Le straordinarie ramificazioni di Bitcoin come denaro in El Salvador

Guarda questo episodio su YouTube

Ascolta questo episodio:

Il governo di El Salvador ha recentemente compiuto una mossa storica dichiarando bitcoin come moneta a corso legale, ma l’implementazione di questa nuova rete monetaria a livello di stato nazionale non è avvenuta senza la sua giusta quota di ostacoli. Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer della Human Rights Foundation, ha recentemente scritto un pezzo eccezionale intitolato”The Village And The Strongman”che descrive in dettaglio lo stato di Bitcoin in El Salvador, e si è unito a Twitter Spaces ospitato da Bitcoin Magazine per discutere esattamente cosa sta succedendo verso il basso.

Uno dei problemi principali con l’implementazione del governo è stata la mancanza di privacy e trasparenza che circonda l’app Chivo. Spostandosi verso una società senza contanti, c’è la possibilità che il comportamento finanziario dei cittadini sia sorvegliato e limitato se non imparano le migliori pratiche di Bitcoin per la privacy e l’auto custodia.

“C’è un po’di preoccupazione qui che potresti avere molti utenti che si accalcano sul portafoglio del governo, perché ti dà denaro gratis ed è più facile da usare”, ha affermato Matt Odell, Bitcoiner e privacy avvocato, durante la conversazione Spaces.”Di conseguenza, finiscono per non avere privacy finanziaria e i loro fondi possono essere sequestrati a piacimento, che è la situazione attuale se gli utenti utilizzano il portafoglio Chivo, il portafoglio del governo”.

Sono anche emerse complicazioni dall’introduzione di nuovi utenti alla volatilità intrinseca a breve termine del bitcoin. Il prezzo di Bitcoin ha sofferto pesantemente il giorno del lancio, il che è stato probabilmente sconcertante per le persone che non capiscono perché il loro potere d’acquisto potrebbe diminuire.

“Vedono i loro saldi calare e sentono che il denaro è stato rubato” ha detto Enzo Rubio, proprietario del Point Break Café di El Zonte. “È difficile quando non hai la giusta istruzione. Penso che l’istruzione sia una parte importante che il governo non sta facendo in questo momento. Forse, perché stanno cercando di risolvere le difficoltà tecniche un po’più della parte educativa.”

In definitiva, i vantaggi dell’adozione di una rete monetaria che può garantire alle persone diritti di proprietà inesigibili superano le turbolenze che si sono verificate durante il lancio. Bitcoin rappresenta speranza e opportunità, soprattutto per le nuove generazioni che stanno abbracciando questa nuova tecnologia e tutto ciò che ha da offrire.

Gerson Martinez, un Bitcoiner salvadoregno il cui padre ha dovuto lasciare El Salvador a 19 anni a causa di disordini civili e corruzione, è entusiasta e fiducioso per la prossima generazione di salvadoregni.

“ Mi dà così tanta gioia e orgoglio per la mia eredità sapere che ci sono giovani, in particolare, giovani, che sono così pieni di speranza per il loro paese ora, e che il primo pensiero non è:”Lasciami uscire di qui”. Fammi capire come e quando posso uscire da qui per cercare una vita migliore'”, ha detto Martinez. “Piuttosto,’Posso costruire la vita che voglio qui’. A mio avviso, aver adottato questa rete monetaria è un passo gigantesco in quella direzione verso la libertà e la sovranità. Lascio le cose a questo.”

Gladstein ha rafforzato la sua posizione secondo cui questa mossa di El Salvador è senza precedenti e probabilmente inciterà l’azione di altri leader mondiali in tutto il mondo.

“Voglio che sia chiaro che, dal mio punto di vista, questa è una cosa storica. È la marcia del software open source”, ha affermato Gladstein. “È straordinario che questo governo abbia scelto Bitcoin. Avrebbero potuto bandire Bitcoin. Mette davvero sotto pressione molte istituzioni a livello internazionale e aziende per seguire il programma.”

La registrazione completa di questa conversazione su Spaces include molti più dettagli e discussioni. Per leggere l’intera conversazione, controlla la trascrizione inedita di seguito:

[00:00:06] CK: Benvenuti, benvenuti, benvenuti a tutti. Questo è ck_snarks con Bitcoin Magazine. Ho creato un buon Twitter Spaces per te. Davvero entusiasta per questo. Sarà con Alex Gladstein. parleremo di ciò che sta accadendo in El Salvador. Bitcoin sta succedendo ovviamente in El Salvador, ma lì sta succedendo molto altro. Alex ha scritto un articolo per la rivista Bitcoin intitolato Il villaggio e l’uomo forte, immergendosi davvero nella storia improbabile e parlando di come Bitcoin in El Salvador sia diventato un punto di partenza. Inoltre, il personaggio di Bukele, cosa sta succedendo intorno ai diritti umani lì, cosa sta succedendo intorno alla democrazia lì, ecc.

È un argomento sfumato e complicato. Abbiamo parlato molto di El Salvador qui su Bitcoin Magazine. Ovviamente, qualcosa che è molto, molto pertinente a Bitcoin e una notizia molto importante. Vuoi continuare a continuare a coprire questo. Siamo un po’in anticipo per iniziare la stanza, ma stiamo aspettando ed entusiasti che Matt Odell, Aaron Van Wirdum, molte altre persone si uniscano e conducano la conversazione insieme a Mr. Gladstein. Che succede Aaron? Ehi, solo per tutti coloro che non hanno familiarità con Aaron, è il nostro redattore tecnico principale, ed è sul campo in El Salvador e praticamente lo è stato da prima della notizia della legge Bitcoin.

[00:01:35] AVW: Ehi, ehi.

[00:01:36] CK: Aaron, tra la legge sul corso legale di Bitcoin è diventata ufficiale a Bitcoin 2021, sei andato in El Salvador, solo perché stava iniziando a diventare davvero un luogo, El Zonte in particolare, in cui la gente si recava in pellegrinaggio. Puoi parlarci un po’di come El Salvador è davvero cambiato da prima e dopo la legge? Così come Bitcoin 2021 e quell’esperienza?

[00:02:05] AVW: Bene, hai detto che è diventato un posto interessante per i Bitcoiner visitare El Zonte in particolare. Ho passato un po’di tempo a El Zonte. Passo più tempo a San Salvador. Sono a San Salvador ora. L’ho descritto quasi come una conferenza sui Bitcoin. Puoi andare lì, e il più delle volte, ci saranno altri Bitcoiner in città che puoi bere una birra e solo i tipi di conversazioni che troverai ai meetup di Bitcoin. Questo è figo. Non so cosa intendi con l’ultima domanda. In effetti, non ricordo quale fosse la tua ultima domanda.

[00:02:38] CK: No. Stavo solo dicendo, qual è stata l’esperienza a Bitcoin 2021, vedendo quella notizia e come cambiato il modo in cui pensavi a El Salvador prima?

[00:02:48] AVW: Risponderò a una domanda diversa. Perché non so rispondere a questa domanda. Era interessante. Voglio dire, quindi per noi di Bitcoin 2021 è arrivato questo annuncio ed è stata una grande sorpresa per tutti. Hai avuto una standing ovation tra la folla, e tutti facevano il tifo, e tutti erano felici.

Poi arrivi a El Salvador e impari che è stata ugualmente una sorpresa qui, ma la reazione è stata un po’un po’diverso, direi. Molte persone qui hanno avuto una sensazione del tipo:”Che cazzo sta succedendo? Cos’è questa cosa del Bitcoin? Perché dobbiamo occuparci di questo?”Sentivo che c’era una conferenza. È stata una sorpresa per tutti. I bitcoiners, ovviamente, erano molto contenti di questa sorpresa. Le persone qui erano per lo più solo un po’confuse riguardo a questa sorpresa.

Ho avuto reazioni contrastanti, credo. Voglio dire, ha sicuramente messo Bitcoin sulla mappa. Molte persone ci stanno pensando, ne parlano. È una buona cosa. Allo stesso tempo, molte persone non sono necessariamente molto contente del modo in cui la legge viene attuata e del modo in cui viene implementata senza alcun dibattito pubblico prima che la legge fosse attuata.

[00:03:51] CK: Fantastico. Grazie per questa intuizione. Alessio, benvenuto.

[00:03:55] AG: Prima farò solo una panoramica e voglio davvero sentire anche Matt Odell. Allora possiamo prendere la versione di Enzo e Gerson. Ho voluto fare questo articolo per due motivi. Uno era mostrare ai media mainstream che mi hanno contattato per questo articolo, le persone del New York Times e altrove hanno letto questo articolo e lo hanno interpretato e digerito. Volevo che capissero che sì, a prima vista, sembra abbastanza contraddittorio avere un governo che si sta chiaramente dirigendo in una direzione autoritaria.

Qual ​​è la contraddizione tra questo e poi il fatto che loro’l’adozione di una valuta statale decentralizzata e al di là del loro potere di manipolare alla radice, questo è un affascinante contributo geopolitico che avrà un grande impatto umano, non solo in El Salvador, ma oltre?

Volevo creare qualcosa che mostrasse qualche sfumatura riguardo al fatto che sì, questo è storico. Sì, è incredibile che questo governo abbia scelto Bitcoin e non una banca centrale, una valuta digitale o una moneta di sorveglianza cinese, o che abbia scelto Bitcoin come moneta a corso legale per la nazione. È ancora sbalorditivo a cui pensare. Quali sono, d’altra parte, gli obiettivi di questo governo? Come servirà loro? Penso che, alla fine della giornata, si riduca all’idea di autocustodia, e l’idea di tipo, saranno 2 milioni di persone che usano Chivo, che promette davvero di pagare Bitcoin che sono confiscabili? Oppure ci sarà davvero un movimento organico di salvadoregni che in realtà, come a partire da El Zonte, imparano effettivamente come usare Bitcoin nel modo corretto, e poi crescono organicamente da lì.

Questi sono due temi molto contraddittori e paradossali. Matt Odell, ovviamente, parla molto di privacy e sorveglianza, ma anche dell’adozione da parte del governo di Bitcoin e della sua teoria dei giochi. Mi piacerebbe sentire Matt e la sua opinione su questo finora. Poi ci occuperemo di Gerson ed Enzo.

