Radical rentierism: gold mining, cryptocurrency and commodity collateralization in Venezuela

Abstract

After the oil price collapsed in 2014, debates in oil-producing nations emerged around the importance of doing away with commodity dependence. Modernization plans and developmental projects sprung up among large and small producers alike. Nevertheless, some countries remain dramatically committed to rentier practices, and many in Latin America and Africa have engaged in new forms of resource dependence by expanding their mining frontiers. Further, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, new forms of online payments entered the global political economy and generated discussion among policymakers about the legality and implications of these payment mechanisms. In this article, I explain the linkages of two apparently disconnected forms of mining. Drawing on the case of Venezuela, I argue that the spread of small-scale, irregular and artisanal gold extraction and cryptocurrency mining is the result of the decaying rentier state in crisis. These originally decentralized and irregular activities were later endorsed and transformed by the state with the Orinoco Mining Arc project and the launching of the commodity-backed cryptocurrency, the ‘petro’. The state’s endorsement of these forms of mining translate into the collateralization of primary commodities and the emergence of new forms of authority in a radicalized form of rentierism connected with global financial circuits.

Keywords:

• Rentier state
• orinoco mining arc
• Venezuela
• cryptocurrency
• gold mining
• frontier

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn, Jennifer Clapp, Jostein Jakobsen, Sarah J. Martin, Kate Neville, two anonymous reviewers and the editor of RIPE for their comments on previous drafts of this article. Thanks also to Benedicte Bull, Dan Banik and Jason Miklian of the Global Governance research group for their inputs in different conversations and the Center for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo for its generous support to this research project. An earlier version of the manuscript was presented at the 2018 ISA annual convention in San Francisco, I thank the participants and audience for their input. All errors remain my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Antulio Rosales

Antulio Rosales is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment of the University of Oslo. His research focuses on the political economy of resource extraction and its links to energy and the spread of new technologies in contexts of crisis. His latest work has been published in Globalizations, International Studies Quarterly, and Business and Politics.