Venezuela is reportedly preparing to elevate its crypto policy agenda from executive initiative to constitutional design. According to comments made by Hermann Escarra, a member of the country’s National Constituent Assembly, lawmakers are drafting a reform to the constitution that would include the creation of a central bank for crypto-assets. The proposal, if advanced, would mark one of the most ambitious attempts by a state to formalize cryptocurrency-related governance within its core institutional framework.
Speaking to Reuters in Caracas, Escarra said the planned reform would establish a crypto-focused central bank with responsibilities tied to exchange operations, monetary policy, and financial policy. He also said the broader constitutional package would include the creation of a court positioned above the current Supreme Court of Justice, underscoring that the crypto provisions are part of a wider effort to redesign key Venezuelan institutions rather than a standalone financial measure.
Escarra, described in the report as one of the more influential members of the assembly working on changes to the 1999 constitution, said the draft amendments were expected to be presented to the Constituent Assembly’s leadership within 35 days. That timeline suggests the government intended to move quickly as it pursued structural responses to the country’s deepening economic and monetary crisis.
Petro Expected to Be Included in the Reform
One of the most significant aspects of the proposal is the expected inclusion of the petro, the digital asset announced by President Nicolás Maduro’s government in February 2018. The petro was presented as a cryptocurrency backed by Venezuela’s oil reserves and promoted as a tool to help the country secure foreign exchange earnings while facing economic turmoil and sanctions imposed by the United States.
In official messaging, the petro was framed as an innovative financial instrument that could help Venezuela bypass constraints in the traditional global financial system. By tying the asset to oil reserves, the government sought to give it an appearance of commodity backing and national strategic value. Folding the petro into a constitutional reform would therefore represent more than symbolic recognition; it would signal an effort to grant the project a higher degree of legal and political legitimacy.
Still, the petro has been controversial from the start. Reports noted that major claims surrounding the asset, including the amount of money it had supposedly raised, were not supported by publicly verifiable proof. Crypto market observers and analysts also questioned its credibility, pointing not only to a lack of transparency around the token itself, but also to broader distrust of the Maduro administration and the long-running mismanagement of Venezuela’s sovereign currency.
A Broader Monetary Strategy Under Pressure
The proposed crypto central bank did not emerge in isolation. It followed a series of policy moves by the Venezuelan government aimed at integrating the petro into the country’s monetary architecture. Earlier in 2018, the administration launched the asset as part of a broader attempt to respond to hyperinflation, currency collapse, and external financial pressure.
However, implementation challenges quickly became visible. In June 2018, the government removed Carlos Vargas, the superintendent responsible for promoting and selling the petro, and replaced him with Joselit Ramírez. Economist Víctor Álvarez told El Nacional that the leadership change reflected the failure to place the cryptocurrency successfully in the market. He argued that expectations of raising $5 billion through the petro had not been met and that the initiative had largely faded from official discourse.
That leadership reshuffle highlighted a central contradiction in Venezuela’s crypto push: while the government was eager to portray the petro as a breakthrough financial instrument, its actual market reception appeared weak and its financing claims remained disputed. The attempt to embed crypto institutions into the constitution can therefore also be read as an effort to restore momentum and credibility to a project that had struggled to win trust.
Linking the Petro to the Sovereign Bolivar
The constitutional reform initiative also came after another major policy announcement. On July 25, 2018, Maduro said Venezuela’s new currency, the Sovereign Bolivar, would be linked to the petro. The new bolivar was scheduled to be released on August 20. That decision suggested the government was trying to use the petro as a reference point in a broader currency reset, not merely as a niche digital token.
By linking the new bolivar to the petro, authorities appeared to be searching for a way to stabilize expectations and reframe monetary value in the middle of a severe economic breakdown. Whether such a linkage could succeed in practice was far from certain, especially given the skepticism surrounding the petro’s transparency and market legitimacy. Yet from a policy standpoint, it demonstrated that the government was treating crypto not as an experimental side project, but as a component of national monetary strategy.
If a crypto central bank were ultimately incorporated into the constitutional order alongside the petro, Venezuela would be attempting to create a state-managed crypto governance structure with direct relevance to currency policy. That would place the country in unusual territory globally, where most central banks have studied digital assets or central bank digital currencies but far fewer have sought to constitutionally formalize a crypto institution tied to an existing national political project.
Political and Institutional Context
The proposal must also be understood within the controversial political setting of Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly. President Maduro called for the body in 2017 to draft a new constitution to replace the 1999 charter introduced under Hugo Chávez. Elections for the assembly were held on July 30 of that year, but the institution was contested from the outset. Opposition figures denounced it as unconstitutional, while supporters argued it was necessary to restore order and political stability in a deeply polarized country.
That context matters because any constitutional recognition of a crypto central bank would not only be a financial development, but also part of a larger struggle over state legitimacy, institutional authority, and executive power. In other words, the proposal sits at the intersection of monetary innovation, crisis governance, and constitutional politics.
For global crypto observers, Venezuela’s move stands out not because it validates the success of the petro, but because it illustrates how digital asset narratives can be incorporated into statecraft during periods of acute economic distress. The country’s experience shows that crypto can be deployed by governments not only as a market technology, but also as a policy instrument intended to reshape currency systems, attract foreign exchange, and reassert institutional control.
Whether the proposed reform could deliver practical results remained uncertain at the time of the report. But the direction was clear: Venezuela was seeking to place crypto-assets, and especially the petro, at the heart of its evolving legal and monetary framework.