[00:05:50] MO: Ehi, ragazzi. è un onore essere qui. Prima di tutto, Gladstein, apprezzo davvero molto che tu sia andato laggiù in prima persona e che abbia scritto un resoconto così articolato e completo sulla situazione attuale. È stato davvero utile dal mio punto di vista come qualcuno che non è ancora riuscito ad arrivare laggiù. Una cosa voglio dire, vorrei sicuramente sottolineare che hai menzionato nel pezzo, penso che molti americani non siano veramente consapevoli, è quanto male abbiamo fatto in quel paese, intervenendo e forzando la nostra volontà sul popolo salvadoregno.

Voglio essere molto consapevole di non essere un tropo americano qui e di dare le mie opinioni su qualcosa che non sono stato sul campo in prima persona. In generale, la mia preoccupazione deriva principalmente dallo scetticismo del governo e dallo scetticismo delle grandi aziende che spesso trascurano la privacy della loro base di utenti e abusano del rapporto che hanno con quegli utenti e del controllo che hanno su quegli utenti.

Ci sono molte cose su cui sono molto ottimista con la nuova legge salvadoregna sui Bitcoin. In particolare, quando hai menzionato il fatto che possono utilizzare qualsiasi portafoglio è enorme. Penso, qualcosa che non mi aspettavo accadesse in nessun paese per forse anche un decennio, molto più avanti della curva su questo.

Una delle cose che hai davvero evidenziato nel pezzo che penso sia la chiave ecco che c’è un enorme elemento educativo. Penso che i Bitcoiner di tutto il mondo, come comunità, sia qualcosa di veramente attuabile che possiamo aggirare, solo nell’educare le persone nelle migliori pratiche quando si usa Bitcoin, perché ci sono così tante sfumature quando stai cercando di usarlo in privato, e quando stai cercando di usarlo come individuo, non è necessariamente semplice come installare il portafoglio del governo.

Qui c’è un po’di preoccupazione che potresti avere molti utenti affolla il portafoglio del governo, perché ti dà denaro gratis ed è più facile da usare. Di conseguenza, finiscono per non avere alcuna privacy finanziaria e i loro fondi possono essere sequestrati a piacimento, che è la situazione attuale se gli utenti utilizzano il portafoglio Chivo, il portafoglio del governo.

[00:08: 07] AG: Sì. Una cosa che hai sollevato, che penso sia molto importante sottolineare, è che attualmente, in molti paesi, incluso El Salvador, l’economia del denaro è molto importante per molte persone. Questo è lo stesso caso in Palestina e in molti altri posti nel mondo, ovviamente. Fornisce un livello non solo di privacy, ma in realtà, di disconnessione dal regime e dal governo. Fornisce un luogo in cui il governo non ha molto controllo o supervisione in modo positivo. Consente alle persone di condurre effettivamente affari in un modo peer-to-peer che è molto più sotto il loro controllo.

Ora, se questo fa parte di una strategia del governo per far sì che le persone passino dall’economia monetaria a l’economia di Chivo, allora ci interessa. Perché poi, tutte queste piccole transazioni che vengono fatte usando il contante, che è ovviamente, possono essere svilite. Con il dollaro, i salvadoregni sono meno preoccupati. Il problema è con i contanti, hai privacy e hai un bene al portatore che non può essere confiscato a distanza.

Ora, ci stiamo spostando potenzialmente, a persone che usano un portafoglio digitale dollarizzato del governo, che può essere confiscato e congelato a distanza e ha molte più restrizioni alla sorveglianza. Una delle preoccupazioni è che questo fa parte di un movimento globale generale di passaggio da un’economia cash a forse un’economia Chivo. Ora, ovviamente, usando cose come portafogli Bitcoin auto-custodiali e sviluppando un’economia peer-to-peer, è così che combatteremo questa tendenza. Sembra poco chiaro in tutto il paese di El Salvador, come andrà a finire. Matt, vuoi pesare su questo?

[00:09:37] MO: Sì. Voglio dire, volevo solo essere d’accordo che voglio dire, questa è assolutamente una tendenza che stiamo vedendo a livello globale. Stiamo assistendo all’eliminazione graduale del denaro, non solo da parte dei governi che cercano intenzionalmente di eliminarne l’utilizzo e scoraggiarne l’uso, ma anche da parte di individui che scelgono opzioni digitali più convenienti. Penso che, personalmente, il presidente Bukele sia un politico molto esperto. È un populista. È molto bravo a usare Twitter. Probabilmente ha, come la maggior parte delle persone, molti motivi per implementarlo. Penso che sarebbe piuttosto ingenuo presumere che uno dei motivi non sia lo scoraggiamento dell’economia monetaria, di cui non ha idea. Il governo non ha praticamente alcuna visione di questa economia monetaria che presumibilmente è un aspetto piuttosto importante dell’economia salvadoregna.

Sarei molto sorpreso che questo non sia uno dei suoi incentivi, e uno dei suoi obiettivi è provare e le persone – spostare le persone verso questa economia più digitale e sorvegliata. Allo stesso tempo, se hai intenzione di farlo, ovviamente, è assolutamente meglio che venga fatto su una rete monetaria aperta, come Bitcoin, dove puoi usare altre applicazioni che non sono gestite dal governo, al contrario di molte di questi cosiddetti piani di valuta digitale della banca centrale vediamo uscire dalla Cina e persino dagli Stati Uniti.

[00:10:49] AG: Giusto. Ovviamente, finché l’app Chivo si connette ancora alla rete Bitcoin, il che significa che puoi ancora prelevare fondi in Bitcoin e ricevere pagamenti Bitcoin e Lightning dall’estero, è uno strumento potente, ed è uno che, ovviamente, nessun altro governo ha osato implementare. Non voglio sottovalutare il potere, l’aggiornamento umanitario che Bitcoin presenta. Questo è ciò che manca totalmente al mainstream. Potrebbero essere precisi nelle loro critiche a Bukele da un punto di vista politico.

Devi davvero capire quale enorme aggiornamento comporta per le persone, quando possono ricevere un pagamento, forse una rimessa di $ 50, $ 100, $ 500 da chiunque sul proprio telefono all’istante. Quindi possono tenerlo in dollari senza un conto bancario, oppure prelevarlo in contanti o prelevarlo nel proprio portafoglio Bitcoin. Voglio dire, è uno strumento davvero incredibile.

Ancora una volta, ho due relatori ospiti qui. All’inizio uno era almeno più positivo riguardo alla legge, e l’altro era più negativo riguardo alla legge. Sentiremo prima Gerson, perché era più positivo. Poi sentiremo Enzo e poi potremo andare avanti e indietro. Gerson, vai avanti. Raccontaci il tuo punto di vista su questo come si è svolto negli ultimi tre mesi.

[00:12:01] GM: Certo. Sì. Innanzitutto grazie, Alessio. Prima di tutto, per aver scritto quell’articolo, e per aver fatto sì che la storia di El Salvador fosse un’analisi piuttosto densa della storia di El Salvador davanti a così tanti occhi. Penso che sia davvero, davvero importante. Voglio essere d’accordo con molto di quello che tu e Matt avete appena detto, riguardo all’importanza di questa legge, dal punto di vista dei diritti umani, di dare alle persone l’accesso alla rete Bitcoin, e in particolare, in un paese dove 70 La % del paese non è bancaria e non ha le risorse o la documentazione necessaria per aprire uno strumento finanziario tradizionale.

Come hai detto, sono stato molto, molto ottimista su tutta questa impresa. Senti, non escludo la possibilità che un presidente con una maggioranza assoluta nel corpo legislativo che è molto popolare, quasi come, cultore in alcune tasche del paese, non escludo la possibilità che anche quest’uomo possa diventare corrotto, o avere il potere assoluto corrompe assolutamente. Non scarto questa possibilità. Tuttavia, penso che stiamo tutti evidenziando qui che la rete monetaria in cui sta optando per il paese è una che non può controllare.

Non posso sottolineare quanto, penso, sia significativo per me come un Bitcoiner. Perché alla fine, non sta dicendo che torneremo allo standard Colon, da prima del 2001. In realtà volevo solo, se mi dai solo un secondo, volevo toccare la storia della mia famiglia. I miei genitori sono entrambi di El Salvador. Sono emigrati negli Stati Uniti circa 40 anni fa, nel bel mezzo della Guerra Civile, combattuta da un sistema politico sostanzialmente biforcuto. Un partito di estrema destra contro i guerriglieri che si è rivelato essere il partito di estrema sinistra nel paese.

Vorrei riavvolgere ulteriormente l’orologio. Circa cinque o sei generazioni fa nella mia famiglia, da parte di mio padre, erano coltivatori di caffè in una parte del paese chiamata [incomprensibile 00:13:55], dove possedevano la terra che coltivavano, su cui coltivavano il caffè. Poi da qualche parte nei primi anni del 1900, una sussidiaria della United Fruit Company arriva ed effettivamente, non dà a nessuno un’opzione, e inizia a comprare tutta la terra. Puoi ovviamente, molte persone in questo spazio possono immaginare, questi sono interessi multinazionali, compagni di letto con leader politici che danno loro il diritto di passaggio nel loro paese, iniziano a comprare tutta questa terra e poi dicono a tutti i contadini:”Voi’lavorerai ancora qui, ma ora ti pagheremo. Ora ti pagheremo qualunque salario riterremo redditizio per noi.”

È successo ai nonni di mio padre. Avanti veloce fino al 1957, quando mio padre è nato in El Salvador, in condizioni di estrema povertà. Perché la loro capacità di accumulare ricchezza era stata loro tolta, e così era nato in una povertà assoluta. Più in là quando aveva 19 anni, a causa di quei disordini civili, della povertà e della corruzione nel paese, ti viene una guerra civile, dove se hai 19 anni, non hai altra scelta che camminare fuori dalla porta e scegli un lato. Devi scegliere da che parte stare. Cosa fa mio padre? Viene in America, perché la scelta migliore per un attore razionale è semplicemente andarsene, perché quelle erano pessime opzioni laggiù.

