Criptolago, a cryptocurrency exchange in Venezuela, will now allow for citizens to pay for transactions in Petro via a text message. Petro, of course, is the country’s oil-backed digital currency.
The goal here, of course, is accessibility. Instead of needing a card or something else confusing to spend cryptocurrency held in an exchange, users can simply send a text to make it work. The platform will also support spending other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dash, via this same method.
This information was revealed via a tweet by the exchange:
“Following the guidelines of our president @NicolasMaduro and in favor of our #criptonation, with the new function of Payments for #SMS we have opened the possibility for all the Venezuelan people to carry out #Petro transactions in a very practical way.”
Bitcoin trading was recently threatened in Venezuela due to a lack of internet access, as previously reported by InsideBitcoins. This text-messaging system was also partly an answer to this lack of access.
Interestingly, the country saw a massive increase in cryptocurrency adoption once banks closed, as InsideBitcoins has also previously reported on. This, of course, was the result of the global pandemic, coronavirus, and its spread throughout various countries around the planet.
