Despite Venezuelan parliament declaring Petro cryptocurrency as illegal, President Nicolas Maduro is marching ahead to launch the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin.com reported that Maduro has announced the pre-sale of petro and has presented and signed petro’s whitepaper.

According to the official government website, the pre-sale will kick-off on February 20, 2018. Maduro made the announcement at the meeting of the council of ministers on Tuesday. He said:

“We have reached the future. Venezuela advances as an economic power,” adding that the petro pre-sale will be “through ERC20 tokens.” “Venezuela is at the forefront of the world, and we are going to accelerate permanently the start-up of the cryptocurrency, the petro,”Maduro said.

In addition, Maduro also signed petro’s whitepaper which describes “the functions, vision, and conditions” of the cryptocurrency.

Furthermore, he also revealed his plans to “accelerate the entry into the operation of el petro cryptocurrency and mining farms through the Petro Container.”

He said, “All the savings banks in the country can have their mining farms and participate in el petro.”

Maduro recently said that through the Superintendence of the Cryptocurrency, the government will also create mining farms in all the universities of the country.