Sto affrontando questo qui, perché penso che la mia esperienza qui in America sia stata uno che noi ed io veniamo. Sono americano tanto quanto sono salvadoregno. Noi americani guardiamo agli immigrati salvadoregni e guardiamo semplicemente”Oh, mio ​​Dio. Cosa stai facendo qui?”Non siamo in grado di rimuovere gli strati della storia e capire cosa spinge le persone a venire in questo paese. Almeno nella storia della mia famiglia, queste sono le dinamiche, le dinamiche di fondo che hanno portato la nostra famiglia alla povertà e, quindi, verso gli Stati Uniti.

Per me, questo cerchio sta tornando al punto di partenza. Sono andato a El Zonte a luglio e non posso – lo so, c’è Jim Beda. Mi dà così tanta gioia e orgoglio per la mia eredità sapere che ci sono giovani, in particolare, giovani, che ora sono così pieni di speranza per il loro paese, e che il primo pensiero non è: “Lasciami uscire di qui. Fammi capire come e quando posso uscire di qui per cercare una vita migliore”. Piuttosto,”Posso costruire la vita che voglio qui”. A mio avviso, aver adottato questa rete monetaria è un passo gigantesco in quella direzione verso la libertà e la sovranità. Lo lascio a questo.

[00:16:24] AG: Grazie. Potrebbe anche commentare brevemente la struttura delle rimesse? Come invieresti normalmente denaro e quali nuove opportunità questo presenta qui?

[00:16:33] GM: Assolutamente. Sì. Voglio dire, è molto semplice. Le persone come mia madre che inviano regolarmente un paio di $ 100 al mese a persone diverse, sono abituate al 100% a pagare il 6% di commissioni su un pagamento di rimessa di $ 100, qualcosa del genere. Si presume che si tratti di una persona che ha un conto in banca in El Salvador. Ci sono solo i costi di transazione del 6%. Mia madre e ogni altra persona che invia rimesse, sono solo abituate. È così che va il mondo.

Bene, arriva Strike, beh, più specificamente, arriva il Lightning Network, improvvisamente, tutti noi siamo in grado di inviare quei pagamenti, prima di tutto, e averli stabilirsi all’istante. Ciò significa che la persona può ricevere e utilizzare quei soldi istantaneamente e con commissioni dello 0,3%. È assolutamente rivoluzionario. Più specificamente, ovviamente, per le persone che ricevono la rimessa, non solo non c’è un costo finanziario. Più soldi stanno effettivamente arrivando.

Non solo, ma per le persone che non hanno una banca e che devono andare nel loro centro commerciale nella loro città per andare a ritirare i contanti, c’è molto meno rischio. Sono sicuro che tutti quelli che partecipano a questa chiamata lo capiscono già. Non devi prendere tre ore di assenza dal lavoro, andare sul posto a ritirare i soldi, metterseli in tasca e poi tornare a casa. La capacità di inviare rimesse tramite Lightning Network sta cambiando le regole del gioco, credo, per il paese.

Ora, per quanto detto in precedenza Matt, c’è un’enorme curva di apprendimento per chiunque. Quando qualcuno di noi è entrato in questo spazio, c’è così tanto – l’argomento è così denso. C’è un’enorme curva di apprendimento necessaria sia in El Salvador che anche qui negli Stati Uniti. Perché siamo 2 milioni di noi qui negli Stati Uniti, che sono quelli che inviano le rimesse. Abbiamo bisogno dell’istruzione anche qui negli Stati Uniti, e per tutti quei salvadoregni, della diaspora, che sono quassù a mandare giù le rimesse.

[00:18:29] AG: Ok, fantastico. Sì. Guarda, e c’è ovviamente, guarda, c’è attenzione nello spazio Bitcoin, ho sentito, tra massimalisti di libertà molto rigidi, libertari che dicono che Strike è un tradimento, perché ha KYC. Portafoglio Chivo, dovremmo – sono d’accordo, dovremmo protestare per il portafoglio Chivo. Anche l’idea di qualcosa come Strike, che è un’azienda privata, che sia in qualche modo questo tradimento.

Poi, d’altra parte, ci sono persone che dicono:”Okay, cerchiamo di essere pratici su questo. Da un punto di vista umanitario, questo è uno strumento davvero utile”. Allo stesso modo in cui molti americani trovano molto utile il denaro contante per convertire fiat, forse il loro reddito in Bitcoin, anche se fanno lo scambio con KYC. I salvadoregni stanno prendendo la stessa decisione. Penso che sia una tensione interessante quella che ho notato qui nello spazio Bitcoin.

Va bene, quindi ora andremo da Enzo, che ha una prospettiva diversa. Enzo, benvenuto.

[00:19:22] ER: Grazie mille per avermi invitato. Mi chiamo Enzo Rubio. Sono il proprietario del Point Break Café a El Zonte. Prendo Bitcoin da novembre 2020. Ne sono molto felice. I miei complimenti a Gerson. Ha spiegato perfettamente in cinque minuti cosa sta succedendo e, in sostanza, le nostre opinioni. Sono cambiato dall’ultima volta che abbiamo parlato, Alex, penso di aver cambiato idea. Ho fatto più ricerche e cose del genere. Penso che sia una cosa molto positiva che può venire fuori da Bitcoin. Ovviamente, non può essere la pallottola d’argento per uscire dalla povertà e cose del genere, ma può aiutare alla fine della giornata.

Quello che penso ci manchi qui, tutti si lamentano del portafoglio Chivo. Ci ho giocato un po’. Proprio oggi, solo oggi, sono riuscito a scaricarlo. L’ho fatto scaricare dai miei dipendenti. Lo abbiamo testato. Fondamentalmente, abbiamo bisogno di due cose dal governo. La cosa principale è l’istruzione. Se non abbiamo la giusta educazione per sapere cosa sta succedendo, cos’è una transazione on-chain, cos’è una transazione Lightning, come si muove il mercato e cose del genere, avrai molte persone davvero incazzate.

Vedono i loro saldi scendere e sentono che il denaro è stato rubato. È difficile quando non hai la giusta istruzione. Penso che l’istruzione sia una parte importante che il governo non sta facendo in questo momento. Forse, perché stanno cercando di risolvere le difficoltà tecniche un po’più della parte educativa.

L’altra parte che penso che il governo dovrebbe migliorare è la trasparenza. Al di là dell’uso di tutto, del portafoglio Chivo o di qualsiasi altro portafoglio che vogliamo usare qui a Salvador, penso che la trasparenza su come il governo sta usando Bitcoin sarà fondamentale. Come sai, il portafoglio Chivo ha due saldi su di esso. Ha un saldo in dollari USA e un saldo in Bitcoin. Non è lo stesso. Sono due portafogli. È diverso da uno sciopero. Strike, hai un saldo USDT e basta. Bitcoin Beach, ad esempio, ha un saldo Bitcoin che puoi vedere in un valore in dollari

Il portafoglio Chivo ha un portafoglio Bitcoin e puoi vedere il suo valore in dollari. C’è un altro portafoglio o un altro saldo nella stessa app che è in dollari USA. Non sono USDT. Non sono USDC. Non sappiamo cosa sia. Forse sono dollari americani. Chivo come la conosciamo non è una banca. La trasparenza per me è importante. Se non è la banca, dove sono i soldi? Chi ce l’ha? Non mi è chiaro.

[00:22:19] AG: Hai anche detto, Enzo, che non è ancora chiaro chi possieda la società Chico, e le persone hanno molte domande su questo diritto ?

[00:22:26] ER: Beh, in realtà è molto chiaro. Sappiamo che il portafoglio Chivo è di proprietà di [incomprensibile 00:22:31], che è fondamentalmente una LLC, e non è il governo. È gestito indirettamente dal governo. È una società privata. Che ha creato un’altra società privata che è collegata al governo. È come un secondo strato, oltre il governo. Finora, non è stata dichiarata come banca. È un’impresa, insomma. Non è la banca. Non è nemmeno una società finanziaria. È solo un’azienda, più simile a un’attività regolare.

[00:23:06] AG: Alcune persone hanno paura, Enzo, se Chivo diventa popolare, diciamo, tra diverse 100.000 persone, loro’lo uso sempre, che si tratti del Bitcoin o del saldo in dollari visualizzato nell’app, in realtà, queste sono solo promesse di pagamento, che alla fine della giornata, devono essere liquidate in contanti, o Bitcoin, se l’utente cerca semplicemente di prelevare i contanti presso un bancomat, se prova a fare un bonifico bancario alla propria banca o se cerca di prelevare il Bitcoin nel proprio portafoglio di autocustodia.

La domanda è sarà, cosa succede se tutti cercano di prelevare i propri soldi allo stesso tempo? Hanno la liquidità per sistemarlo? Questa è, immagino, un’altra domanda che le persone hanno, giusto?

[00:23:45] ER: Assolutamente. Questa è la mia domanda principale. Questa è una società privata, cioè non è una banca, non è una finanziaria, non è sotto la vigilanza delle istituzioni che controllano anche tutte le banche e tutte le altre finanziarie, allora come facciamo a sapere che i soldi ci sono? Penso che Bitcoin sia un po’più difficile da falsificare. Diciamo che il saldo, perché ora sappiamo che possiamo negoziare Bitcoin da Chivo.

[00:24:14] AG: Potrebbero congelarlo. Voglio dire, è come il tuo saldo Bitcoin sulla tua app per contanti in America. Non hai le chiavi per farlo, quindi potrebbero semplicemente congelarlo. Sono sicuro che le persone scopriranno quando un giorno non potranno più accedere al proprio account, forse è per manutenzione o qualcosa del genere.

Penso che una cosa su cui Enzo sta lavorando, solo l’istruzione per aiutare le persone capiscono che, nella migliore delle ipotesi, il Chivo è come il tuo conto corrente, e devi davvero prelevare qualsiasi Bitcoin di importi significativi sul tuo portafoglio, che si tratti del portafoglio Bitcoin Beach, o un portafoglio Muun, o un BlueWallet, o qualunque cosa. È abbastanza chiaro. Quando ero cliente del tuo bar, il barista era estremamente abile nel ricevere il mio pagamento in Bitcoin. Voglio dire, molto più di chiunque altro nella Silicon Valley.

