the new currency, the Bolívar Soberano (Sovereign Bolivar), will have five zeros less than the existing national currency Bolivar Fuerte (VEF) and will be anchored to the oil-backed Petro (PTR) digital currency. The Petro was launched by the government of Venezuela this February. Maduro noted that the measure intends to align the financial and monetary system in the country “in a radical manner,” stating that the reconversion and anchoring …

The Venezuelan Minister of Habitat and Housing Ildemaro Villarroel has announced that the country’s government is planning to fund the construction of houses for the homeless with the national cryptocurrency Petro, Criptotendencia reports Thursday, June 5. The government will fund a project called the “Great Mission for Venezuela Housing (GMVV),” which aims to make quality housing more accessible to the homeless. According to the GMVV website, the government has finished more than 2 million houses to date. Villaroel said that 33 companies so far have started technical, financial, and logistics tests to start the construction process, adding: "Together with the …

Given the apparent sensitivity of cryptocurrency markets to regulatory and political developments, it stands to reason that the world's leaders — and what they think about crypto — will be vitally important in determining the direction the cryptocurrency market will travel in the future. Many leaders have been willing to sit back over the past few months and let crypto develop — more or less — organically, yet it's becoming apparent that the time for official action is drawing increasingly near, at which point Bitcoin, et al. will either bear the brunt of government 'crackdowns' or will benefit from favorable …