{ "episodeId": "SLP143", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "eduardo_gomez": { "name": "Eduardo Gomez", "role": "guest", "tag": "EDUARDO" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.43, "text": "Hi, you're listening to the Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today, episode one hundred and forty-three with Eduardo Gomez, head of customer support at Purse dot io. We talk about Bitcoin as a source of truth in Venezuela. So first, this podcast is brought to you by Kraken Exchange, one of the world's leading and longest standing Bitcoin exchanges. Consistently rated the best, they've got a high quality platform offering some of the best liquidity in the industry. They've got high trading volume and low fees, with no minimum or hidden fees. Kraken have twenty four seven support, they also offer an OTC desk for those seeking higher touch large block trades. 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Orders should be going out in early February, go and order yours at cyphersafe dot io. Interesting theme that came out to me from this discussion was the use of Bitcoin as a source of truth in determining a better exchange rate for people wanting to send money back home. We also talk about the petro, we talk about stablecoins, what's needed in terms of tooling and education, and also we touch on Bitcoin in Argentina. Here is the interview. Eduardo, welcome to the show. thank you so much for having me, Stefan. it's, it's an" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "03:55", "start": 235.02, "text": "honor to be here." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:56", "start": 236.26, "text": "So, look, Eduardo, I know you've got a interesting story to tell us. can you tell us a little bit about, you know, how you first got into all this?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "04:04", "start": 244.26, "text": "Sure. so basically my, I dipped my toes into the technology, back in 2012. that's when I first heard about Bitcoin. I was a freshman in, in college. basically I was looking for, something to, you know, maybe earn a side income, so, I started mining Bitcoin with, with my GPU, it was still a thing back then. A Bitcoin was worth around maybe six to, anywhere between six to twelve dollars. My mom had, had just gifted me a GPU, a good GPU, a good video card, so I started mining the thing and, I, I s-install my first, Bitcoin wallet, which was Electrum, and it was a fun experience. Unfortunately, I stopped, maybe one- Week one or two weeks into the mining, the, the mining, thing, mostly because I was so afraid of burning my GPU that I, I had to stop, unfortunately. So that's, that's why I'm not like a millionaire right now. It's pretty much because I was scared of burning my GPU. it's always a fun, it's always a fun ex- a fun story to tell. yeah, so I grew" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:32", "start": 331.84, "text": "up in Venezuela, right?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "05:33", "start": 333.34, "text": "Yeah, I grew up in Venezuela. I was, starting college, I was studying something very equivalent to computer science. and so that, that was my, my first, experience with Bitcoin or my Bitcoin bat-baptisms, baptism, if you will." }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "05:54", "start": 354.03, "text": "but then, yeah, I- I, I, I stopped mining the thing and, I pretty much forgot about it up until 2015. In 2015, I was, I, I was, three years into college, I was, Looking for maybe an, an outlet because my, my country's currency was devaluing at such a, you know, high rate, high pace. The country was entering economic turmoil. The, the, the oil, the price of oil was, was plummeting and, and that's when everything went, went downhill for, for Venezuelan citizens. I mean, you could see the signs that the economy was going to turn bad, bad, back in 2012. our country has been into, has been under a currency control regime since 2002. So essentially everyone was unable to purchase foreign currency, unable to purchase There's things like the dollar or the euro or anything. So you, when you couple, when you, when you pair a, currency or capital control restriction, with a government that is increasingly, spending more money than it, than it can, basically running deficit, defictory economic policies, the result is that everyone loses because, you know, inflation goes up, the- The currency keeps devaluing at a higher, a higher rate. So basically everyone was getting poorer by the minute, and, it was a very sad thing to see." }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "07:38", "start": 457.65, "text": "My mom was a nurse and she was working two jobs, and back in 2015, her, her wage, was pretty much, something like twenty dollars per month. Working two jobs, which is insane, right? and, I started, I, I started, you know, I, I rediscovered Bitcoin because I was talking with a friend, and, he said that he was, hearing about Bitcoin. And I, you know, that's when I, my, my mind clicking, hey, yeah, I remember Bitcoin, I, I, I think I have some stored in a, in a, in a seed somewhere in a wallet. And, And that's, that's when my mind clicked and, and I started to, to, to look at the po- at, at the potential of this technology to solve many things in my life. I started that year, I started working freelance on the internet, doing like content creation, community