La domanda è: quanto tempo impiega il personale a prendere confidenza con i pagamenti Bitcoin? Voglio dire, quanti mesi avete impiegato ragazzi? Hai detto che quando Jack Mallers veniva a trovarti facevi molto esercizio, perché veniva tre volte al giorno, giusto? Quanto tempo ti ci è voluto per familiarizzare con questo?

[00:25:17] ER: È stato abbastanza veloce. Complimenti ai ragazzi di Bitcoin Beach, hanno fatto un ottimo lavoro. Penso che sia semplicemente eccellente come funzionavano le cose davanti alla legge. A El Zonte è stato facile. Penso che Lightning Network lo renda possibile. Senza Lightning Network, sono abbastanza sicuro che non funzionerebbe, perché nessuno aspetterà 10 minuti, o anche un giorno, e pagherà fino a 24, 25. Non sai mai quanto pagare per un bar.

Con Lightning Network, puoi vederlo all’istante. È stato abbastanza veloce, in realtà. Ci sono voluti forse due giorni. Non direi, non più di 10 transazioni per capire almeno come creare la fattura.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[00:26:04] CK: Va bene , Bitcoiner. Voglio parlarvi del nostro nuovo sponsor. Questo spettacolo è offerto da ledn.io. Sono stato super, super impressionato dai ragazzi di Ledn. In realtà conosco i co-fondatori, Adam e Mauricio da molto tempo. Ho avuto il piacere di vederli costruire Ledn da una minuscola, minuscola startup, ad ora un impressionante livello istituzionale, Bitcoin e crypto lender. Tutti, sono così impressionato da questi ragazzi. Stanno offrendo alcune delle migliori tariffe là fuori. Non credo che nessuno si avvicini nemmeno a toccarli.

Puoi ottenere il 6,1% di APY sui tuoi primi due Bitcoin che depositi nei conti di interesse Ledn e puoi ottenere l’8,5% sui depositi USDC. Voglio dire, conosco tutti i concorrenti. Non sono nemmeno vicini. Se hai intenzione di mettere le tue criptovalute e i tuoi Bitcoin in un conto interessi, Ledn è di gran lunga il migliore. Inoltre, come ho detto, questi ragazzi sono bitcoiner hardcore e conoscono i prodotti e i servizi che i bitcoiner vogliono e apprezzano. Hanno inventato B2X. Ti consente di inserire il tuo Bitcoin e di sfruttarlo, e puoi con un clic del mouse, ottenere il doppio dell’esposizione a Bitcoin.

Se sei super ottimista, Ledn ti copre con un modo super, super facile per ottenere leva con B2X. Inoltre, sanno che i Bitcoiner si preoccupano delle tue riserve. They know that Bitcoiners don’t like under-reserved and not full-reserved financial institutions. They are pushing the frontier in transparency in the digital asset lending space. They are the first digital asset lender to do a full proof of reserves and proof of attestation, through a Mariano LLC, a public accounting firm.

The Ledn guys, they know what Bitcoiners like. They are legit. I encourage you guys to check them out, do your own research and go to ledn.io. That is L-E-D-N.I-O and learn more.

[00:27:55] CK: Bitcoiners, I want to tell you about The Deep Dive. The Deep Dive is Bitcoin Magazine’s premium market intelligence newsletter. This is a no fluff, hard-hitting, incredible newsletter going deep into the market, helping you understand what’s happening with derivatives, what’s happening on-chain, what’s happening in macro, what’s happening with the narrative and what’s happening with the tech.

My man, Dylan LeClair is an absolute savant. He is making his name known in the Bitcoin community, getting shoutouts left and right, getting on podcast left and right, and him and his team are bringing you everything that you need to know about Bitcoin. You don’t even have to be on Bitcoin Twitter. You can ignore every other newsletter. This is the newsletter to rule them all. Go over to members.bitcoinmagazine.com. Iscriviti oggi. If you use promo code MACRO, you get a full month for free. You have nothing to lose. Che cosa state aspettando? Sign up, see the incredible work that Dylan and his team are putting out. If you don’t like it, just unsubscribe. You don’t pay a dime. If you do, it’s going to be well worth the SATs and investment and understanding Bitcoin, and gaining the confidence to continue to invest in Bitcoin and making the right moves around Bitcoin. It’s going to be well worth every single Satoshi. Again, can’t recommend it enough. That is members.bitcoinmagazine.com, promo code MACRO. Do it today.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[00:29:26] GM: We have this phrase, Enzo, in America called ‘the bigotry of low expectations’. Basically, you have a lot of people in New York City working at the New York Times, or whatever and they say, “Bitcoin’s too complicated. No one will ever be able to figure it out.” Va bene. This is basically, in a way, racist. It’s basically saying like, “Oh, people in emerging markets won’t be able to figure it out.” I would just urge people when they’re reading the media, and the newspapers to understand that that’s not the case and that in fact, forget the Bitcoin law in El Salvador. I mean, they’re probably close to 10 million, if not more, if you include India, probably close to 20 million people in emerging markets using Bitcoin right now, whether it be in Argentina, Turkey, Nigeria, I could go on and on, and they figured it out just fine, probably faster than the people in Silicon Valley, because they actually understand what it is. I just wanted to make that comment. I’m not sure if you have a reaction to that, Enzo.

[00:30:25] ER: Yeah, absolutely. I think, we have to make to separate what is for regular people, people working in industry, you see the Lightning Network, or Chivo wallet, whatever using Bitcoin, and what the government can do, by using Bitcoin. I think, on the day-to-day transactions, all the pedestrians, it’s going to be easy to understand at the end of the day, if they just use one wallet, and they do Lightning payments. I think, it’s going to be really easy to understand.

If you give the proper education and the proper education. I am not saying that you need to send these people back to college. Everybody gets a smile when its related to money. Once they understand and they feel safe having money in their phones, in these apps, it’s going to work. What they do in El Zonte, the Bitcoin Beach guy was the right way to do it. It was a circular economy. They were hiring people, paying in with SATs and then convincing other businesses to take those SATs. For me, that was a key. Everybody understood. As I said, as a pedestrian, like someone working on the street, it was really important to have instant payments, and it was all value in dollars. I don’t see any difficulty in that part.

[00:31:42] AG: Aaron, awesome that you’re here. A lot of us saw your video that you made of operating one of these ATM, Chivo ATM, and then having a friend abroad pay the invoice. Have you thought about that some more and zoomed out and thought about what that could mean moving forward? What are the possibilities here around the idea that anyone in the world could pay an invoice in El Salvador instantly, versus the legacy economy?

[00:32:09] AVW: First of all, it wasn’t even a friend. It was someone on Twitter that I have no idea who it was, or what his real name is, so that – Even cooler if you ask me. Sì. Well, as you saw, that went smooth. That went even smoother than I expected. Because usually, well, this is maybe a tiny one, but usually, you get a printed out thing. Then you have to come back when there’s a confirmation. This time, it was instant. Yeah, that was super cool that someone was able to send me 20 bucks from I don’t know where in the world, almost instantly. I think, it cost 20 cents, just the transaction fee.

Now, of course, one of the reasons it is cheap, and that’s a more complex topic is because the government is subsidizing the conversion. There is some cost, there is some friction behind the screen, that the government is paying for that, it’s subsidizing, and getting back to, I think this was one of – was it Gerson who made this point, or maybe it was Enzo. Sorry, I don’t remember. There’s not a lot of transparency on anything from the government.

The fact that it’s working, it is obvious. What was even cooler, in my view, is that I went through the McDonald’s and took a photo of the QR codes on the payment terminal. Then someone paid for my Big Mac, instantly over Lightning for a fraction of a cent. The whole concept of remittances is like a [inaudible 00:33:33] concept at this point. It’s like, talking about long-distance goals. No one has long-distance calls anywhere. We just use Skype, and that space for payments. If you don’t recognize that, you’re not paying attention.

[00:33:47] AG: Aaron, what about the thought around people who believe that Twitter is about to add in the near future? I mean, we have confirmation from the product head. They’re going to add Lightning. It looks like, it’ll be through Strike. There’s some Bitcoiners that are like, “This is bad. This is a betrayal.” There’s others like me, who are like, “Oh, that’s a really useful functionality for people who already are KYC’d, or maybe are a non-profit, or a business, and they want to receive payments from anywhere in the world instantly.” What’s your take on this tension here?

[00:34:21] AVW: You’re basically asking if I see a problem with building closed systems on top of an open system.

[00:34:27] AG: Exactly. Is it –

[00:34:28] AVW: Like, it comes to demographics.

[00:34:31] AG: We’re going to be recreating a lot of traditional systems. They’re just going to be connected with Lightning instead of with Swift. I mean, I guess, I find it hard to see why that’s a downgrade, but I mean, Matt, I’m sure you have thoughts, too, Odell. I’d love to hear either of you on this.

[00:34:45] AVW: Yeah. I mean, it’s obviously not ideal, but it’s also better than nothing, so it’s hard to complain about it. I mean, as a European, I cannot use Strike, or at least not right now. For me, something like this wouldn’t be accessible. I guess, you’re seeing a similar problem with the Internet itself, where the internet itself is maybe at least has the potential to use it apparently anonymously. Then on top of the Internet, we – or take email for an example. You could run your own email server and be very anonymous, but in reality, everyone’s using Gmail, or Outlook, so everyone’s emails are being read.

Yeah, I can definitely see the arguments that it would be a problem if we’re moving in that direction with Bitcoin as a whole, and we have this flow services on top of Bitcoin that everyone’s just using, instead of running your own node and instead of having their own Lightning wallet on the phone that’s on it.

[00:35:38] AG: Matt, what’s your take on that?

[00:35:40] MO: Gerson, you want to jump in real quick before I go?

[00:35:42] AG: Go ahead.

[00:35:43] GM: Sorry. Grazie uomo. Sì. No, I was just going to offer that I think about it as a continuum. Many of us would never have known how to buy Bitcoin, if Coinbase didn’t exist. We all agree that there’s gigantic risks involved with holding any coin, or any exchange. It was the on-ramp for huge swaths of adoption. While we know there are these closed systems are problematic, I tend to think of them as part of the learning continuum for everyone that’s coming into the space.

I am not a technician. I’m not a person who could physically technically buy Bitcoin back in 2012. I just didn’t know how to do it, nor have the skills to. Similarly, I think of it as a continuum. I don’t know if that makes sense.

