President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro has announced the government will pay the country’s retirees and public workers half a Petro as a Christmas bonus.

In a speech this week, Maduro said he will deliver half a Petro to the 4,500,000 retirees and 3,500,000 public workers in Venezuela.

With a fixed value set by the Venezuelan government, the average Petro bonus each person will receive will be equivalent to around $30. It is estimated that the government will distribute around $240 million, as per the valuation of the state cryptocurrency.

The President said this week will see a "new stage of economic and social protection" within the Venezuelan economy, in reference to this initiative, reports Coin Telegraph.

Maduro added that "they have been building the Petro (...) for almost two years" and "the first thing he did with the Petro was to place 5 billion barrels of oil as support", concluding that they are already producing those barrels of oil to have them "only for Petro".

That said, he continued that they already have "30 million barrels of oil" within "the direct physical material wealth that sustains the Petro for whoever wants to claim it".

In addition, the Venezuelan President affirmed he has already signed an agreement with "50,000 merchants in the country" to accept the state cryptocurrency as a method of payment within their establishments.

As reported by Coin Telegraph Spain last month, Francisco Torrealba, the Deputy of the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela, announced he believes all currencies will be superseded by cryptocurrencies.

In reference to Venezuela, Torrealba said that the country is facing a monumental change and Maduro is making a “great contribution” to the country by creating the Petro. He added that "everything will be from this currency [the Petro].”