Venezuela President Maduro Touts Trezor Bitcoin Wallet on National TV

Trezor says they have no official resellers in Venezuela after Nicolas Maduro appeared on a state-run TV station with what appears to be the Trezor hardware Bitcoin wallet.

On Nov. 6, President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro appeared on state-run television station Venezuelan Television Corporation (VTV), holding a crypto hardware storage device allegedly developed by major wallet supplier Trezor. The video is posted on the official Facebook page of President Maduro.

Trezor says it is unaware of the alleged Trezor representatives who appeared on the Venezuelan national TV alongside Maduro.

Trezor says it is investigating

In a news segment titled "Private companies of cryptocurrency are operative in Venezuela," Maduro was meeting a company that introduced themselves as alleged representatives of Trezor in Venezuela, Trezorvenezuela.

The alleged representing firm has a Facebook page and an account on Instagram, where it refers to the official website of Trezor, trezor.io.

Following the reports on social media, the official Trezor account on Twitter denied the information that the company featured on VTV is formally connected to Trezor.

The official company said that they have not official resellers in Venezuela, noting they were not aware of the issue. In a tweet on Nov. 7, Trezor said they launched an investigation:

“To clarify the situation, we have no official resellers in Venezuela (http://trezor.io/resellers/ ) as well as we were not aware about the technological fair. We’re investigating this issue.”

Online commentators suggested that the company appearing on VTV was apparently an unlicensed reseller of Trezor.

Maduro pushes Petro adoption at a recent event

After launching Venezuela’s oil-backed cryptocurrency Petro (PTR) in February 2018, Maduro officially ordered one of the country’s leading banks, Banco de Venezuela, to accept PTR in July 2019.

According to a report by Venezuelan newspaper El Universal on Nov. 6, Maduro conducted a conference at the Banco de Venezuela in order to discuss measures to bring more adoption to Petro cryptocurrency. At the event, Maduro reportedly announced the procedures for the sale and purchase of products via Petro.

Trezor has not responded to Cointelegraph's request for comment at the time of publication. 

From Cointelegraph.com News https://cointelegraph.com/news/venezuela-president-maduro-touts-trezor-bitcoin-wallet-on-national-tv