[00:36:29] MO: I mean, Gerson, I tend to agree with you. In general, I think that we really want as many options available to Bitcoiners as possible. Alex mentioned Twitter adding Strike functionality. I think, it’s important for people to realize. It’s a bit tangential, but it’s important for people to realize that it’s not really them adding Lightning. They’re adding Strike. They already support Cash App and Venmo, and I believe, PayPal, so they’re adding another payment processor there. Hopefully, they add more native Lightning support in the future.

In general, these ideas, Lightning is very new technology. Hopefully, we have easier self-sovereign tools that protect your privacy that are open source, that make it more convenient to use Bitcoin in a more sovereign way. Unfortunately, we’re not fully there yet. A lot of these band-aids are being put on in terms of custodial services. The biggest issue with custodial services is twofold.

One is custodial risk. They can steal your money, or they can lose your money, which is historically throughout Bitcoin, there’s been many cases of custodians losing your Bitcoin and people having less money because of it. Then the second reason, which I think is almost even a bigger reason today, in America, and in a lot of places in the Western world, these custodians because they’re trusted third parties, they’re forced to implement KYC and regulations on their products by the governments that hosts them. As a result, there’s little to no privacy. If anything, it’s the opposite of a private wallet. It’s a surveillance wallet as a result.

Because El Salvador is going full on into Bitcoin, it could end up in a situation where custodians are necessarily obligated to have these very inconvenient and poor privacy regulations attached to them, where they have to accept all this personal information. It’s a little bit early to know if that’s going to be the case. I mean, it seems with Chivo, it’s mostly a phone number is my understanding. Correct me if I’m wrong on that. One of my big concerns here is, in general with people, we live our lives choosing decisions based on convenience versus privacy, security tradeoff.

We oftentimes will choose something that’s more convenient, that is less private and less secure for us. If Chivo gets to play by different rules than other projects in the space in El Salvador, it is going to be the most convenient option, because it has the government’s blessing. As a result, more people will use it and its ability to abuse the privacy and the sovereignty of their users grows as they have market share dominance.

I mean, Enzo mentioned that Chivo LLC, that is the company behind the wallet. I’m pretty sure we don’t even know who the owners of that LLC are. Who is the controlling interest behind that LLC? Are they going to get favorable treatment over other projects? For me that’s a thing that we should all be watching to make sure there’s no abuse there.

[00:39:27] AVW: Just to be clear, the ATM is phone number only, but the actual application is just full name and everything.

[00:39:36] ER: I can give my opinion here. Yes, a Chivo wallet, you need your ID, so they take the pictures of your ID. I believe, the US dollars balance is related to your ID number. The Bitcoin is the Lightning address. That’s what I have to say.

[00:39:56] MO: Yeah, again. Just look, I was talking with Aaron a few days before the implementation. I think, a lot of us is we’re very skeptical that the wallet would even ship with Lightning. It is remarkable. Look, from a different perspective, there’s no way my government would ever roll out some social service for its people that had Lightning on it. That is not obviously not going to happen. Or in fact, our government is openly hostile to such an idea.

I think, we have to think a little bit here. One thing that I will point out and Enzo can help color this is that Bitcoin is not the silver bullet right now. There are two quite important functions that it does not fulfill natively in a self-custodial, non-KYC way. Now, it might fulfill these in the next few years. There’s things on the roadmap that might get us there, which would be amazing, which I’m paying attention to. The first one is that at the end of the day, people need dollarized balances for now. We’re not there to the point where Bitcoin is less risky than the dollar for most people. They need dollars.

Something like Strike, even though they make the trade-off to KYC, or something like the Chivo wallet, the fact that they can have the Bitcoin value pegged to the dollar is very, very important. Now, it’s possible that in the next few years, you’ll be able to have a non-KYC, non-custodial Bitcoin wallet that can actually peg natively to a dollar This is something that people are working on, but it’s not here yet. Until that is here, we need to be open-minded to the fact that people, especially in emerging markets, it’s very important for them to have dollars. This is demonstrated by the fact that many countries tethers very, very popular, like Lebanon, Palestine, etc.

The reason why tether is very popular, is because it’s a less regulated dollar that people can get their hands on without a US bank account. This is something we just need to pay attention to. The second feature is a tip page. Obviously, when Carla who works with Enzo was able to receive a lot of tips from the video I made, that was only because I was able to paste the tip page in my tweet. We’re not there yet, but with what are called offers, I guess, is what the industry is coalescing the jargon around.

Soon enough, you’ll be able to pin a QR to your Twitter profile and receive Lightning payments from anybody, without hurting your privacy, but we’re not there yet. I think, we’re actually fairly close. If Enzo, if you can think about it this way. Imagine if you can go into your Muun wallet, or Bitcoin Beach wallet or BlueWallet, forget something that’s even custodial, like Strike, and generate a QR from inside of it and then paste it onto your Twitter page, or put out in front of your store, you can just be receiving Lightning payments in a way that’s totally self-custodial and protects your privacy.

I think, offers are huge. They’re just not here yet, though. Until we have offers and until we have stabilized non-custodial lightning accounts that can be pegged to fiat, people need these partial solutions. I think, that it’s naive to – you live in a bubble if you don’t think that’s the case. That’s just something I feel quite strongly about after doing a lot of research in emerging markets. I don’t know, Enzo, what’s your reaction to that?

[00:43:02] ER: Well, I’ll tell you the story of Carla is great. It’s amazing to see her. You posted that video and then sent a link and then she received lots of money from different people. We even have visitors just wanted to meet her, to know who she was. They were so happy about the Bitcoin barista now. She is the Bitcoin barista. Now Point Break Café is not even Point Break Café. It’s Carla’s Café. È stato fantastico. It was fine.

I do agree. I don’t know how to stress this enough. Without Lightning, things wouldn’t work the way they are working right now. Day-to-day transactions. If you’re working on the street and you want to buy something, you need the Lightning Network. They need instant payments. Some people will say, we need another blockchain, or another cryptocurrency or whatever. I believe, what we have with Lightning right now works. I know, it has some deficiencies. It is better to focus on how to fix those deficiencies, than to think on a whole new solution afterwards.

[00:44:01] MO: Well, I guess, what I’m pointing at Enzo, is that there is a technology potentially on the horizon, where someone could go up on their phone, and they could type in the amount for their coffee and then just scan a static QR code that you guys would just have sitting on your counter. You wouldn’t have to even prepare an invoice. That’s coming, which would be very interesting, right?

[00:44:21] ER: No, it’s right here. È proprio qui. Bitcoin Beach, they can generate a QR and I can post it on my Twitter account and people could actually send me some payment.

[00:44:29] MO: Right, but that’s on-chain.

[00:44:32] ER: No, no. It’s Lightning.

[00:44:34] AVW: URL that will take you to a website, and there Lightning invoices then already.

[00:44:39] MO: I’m saying in the future, we’re even going to be able to cut out all those other steps, but we’re not quite there yet, which is why the Strike tip page is helpful for now. The fact that Strike obviously keeps your balance in dollars, you were telling me that people prefer that for now. Maybe they want their tips in Bitcoin, but not everybody’s comfortable going all the way over to Bitcoin for now.

[00:45:01] ER: Yes. I can tell you my experience for this morning. I was working in Puerto La Libertad. It’s the biggest town near the beach. There’s a huge line of people on the Chivo ATM, cashing up. I think, it’s going to take a few months for people to get used to have money on their app, and not wanting to cash it out. Right now, there’s a lot of people in all the ATMs and the Chivo ATMs around, just trying to cash out the money.

[00:45:28] CK: Hey, we have our friends here from OpenNode. If he wants to weigh in, that’d be great.

[00:45:33] ER: I’m going to just add one thing. I’m going to try to pass my QR code. Because I’m pretty sure you can send some SATs there. I’m pretty sure. I’ll post you in that.

[00:45:45] CK: Sounds good.

[00:45:46] JA: Hey, I was just listening to you guys. I’m not sure if I listened correctly. Were you guys talking about the McDonald’s user experience, where you got redirected to the website?

[00:45:55] AVW: No, we were not. We were talking about the Lightning – the Strike tip page and the Bitcoin Beach wallet tip pages.

[00:46:02] JA: Oh, I see. Because on that, they’re testing right now to print actual, the Lightning invoice. Any wallet will just scan and be able to read. That’s pretty cool.

[00:46:13] CK: Awesome. What’s your take on this? You guys were involved in some of the integration with some of the merchants. What’s your take so far?

[00:46:21] JA: Honestly, this happened very fast, to be honest with you. We were not even pursuing the market. These big companies came naturally organically to us, because there was no other solution at this point with our track record. Then, we started investing more in the market. As you guys probably saw, we have pretty big corporations there using our products. There is a lot of stuff that we can’t talk about, because they don’t want to be tied to us. That’s the only issue here.

[00:46:59] AVW: Have you got any insight in how many people are paying with Bitcoin over here?

[00:47:03] JA: Yeah. I can say, our biggest client is definitely a telecom there. The biggest use case is remittances. What I can say, is that the number of payments in LN in general, real six times since we added them.

[00:47:20] AVW: Do you have any absolute numbers by any chance?

[00:47:23] JA: I have, but I can’t disclose.

[00:47:25] AVW: Too bad.

[00:47:29] AG: Your take is, if you had to say now, would you say that things are moving more smoothly than you thought? Or what’s your take in general on how things have been going?

[00:47:38] JA: I think, the initially when we started talking with these big companies, they had no idea what Bitcoin was. There was definitely some education part there, understanding how the system works, especially on the fraud part. They don’t understand this is not like a bank account, where you can tie your identity, etc. It was hard in the beginning to make sure that everything was according to their procedures.

It was forced. We all know that. Eventually, they had to comply, and especially the big companies had to have Bitcoin, since day one, which most of them did, but they just didn’t announce.

[00:48:14] MO: Cool. Thank you.

[00:48:16] JA: Regarding the wallet, honestly, the most problems appeared when based on Chivo wallets, right? Things were not working in the beginning. These big companies were pissed off, because Chivo wallet couldn’t pay our invoice. That’s when things starting to escalate a little bit. Because they wanted in their mind, they want to get the biggest pie possible from the 180 million. As a company, you’re trying to get down money. That was definitely an issue in the beginning. Eventually, we understood that Chivo wallet was not reading the codes correctly, so we adopted on our side and so did other companies. There are is still problems with Chivo wallet.

