New York-based investment and holding company Signal Capital Management has announced the launch of PetroDollars (XPD), a cryptocurrency backed by oil reserves, natural gas, and similar commodities, OilPrice reported.
“Each PetroDollars token represents the net recovered value of a minimum of one reserve barrel of crude oil or its natural gas equivalent, and will be supported by a basket of oil and gas assets including physical oil and natural gas, oil and gas futures or derivatives, and interests in oil producing properties with an aggregate initial value approximating the aggregate value of all PetroDollars in circulation,” reads a statement on the project's website.
A global ICO is expected to take place in late 2018 and to be up to US$700 million in size, one of the largest ICOs to date, Signal Capital Management said.
After the ICO, “each of the projected PetroDollars tokens in circulation in the year following the ICO will be backed by more than 10 barrels of oil equivalent of proved, probable, and possible recoverable oil and gas reserves, certified by a third party independent petroleum engineering firm,” the firm said.
The cryptocurrency also affirms in its white paper that it will be “tradeable worldwide outside of the traditional banking system” and is “expected to be in Top 20 cryptocurrencies by total market value”.
Venezuela’s Petro issued in late February was the first oil-backed cryptocurrency in the world. The country’s President Nicolas Maduro claims Petro has raised $5 billion in the pre-sale.