management, and I was using these platforms like Upwork, like Freelancer, which paid, paid, the, the, the work with PayPal, which was a very inefficient efficient thing because, first of all, getting a PayPal account in Venezuela was pretty much, impossible. It was very hard because you need an international, credit card to activate the PayPal account, which was, which was, unavailable in Venezuela because of the account-- because of the currency control and capital controls restrictions. So basically, I, you know, I purchased a, an activated PayPal account on the internet. I started working freelance on the internet full time, and I was getting paid with PayPal, but the problem with that is that, the, the rate, the exchange rate for PayPal dollars to the Venezuelan bolivar, which is the currency of my country, of my home country, was really bad, compared to what could, to what you could get if you sell Bitcoin into Venezuelan bolivars. There was a pretty nice Bitcoin exchange in Venezuela back then. So basically, Bitcoin was the solution to my problems because if I, if I could get paid with Bitcoin, my, My situation will improve dramatically, so that's, that's what I started, looking to. I started working for a couple of Bitcoin news websites. like the Murkall coin Telegraph, et cetera. and I was working that full time, wasn't getting a nice income, and, and that's when I started to realize the, the, the, the, the real benefits of, of Bitcoin as a currency, as a, as a payment method, as everything. and that's pretty much my, my story back then, then two thousand sixteen. I started working full time for Purse. Purse is the company that I, I work for right now. still I work for Perseus. It's, I worked there as a manager of the customer support department. we run a, we run a remote team of six individuals in, in the support team. Everyone is paid with Bitcoin, everyone is, remote in different countries. So, working as a manager, I, I grew up into the role with, with Bitcoin in mind, ev-e-everything as circular. Bitcoin in my life for the past years, I, I think, I think that's, that's a nice experience to have. I'm very lucky to, to have found a job where I could get paid with Bitcoin directly." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:28", "start": 687.75, "text": "I'd love to touch on the exchange rate point you mentioned earlier, because I think this might be a common misconception amongst people in like the Western world when they see some news article saying, \"Oh, look, people are paying thirty thousand dollars for Bitcoin in Iran,\" and really that's not right. That what it is, or it sort of is, right, but really it's a reflection of the official fiat currency rate being less, oh, sorry, yeah, being l-giving you less than the actual black market kind of true, price for that, fiat money. So in this example, it's, it's that the government, in Venezuela is giving you a bad exchange rate on Venezuelan bolivars to US dollars, for, for example. Could you outline a little bit on that exchange rate? Very different and what, what drives that?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "12:16", "start": 736.38, "text": "Yeah, definitely. i-i-it's like you're saying the, the regimes and, and you know, governments that apply these harsh economic measure that really doesn't benefit anyone. When they do this, when they restrict your ability, to purchase the any currency that you want, all sorts of, you know, shenanigans start to popping up in the economy. first in the microeconomy, you know, the day-to-day economy of- Of people and then that, that results in really bad macroeconomic, problems. In Venezuela, the currency control restriction was put in place in two thousand two. during that year, people could still access the dollar, but it was, that involved a very complicated financial transactions, financial transaction where you, you will have to purchase a stock that was, quoted in bolivars, and then you bought the stock and you sell the stock quoted in dollars, so that way you could, like, use the stock to purchase dollars, essentially Bypassing the currency control restriction. That was, that was our thing back in two thousand two, two thousand three, but then the government shut that down completely, so, pretty much the forex market was closed down to Venezuelans. when the go- when governments do that, you start to see black markets arise be- because that's inevitable. If you restrict the ability for people to purchase something, they will purchase anyway just in a- with a black market And the thing about black markets is that they're not transparent, they're opaque, and when, when, when, when a black market arises, you, you see all sorts of different quotes or different prices. traditionally, people in Venezuela have, the majority of the economic activity, regarding currency exchange happened in the border between Venezuela and Colombia. that's where pretty much, That will be the economic center of this activity. the exchange rate in Venezuela fluctuated, significantly, during the first years, years of the, of the currency restriction, but things really started to kick in and wors- worsen significantly in two thousand, sixteen, because that's when the hyperinflation, started to kick in. And so basically, what used to happen in Venezuela pre-two thousand sixteen was that the, the, the country had inflation, but the currency- The evaluation was higher