[00:48:56] AVW: There was also the issue that the third $30 in the Chivo wallet could only be spend to out a Chivo wallet, right?

[00:49:02] JA: Correct. Sì. We even had a couple of the companies saying we are integrating now with the Chivo immersion thing. Because we want those $30. That’s your goal.

[00:49:12] AVW: For context, just to make this clear for people that don’t know this, so everyone got $30. Every Salvadoran got $30 in their Chivo wallet if they downloaded the Chivo wallets. Then, the restriction was and this was the goal was to incentivize people to actually use the Chivo wallet for payments, rather than just walking through an ATM and cashing it out, or whatever. The restriction that the first payments could only go to other Chivo wallets, the first $30 could only be spent to other Chivo wallets.

Once it was spent one time, so after one hop, then it was free to be spent to other Bitcoin wallets, or to cash out, or whatever, but the first hop could only happen between Chivo. This caused a huge mess, because a lot of people, like that walked over to McDonald’s to buy a burger and then they found out that they couldn’t. Meanwhile, McDonald’s put in all of this effort to get these $30 from people. They knew everyone’s getting $30 to spend. Let’s make sure we’re ready on day one, so everyone’s going to come to us to spend these $30.

Then because of this restriction, which was not announced ahead of time, as far as I know, the McDonald’s was pissed off, apparently, and rightfully so, because people couldn’t spend their $30 there. People were confused, because they thought they were going to be able to spend the $30, but they couldn’t. They had a bad first experience with Bitcoin. It was just a complete mess that they put this restriction on. In my opinion, it did more harm than good.

[00:50:33] AG: I know that the government said the other day that you’d be able to start topping up your Chivo balance with a credit card. Is that possible now or not yet?

[00:50:42] AVW: What I can tell you, maybe someone else can answer that specific question. I’ve been playing around with the Chivo wallet quite a bit. It’s basically not working, I would say. Maybe Chivo to Chivo works. If you want to spend – I’ve been trying to make Lightning payments, or on-chain. Either the wallet is too buggy to do anything with it, or it won’t even start. If it does start, then the payment won’t work. I mean, they released unfinished software. I don’t know about topping up. Non lo so. Maybe someone else has a answer for that.

[00:51:15] MO: Yeah. I’m not sure about the topping up, regarding the reliability of the wallets. I mean, our payment volume is definitely increasing day by day. I think, that’s because there is more people joining, or getting the $30. It’s definitely better than before, I can assure you that. There are still issues. The problem is, we don’t know who’s in charge. We can’t talk with anyone from their technical team. It’s like, everything is a secret, so that doesn’t really help.

[00:51:43] AVW: It’s not like I have a GitHub page, or anything like that. It’s very contradictory to the open source spirit of Bitcoin.

[00:51:50] GM: For what it’s worth, I know if you go to chivowallet.com, there is a page dedicated to basically, it seems like a remittance flow, where you can pay with credit card to any Chivo user. I haven’t tested it myself.

[00:52:05] AG: Yeah. Again, I think you have the traditional modernization remittance alongside open Bitcoin experimentation. This is a good moment to just reflect also on the fact of the lack of transparency, and the fact that the government is doing this very secretly. I brought Simon up here, because I wanted to hear from him. He’s been as well. Obviously, he saw his government go through a very sad erosion of democracy. I was actually down in El Salvador with him, and he saw some of the things, same things that I saw. It was just interesting to hear him from a Venezuelan perspective comment on what’s happening. We’ve talked a lot about the village, but let’s talk about the strong man for a second. What’s your perspective from a regional perspective of what’s going on with Bukele and his political opponents and things like that?

[00:52:53] SL: Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Ciao a tutti. It’s interesting, right? His party’s name is Nuevas Ideas, which means new ideas. He’s following the exact same playbook that your typical, what ends up in a right-wing dictatorship looking like. I think, you posted a thread, or you shared a thread in the previous days, but it took Bukele two years to dismantle most of the country’s institutions. That Chavez in Venezuela, I think, six to eight years.

When we were there, you and I were together in El Salvador, we were seeing the erosion of these institutions in a place that I’ve never seen, or experienced before, in the sense that, from one day, he published a lot, basically saying that any judge above 60 should be removed, which was one-third of the country’s judges. Then, two days before the Bitcoin law, and the government combined with the Supreme Court, which he had taken control of a few months prior, basically posted a position that said that Bukele could get reelected.

Not only is he going through the same erosion of institutions, but now, he’s already able to be reelected. This is changing from the single-term to two terms. We know where this is going. Every change is a minor change, little by little. When you look at it in the addition, it’s very clear that there’s an authoritarian government that is –

[00:54:16] AG: Yeah. It’s worth pointing out, Simon, that it’s not – he’s not going to be nationalized and stuff as much, it seems. It’s not really a [inaudible 00:54:23] nationalizer.

[00:54:27] SL: It doesn’t seem like he is, but he’s also been in different parties on his life. Yes, he’s acting right now, like what you would call right-wing authoritarian, which eventually ends up, usually ends up in a militarized economy with significant reduction in freedom of speech and freedom of expression. What ends up happening, and I think we were discussing this, which is an interesting clash of when that ends up happening, and he is, let’s say, freezing his opposition’s bank accounts and trying to jail everyone that is in opposition of him. What happens then when the opposition has access to Bitcoin?

Because now, you can control them through the Chivo wallet, which is I think, part of the government’s plan is controlling the financial movements of the people through the Chivo wallet. You actually instantiated legal tender of a free and open source money. Now, the opposition can get donations, and they can pay the merchants as of right now, and pay people in the country with open source wallets. It’ll be interesting to see if and when that happens, whether the government closes in on only the use of the Chivo wallet as official.

[00:55:36] AG: Right. This is why it’s so important to spread knowledge about Bitcoin self-custody. I spoke on the phone with the editor of El Faro, which is one of the fierce independent newspapers exposing government corruption in El Salvador. Not just Bukele, but his two predecessors were helped. El Faro was helpful in getting rid of two previous presidents who are very corrupt. They’re always just trying to figure out what the government is doing. I think, they share a similar stance in some ways as what Matt Odell said earlier, just general skepticism of government.

Here, you have a situation where they don’t have any good knowledge about Bitcoin itself. I’m sure, Enzo has seen this in the local media, but what’s sad is that the opposition doesn’t have a lot of resources and doesn’t really understand what Bitcoin is. One of my goals is to try and make myself available to help run workshops, or seminars, or do things for civil society groups, or the local independent newspapers. I’d like for them to actually understand how to use this tool, just in case they need it. I mean, look, the writing’s on the wall. This government has expelled journalists, and it is not out of the question that they start going after the media in a more aggressive way. We’ll see.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[00:56:54] CK: Bitcoiners, I am so excited to tell you about the Bitcoin 2022 Conference. You guys, Bitcoin 2021 was absolutely a smash hit success. It was over 13,000 Bitcoiners coming together, breaking the barriers on who can come together and celebrate freedom, celebrate Bitcoin. The energy was absolutely electric.

Unfortunately, it was just oversubscribed. There’s just people flowing out everywhere. This year, we are learning, we are making the conference bigger and better. We are moving over to the Miami Beach Convention Center, and we are going to be throwing a massive four-day festival for Bitcoin, celebrating Bitcoin, bringing together the greatest minds in Bitcoin and the greatest businesses in Bitcoin and lastly, the culture of Bitcoin all together.

We had a four-day extravaganza planned for you guys for Bitcoin 2022. Day one is going to be industry day. It is a day where you can buy a special ticket in order to just mingle and make business deals happen. Day two and three is going to be a full-blown Bitcoin conferences. Our main conference is going to be on April 7th, and 8th. Then lastly, we have the sound at music festival, day four.

Imagine going to Coachella, but for Bitcoin. There’s going to be very few talks. It’s going to be all about the culture of Bitcoin. It’s going to be all about hanging with your fellow plebs. It’s going to be an absolutely amazing time. There’s going to be Bitcoin musicians, Bitcoin artists, and all your favorite Bitcoiners and just an amazing environment to party and just see it all, soak it all in, and to get people to realize that a Bitcoin world, a world filled with Bitcoin people doing Bitcoin things is the world that they want to live in. That’s what Bitcoin 2022 is all about. That is what the Bitcoin conference is all about. That’s what Bitcoin Magazine is all about.

It is going to be a celebration of Bitcoin, the Bitcoiners and this amazing movement that is going to make the world a better place. Go to b.tc/conference, learn more about the Bitcoin Conference, learn more about all the amazing things that are happening in Miami around the Bitcoin Conference and buy your tickets. Indovina un po? If you buy your tickets with Bitcoin, you save a $100 on all the tickets and a $1,000 on the whale pass. If you want the VIP pass, the Big Kahuna, you buy with Bitcoin, you save a $1,000. That’s a lot of SATS. Go and do it right now today. Non aspettare. Prices are only going up. This is going to be a can’t miss event.

[00:59:22] CK: Bitcoiners, let’s take a break from the content and I want to tell you about CoolBitX. CoolBitXis an awesome Bitcoin hardware wallet. It’s been around for a really long time. They are building an amazing Bitcoin wallet called the CoolWallet Pro. The CoolWallet Pro is state of the art Bitcoin hardware, wallet technology. Its form factor is like a credit card. You can put it into your wallet, and it is designed to go with you on the go. That way, even when you’re on the go, you can have the benefit of a two-factor hardware wallet design when you’re trying to spend your Bitcoin, so you can have your Bitcoin wallet.

You exit on your phone and make it really easy to scan, decide what you want to do. Then you sign with CoolBitX, which is in your back pocket. It is tamper-proof. It is waterproof. It is flexible. It has an awesome secure element in it. It is a really awesome way in order to have some more flexibility, yet security when you’re taking your Bitcoin on the go. I personally am a fan of this idea of making Bitcoin into a medium of exchange and making it into something that people use. I know, it’s going to take time, but they are working on the UX for making that possible in a secure a way possible. Have some peace of mind. Check out the CoolWallet Pro from CoolBitX. Thank you to them for sponsoring this podcast.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[01:00:50] CK: One of the most interesting things here is that what the freedom opposition, what they need to do is actually lean into Bitcoin, rather than stand-off it, or oppose it, which is what they’re doing. That’s really counter-intuitive. To add to that, I want to give a shout out to you, because before this even happened, you wrote Bitcoin as a Trojan Horse for freedom. That seems very prophetic now that we are six months after that, the actual article.

