Mexican Company Offers Crypto Backed By Habaneros

In an effort to raise funds from small investors, Mexico’s Amar Hidroponia is selling digital currency backed by habanero chilis. Each coin, which is dubbed Agrocoin, is backed by a square meter of habanero production, Bloomberg reported.

“We had a lot of people who wanted to invest, but with less money,” Amar Hidroponia President Rodrigo Domenzain told Bloomberg. “Agrocoin allows us to have a new investment product backed by agricultural goods.”

Each coin costs 500 pesos — or about $27. The company said it could pay a dividend of 30 percent of the coins’ cost each year. That percentage would, of course, be dependent on the chili pepper output and demand.

So far, the company has sold only 50,000 of the 1 million Agrocoins that it plans to make available. Investors can currently buy the coins on the company’s website. After a lockup period of a year, they can trade the coins on a crypto exchange.

Besides agricultural products, cryptocurrencies can be backed by all sorts of assets — such as oil. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, for example, vowed to back his nation’s national cryptocurrency, Petro, with natural resource reserves.

According to RT, Maduro made the announcement on national television in December, showing a document “formalizing the provision of the certified Ayacucho oil field No.1 in the Orinoco Petroleum Belt for the support of El Petro cryptocurrency.” Maduro said the field’s reserves amount to 5 billion barrels of oil.

“Every single Petro will be backed by a barrel of oil,” Maduro said, promising to provide cryptocurrency mining throughout Venezuela. “We will set up a special team of cryptocurrency specialists so they will be engaged in mining in all states and municipalities of our country.”

In addition, the Venezuelan president promised to allocate Arco Minero gold deposits from the Orinoco Belt, along with the country’s diamond deposits.