People in Venezuela are reportedly selling Petro tokens they received via a government airdrop via the peer-to-peer bitcoin trading platform LocalBitcoins.

According to a Venezuelan Reddit user, “weeks ago” the country’s government airdropped 0.5 PTR to public workers and pensions, claiming to have reached a total of 6 million people with the oil-backed cryptocurrency airdrop. To receive the tokens, the Venezuelans had to login to a platform called “Patria” using their ID.

As the Petro is supposedly-backed by Venezuela’s oil reserves, the Redditor notes the 0.5 PTR are, according to the government, worth $30 as the price of one Petro is equivalent to one barrel of crude oil.

The Redditor details that there were only two platforms allowing people to use the oil-backed cryptocurrency to pay for goods in the services in the country, but that both platforms were disabled by the government because of their effects on the bolivar exchange rate.

As a result, those who received the Petro airdrop are trying to sell their tokens on the peer-to-peer bitcoin exchange LocalBitcoins, and the price has dropped to half of the original value. While it’s also possible to exchange the Petros on government-approved platforms, these are reportedly still pricing the cryptocurrency at $60 per unit.

Notably, CryptoGlobe reported earlier this year Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro claimed six million families used the oil-backed cryptocurrency during the holidays as a payment method, presumably at the time the airdropped tokens were usable through the now-disabled platforms.

The Venezuelan government has worked on launching a credit card and a point-of-sale system to support the Petro. The project saw state-sanctioned crypto exchange CritpoLAGO partner with investment bank Glufco to support the PTR, BTC, DASH, and ETH. Venezuela has for month been trying to bolster the Petro’s use, but the success of its attempts is unclear.

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