[01:01:19] GM: Yeah, well, I mean, the meme has always been that some dictator is going to adopt Bitcoin for selfish reasons. Then as it turns out over the years, it backfires, because it gives more power to the people. That’s what I thought. Honestly, I thought the first government to adopt Bitcoin was going to be a rogue regime or something. A US ally that was a partial democracy and a dollarized nation was not on my shortlist, but it is what it is. Matt, do you have something to say?

[01:01:44] MO: I mean, we might have had one of them start using Bitcoin already. They just don’t talk about it. One of the things I wanted to talk about, and I don’t know if this is too tangential, because we haven’t discussed it yet. One of the controversial things here is this Bitcoin wallet was is forced legal tender, where everyone needs to accept Bitcoin. I think, you and Simon made an interesting point, that a lot of our work that, at least a lot of the work that I’ve been doing, helping activists in different parts of the world, one of the major issues with them harnessing the power of Bitcoin and accepting Bitcoin donations globally, is what do they do with the Bitcoin once they get it?

Whether or not it was Bukele’s intention, the fact of the matter is his opposition in El Salvador now can easily spend that Bitcoin on goods and services at any merchant throughout the country. They can use those ATMs to get dollars out with only a phone number, which can be a burner that they paid for with cash. That is a massive improvement for opposition, that is the single biggest pain point when we see other opposition groups around the world trying to use Bitcoin.

[01:02:58] SL: Similarly, with remittances too. It’s exciting what you’re saying, and Alex has been harping on this point. Now, because as far as in the sense of the law, the law gives a work around whether you’re not technology ready to accept it. That’s been happening. From the remittances and from the spending, this is actually solving the last mile problem, which is usually, like you’re saying, Matt, it’s the biggest problem with Bitcoin so far. Whether or not the ATMs are working fully or not, just the fact that they exist, and they’re going to get better and better, yes, I don’t particularly that they’re government provided.

Of course, they should work and they do with more than just a Chivo wallet, but it’s a huge improvement for the citizens and eventually, for the opposition, as the government starts cracking down, which for me, it’s a when, not an if.

[01:03:47] CK: Gerson, do you want to – Go ahead.

[01:03:49] GM: Yeah. Just a quick comment, and I think Enzo would probably have even better perspective on this. I think, we’re seeing a lot and just in my own family and friend group in El Salvador. A lot of the opposition, you see the no out of Bitcoin symbol everywhere, and the notion of protests against Bitcoin itself, I think is misdirected anger and frustration at the strong armedness of the government, then being turned around and directed at Bitcoin itself out of a lack of education.

Going back to the point about awareness and education in El Salvador, about this freedom money, about the ability that you now have to custody your property, I think, boils down to a lack of education. Of course, I understand, there’s so much opposition to Bukele’s administration and his tactics and the direction that he seems to be going in. I just think that then gets redirected, or gets branded as anti-Bitcoin.

[01:04:45] AG: Just real quick. I think that to be clear, whenever you talk to informed opposition, they will say, “Well, look. We’re not against the software. We’re against the way it’s being rolled out and the government.” I think that they’re going to learn about it. I mean, I was talking to a journalist who’s in El Salvador, who reports against the government, as any good journalist should do. He was like, “Yeah. I mean, look, we are realizing that this is not going to go away anytime soon, and we need to learn more about it.” Hopefully, the Bitcoin community is willing to reach out and be a resource for people that may need to learn about how to use Bitcoin to achieve financial freedom in a difficult environment.

[01:05:23] GM: Right, right. Agreed, agreed. No. Yeah. I think, I was just speaking more to the regular person on the street, who isn’t, as you put it, a super informed person about the technology. They just tend to tether to their traditional, if they’re [inaudible 01:05:39], they’ll go with the party line there, with respect to being anti-Bitcoin.

[01:05:44] AG: I was also talking with a friend of mine who was in one of the chats. There’s spaces every day almost with some of the opposite – let’s say, informed opposition in El Salvador, like educated technical people. It seems like, there’s a little bit of a shift from very intensely negative everything about Bitcoin, to more acknowledgment that, “Oh, my God. It’s going to be around. Maybe we should learn how to use it properly.” I think, that’s a really good opportunity for those of us who can to get in and help where we can.

One other just take I had that I’d love to get this panel’s input on was, maybe it’s a galaxy take. When I was down there looking at the Chivo ATMs in the airport, and thinking about, well, who is actually going to be buying Bitcoin, right? I’m thinking about, “Okay, there might be remittances coming in and Bitcoin, and tourists might be coming in with Bitcoin. Is there going to be a demand for Bitcoin, from inside the country?” For now, it takes months or years probably for people to get comfortable converting their fiat and large amounts to Bitcoin.

One of my concerns in a way is that essentially, what you’re going to have is the government is going to be taking the Bitcoin, whether it be from remittances to Chivo, or through spending from people like us when we go visit, or whatever. Some people like the convenience of being able to withdraw cash without having a bank account, etc., etc. They’re going to be stacking SATs, basically.

Meanwhile, they have the people using this app, which is a promise to pay Bitcoin or dollars. Non lo so. There’s something interesting in that. I’m not sure if someone has a take on that. It’s like what the Cuban government does. The Cuban government prints this peso, which is a worthless, depreciating currency. They pay all their public sector workers and their pensioners with it. Then, they force people to buy things in stores with hard currency from abroad. My suspicion is that in the next few years, they’ll actually allow you to buy with Bitcoin as well, because they’re going to want to stack that too. I’m just curious what people have thoughts around this idea.

[01:07:41] GM: I’ve noticed that governments tend to like to scam, and it’s a very convenient scam you can do on the Internet.

[01:07:48] MO: It’s definitely an interesting dynamic that you mentioned this last thing, because if you look at worldwide Bitcoin ATM usage, usually governments make it extremely hard for you to sell Bitcoin at an ATM. Athena, Athena Bitcoin, who’s running the Chivo ATMs is my understanding. The majority of their business is buy Bitcoin only. I tend to agree with you that in El Salvador, it will be the opposite.

[01:08:14] AG: Yeah. I mean to Gerson or Enzo, I mean, do you have thoughts on – I mean, don’t you think that most of the usage at first is going to be people probably selling some of the Bitcoin that they get?

[01:08:23] ER: Yeah. As I said, people are making huge lines in front of the ATM just to cash it out. I think it’s, as you say, like Gerson say, the key word is my direct anger against Bitcoin? I think, the more people will search for what Bitcoin is and how to use it, the less barriers you will have. I think, it’s restricted, guys. It means, direct anger and poor education so far. The fact that it has been imposed, and has been adopted is a different, different situation.

[01:08:56] AG: Right. Gerson, before you go, I guess let me just boil this down. What I’m describing is a new state attack that I think we’ll see in the future, which is government’s printing fiat as salaries, or some credits for the population in exchange, that they’re stockpiling Bitcoin, but we’ll see. Vedremo. That’s maybe down the road.

[01:09:14] AVW: They can print dollar. They can print dollars, right?

[01:09:18] AG: They can print Chivo balance. A 100%. What if Chivo balances become the way they do fractional reserve?

[01:09:26] AVW: They can if people hold their balances in Chivo balances and trusted equally to the dollar, which I think are two ifs.

[01:09:35] AG: I mean, yes. I mean, if the governments do it, I mean, that gives them a way to print dollars.

[01:09:39] ER: Yes. That’s why I was telling you about the two balances that Chivo wallet has, that one balance is Bitcoin and the other balance is in USD. Not meant that the Bitcoin balance is expressed in dollars. It’s just a different wallet. It’s like having two pockets in the same wallet. Yes, it could happen that maybe tomorrow, and Bukele can say that he’s paying all the teachers on their Chivo wallet on US dollars.

[01:10:08] AG: Exactly. Instead of via [inaudible 01:10:09] or in cash. Exactly.

[01:10:11] ER: Exactly. People would say, “Well, at least it’s dollars.” Because we don’t have the transparency, we wouldn’t know where those dollars are, if they back it up with real dollars. We wouldn’t know.

[01:10:23] AG: Meanwhile, just to complete the thought. He’s taking the money that you normally would pay them, or the state would take the money it’s normally paying workers and is buying Bitcoin with it. I mean, he just bought the dip today. Does anyone know where that money comes from? I mean, it’s not even clear whether it came from the initial loan that they got earlier. Non lo so. Andare avanti. Sorry.

[01:10:42] JA: Which by the way, this is exactly what the Venezuelan government is doing with the Petro, in a much sketchier way, but still doing that. The way Venezuelan government’s paying engineers, and other government workers in Petro, which is not even a cryptocurrency. It’s just a way for them to print any form of money that is in –

[01:11:02] AG: That’s what the Chivo dollar balance is. It’s not a cryptocurrency. It’s just a promise to pay dollars.

[01:11:07] AVW: Alex, you’re essentially tapping into one of the – maybe you don’t realize that, or maybe you do, but you’re tapping into one of the big debates within the Austrian School of Economics, which is, is fractional reserve banking even possible? Because one side of that school will say, it’s not possible, because once something like that would happen, and people learn that it’s happening, or suspect that it’s happening, then the digital currency will start to trade at a discount, versus the actual dollar. Then the other side says, “No, it’s actually possible.” That’s beside your supporting here, it sounds like.

[01:11:45] AG: I’d like to hear, Joao, from you as well. I mean, look, the fact is a lot of money gets created by private corporations. That’s how banking works today, in many ways. That’s what you’ll be seeing here. The idea that the government could essentially – the real difference from before, though, Aaron, would be that the government could say, “Now, if you are a public sector worker, we’re going to be paying you in Chivo.”

As opposed to the banking system, which is more regulated, and more tied in to the Fed, and to this life flow of dollars from the US. This would be a parallel system that they’ve created, that they could pay people into, that isn’t necessarily backed by anything.

[01:12:23] AVW: Right. The point is, that would only work if people actually trust –

[01:12:27] AG: A 100%. A 100%. I agree.

[01:12:28] AVW:-residual dollar equally. They would have to value with equally to the regular dollar, which I suspect they won’t, if this will actually happen. Like I said, this is one of the open debates –

[01:12:38] AG: Well, what’s happened in [inaudible 01:12:39]. What’s happening with one of these pensioners in Venezuela were being paid in Petro. What’s the black market rate for the Petro, versus what they’re supposed to be being paid?

[01:12:47] SL: That’s an interesting question. I need to know more about it. Non lo so. Yeah.

[01:12:53] GM: I’ll tell you, Aaron, to your point. Hai ragione. In Cuba, the government is still paying people in pesos, and they’re claiming that the value of the peso is 24 to the dollar. You go out to the street, and it’s 70 to 75 per dollar.

[01:13:06] AVW: Right. Exactly.

[01:13:07] AG: We will see. Anyway, go ahead.

[01:13:10] ER: I have two comments here. One is that people is suffering. On the street, you can sell your $30 in Chivo for $25 in cash on the street. You don’t need to go to the ATM. There’s already people around the city centers and doing that.

[01:13:26] AVW: Right. I think, the reason for that is mostly that it’s just –

[01:13:31] AG: That’s also, partly an educational, I think, arbitration, which will disappear. As soon as people realize they can withdraw that into Bitcoin, it gives it more power than – or into cash at a Chivo ATM. I think once those things start looking. Maybe they don’t work right now, but it’s an educational [inaudible 01:13:48].

[01:13:50] AVW: Yeah, it has a lot to do also with that first hop you need to make, which I mentioned earlier. This is a way for people to not have to bother with that and just get cash in their hands. For the convenience, they’re basically paying five bucks. That’s why we –

[01:14:04] AG: For sure, but it’s creating a behavior, I think, is what where Enzo is going for, which is – Joao, did you have something to say as well?

[01:14:15] JA: I was just saying regarding the fractional reserve, I feel they’re already doing it right now. They’re giving the $30 worth of Bitcoin, but they don’t own all the Bitcoin for that.

[01:14:25] AG: Right. I think, they’re assuming that, again, this seems like this could be a scheme. Look, this is why we’re here to be critical. Again, I think we’re going to wrap soon and we want to get some final reflections from everybody. I want to be clear that from my perspective, this is a historic thing. It is the march of open source software. It is remarkable that this government chose Bitcoin and not Bitcoin. They could have banned Bitcoin. It really puts the pressure on a lot of institutions internationally and corporations to get with the program. Now that Starbucks in San Salvador can accept Lightning, why can’t one on Dallas?

I mean, there are network effects here that we can’t fathom, that are going to change the world. The fact that it all came from a small village in El Salvador, that doesn’t even have paved roads, or bank accounts is really just extraordinary. I don’t want to distract too much from that. It’s really just such a powerful thing. Really an inspiring, unlikely story. That’s what I tried to capture in my piece.

At the same time, we have a government trying to take advantage of it in different ways. I’m glad you all joined for this conversation. I think we should just keep having it. Hopefully, we can help Salvadorans understand that if it’s not your keys, it’s not your coins. Maybe we’ll start with Matt, then we’ll go around and each share some concluding thoughts here.

[01:15:43] MO: I just wanted to thank Alex, and the rest of the panelists for joining for this conversation. I truly enjoyed it. It’s a very important topic. I want to thank the audience for also joining and listening. This is a very important moment for El Salvador. It’s a very important moment for Bitcoin. It’s a very important moment for the world. I think, we should all step up and try and do our part to help make this process as smooth as possible, as positive as possible.

To any Salvadorans listening to this right now, if I can do anything to help, don’t hesitate to reach out via Twitter DM, Telegram, Keybase. All my contact information is on my website, mattodell.com. Saluti. Thanks, Matt.

[01:16:27] AG: Aaron, do you want to go?

[01:16:29] AVW: Yeah. I mean, as far as final thoughts go, I would definitely encourage any Salvadorans to not use their Chivo wallets. Use it as the free 30 bucks app, if you can get it out and start using an actual Bitcoin wallet, both for ideological – well, it’s not even ideological. It’s the actual important reasons, like privacy and holding your keys. Also, because it actually works –

[01:16:51] GM: Uptime.

[01:16:51] AVW: Uptime. Sì. Because it actually works, the regular Bitcoin wallets as opposed to the Chivo one. Yeah, in general, very interesting to see what will happen. The success of this story will at this point really depend on Salvadorans, actually using Bitcoin or not, or just getting the $30 out and never look back. That will be interesting to see. That’s something we’re going to see play out over the next couple of years.

[01:17:15] AG: Great. Joao, do you want to say a little something here as we conclude?

[01:17:19] JA: Yeah. Just keeping earns words try to move from Chivo. They’re getting better recently, but are your keys not your coins? What I can say from our side, from what we’re seeing, people are using Bitcoin, specifically for remittances. McDonald’s is cool. We’re seeing most of the traffic coming from remittances. We’re talking about values over a $100. We know they’re coming from Chivo or out, because when Chivo was down, base payments stopped mostly.

People are using Bitcoin, maybe not with the same value of the dollar, but they’re starting to learn about it. I think, it’s definitely keep growing. Hopefully, it’s a new inbound of money possibility for El Salvador people.

[01:18:02] AG: Thank you. Simon, maybe you want to say something?

[01:18:05] SL: Sure. Thank you for having me on. I think, it comes down to two things. It’s about education first with Bitcoin and education then of non-custodial. First if you can’t get to the non-custodial part of the of the explanation of what is Bitcoin, until you really understand Bitcoin first, I think. I see Roman here and Chimbera who was a Bitcoin Beach community organizer, and leader, and the work that he’s been doing for the past four years, educating people. You can clearly see that people at Bitcoin Beach now get it, and they’re empowered to now spread that knowledge.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. We can expect that things will work out as we want them to on day one. Yes, this is an authoritarian government forcing it down to people. In my mind, this is already a success in the Bitcoin story, in that they just helped spread the Bitcoin virus in a way, and it’s working on its own. It doesn’t follow anyone’s control, and will continue to see its growth as we educate more and educate more on the non-custodial aspect of it.

If you can, support what Roman and Bitcoin Beach and other types of educational activities are doing. Let’s scale those initiatives. Then, let’s spread awareness on non-custodial once that initial work has been done.

[01:19:23] AG: Gerson?

[01:19:24] GM: Yeah. Thanks, Alex, again, for hosting this space and for giving me the opportunity to come in and share some thoughts. I would just say that, just from my perspective, this is a country that has been ravaged for 250 years, first by an empire north of it and then next by a bifurcated political system. I know that this new administration is not optimal. It’s not perfect. Nobody is. I know that everyone on this call can fully appreciate how important this step is. Not only for people who have been stolen from and had their resources siphoned out of the country, but for the rest of the world.

In particular for those folks who have been subject to that financial impression. Again, thanks so much for this space. Let’s keep a close eye on the administration. Let’s continue to educate folks on non-custodial ways to hold your coins. Myself also, if I can be of any help to anyone in any way, both here in America or in El Salvador, please shoot me a DM.

[01:20:23] AG: Great. Enzo, you get the last word.

[01:20:26] ER: Oh, thank you all. Thank you for having me here. I think it’s very important that we spread the word. Definitely, I agree with everybody. Education is key. I think education at the end of the day is going to be peer-to-peer. The more we use it, the more people will learn and be confident about it. Then Salvadorians, we need to ask for more transparency, what’s going on behind Chivo? Where’s the money? As you say, not your keys, not your coins, I wonder where are those 700 coins. Who has those keys? How do they decide where to where to tip it, how to move it?

[01:21:02] AG: They could make it public, and they could actually have a proof of reserve thing, which would be even more transparent than any other government in the world. They could do that, and you should press them to do so. That would be interesting.

[01:21:13] ER: I think, that’s for Salvadorians to push, to have more transparency. I think, it’s really interesting. Then any of that future, we can see, or we can predict can be avoided by Bitcoin. Us at this point, we if we have enough education on how to use it, any outcome that will be happening in the future can be avoided. If we all use open technology. We don’t need to stay with Chivo. The law have some advantage over Chivo. Chivo have some advantages on law. I think, the more we know about it, the more we can avoid it.

[01:21:47] AG: Excellent. Grazie a tutti per essere venuti. My last word would just be that you should check out the incredible work that Jorge and Chimbera and Mike Peterson have done in El Zonte. It’s extraordinary. You should definitely go visit and see how you can contribute. It’s an incredible community that existed long before Satoshi Nakamoto came onto the scene and built exist actor, if anything bad happens to Bitcoin. They’ll continue to keep building what they’re building.

As a last thought, I just thought it was so interesting as someone who doesn’t speak Spanish natively, that we’re all talking about this country, that’s the first country to adopt Bitcoin and it literally means The Savior. It’s just something that I’ll leave for your food of thought as we continue on our Monday and thanks to Bitcoin Magazine for hosting us. Take care, everybody.

[01:22:34] CK: Yeah. No, absolutely. Thank you, Alex, for writing. Everyone who has not read Alex’s amazing article, just going over all this in detail and chronicling, I highly recommend you check out the pinned tweet at the top. Go check it out. Read the full article on bitcoinmagazine.com. Go and look up Bitcoin Beach and Bitcoin Magazine. We’ve been chronicling it for several years now as well. It’s been an absolute amazing story.

Then finally, I encourage everyone to go check out Bitcoin 2022, b.tc/conference. We have four different tickets. We have a lot of announcements come in. It’s happening in Miami. Alex will be there. Odell will be there. All the OpenNode guys will be there. Several people who are huge in implementing Bitcoin in El Salvador will be there. I encourage you check that out. Get your tickets while they’re still cheap. Be a part of Bitcoin history. That’s where obviously, the announcement from Jack Maller has happened as part of El Salvador’s history. That was amazing to be part of.

Everyone, check it out. Again, thank you so much to everyone listening and who joined. Follow everyone on stage. Read Alex’s article. Peace.

[01:23:42] AG: Thanks, everybody.

[01:23:44] AVW: Cheers. Thanks, guys.