than inflation, so essentially the country was getting cheaper for people with access to dollars, right? Because prices were, were not going up as fast as the exchange rate, was going up. so that was a thing, back in 2016. Essentially, if you were getting paid with dollars, you were king because your expenses in the country were very low. But when the hyperinflation started to kick in, the, that correlation inverse, and what, what happened was that the country was becoming increasingly expensive, more expensive for everyone, regardless if you, if you had dollars or bolivars. Of course, if you have bolivar-- if you have dollars, the country was, you still maintained some, some sort of, Of, of purchasing power, right? But for the people with, with the national currency, pretty much their saving got destroyed. Like my mom, you know, she has, she worked at public jobs, she, as a nurse, for something like fifty years, and when she got her, retirement check she got, for those fifty years of work, she received like less than five dollars, for fifty years of work. So, it's, basically the social security system, it completely collapsed because, the currency just, it wasn't worth anything. So after 2016, everyone got impacted by, by the economic reality of Venezuela, even, even people that were getting paid with dollars." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:56", "start": 1016.22, "text": "Yeah, that must be incredibly difficult. So you're living in Argentina now, were there a lot of, people who wanted to leave and work in other countries and send money back home?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "17:09", "start": 1028.66, "text": "Yeah, so, I came to Argentina in 2018, I moved here with some of my coworkers, The first team, support team, the company actually sponsored some of our flight tickets, which was pretty cool, and we, we moved here to Argentina in search of, of, of, Of, better future. we, we found a country that is, obviously, the economy is much better than Venezuela, but it still has some, some issues like people here, the governments here have, have applied some of the same tactics like, currency control regi- currency control, and capital controls, to avoid- People from purchasing dollars, because here the, the, the people in Argentina have experienced great economic, catastrophes over the years. It is one of the countries that have defaulted, defaulted the most in history, and people here are, are obsessed with the US dollar because they know that their own currency isn't worth much, and governments, governments here usually they like, they like to spend more money than they can afford, which causes inflation. Currency devaluation. So basically what we found here was, was a country similar to Venezuela in, in how they run things in, in the matters of economics? But the population is much better prepared than in Venezuela, like people here, they are very smart when it comes to, micromanaging their finances and, they know that they cannot trust their own currency, and so people are very, very intelligent ab-about, managing their, their network and, and their life savings. people got very hit, hit very bad in two thousand two and two thousand one, sorry, because the government at the time, they basically, if you had dollars in your bank account, they pretty much sold those dollars or took away The dollars that you have in your savings accounts and they gave you pesos, which is the national currency, at a super bad exchange rate, essentially, taking away most of your, Most of your wealth. So that's why that, that, that action, it, it, sent, waves across the nation, across the everyone's mindset when it comes to the government and when it comes to their money. people realize that they cannot trust the government, they cannot trust the banks, and so this country has a very, a very big mindset when it comes to cash. They like to use cash, not only be- Because they avoid using banks, but also because they, they also avoid taxes by paying with cash. And so we, we found a very interesting country, that has, all sorts of, of rituals and, and customs when it comes to money." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:32", "start": 1231.56, "text": "Yeah, that's fascinating stuff. I'd love to now jump more into the Venezuela-Colombian border aspect. So you were saying that, there's a lot of interesting things going on there in terms of- Bitcoin trading, can you give us, some insight into that?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "20:47", "start": 1246.77, "text": "Yes. So I think, I think it's not only across the Venezuelan and Colombian border, but more across Latin America. But all, like, like the saying that all roads lead to Rome, in Latin America, all roads lead to Venezuela. The diaspora, the, the, the number of immigrants, that left Venezuela is just so high. There's, there are a few examples like this in history, you could compare it to the- Syrian migration crisis, but in Latin America, nothing like this has, has ever occurred, in history. Approximately five million Venezuelans have left the country. there are two hundred thousand Venezuelans in, in the US, a good chunk of them in Miami, in Doral, city of Doral in Miami, and, you, you have more than one million Venezuelans in Colombia. You have, sorry More than two million Venezuelans in Colombia, probably more, and, you have one million Venezuelans in Peru, and you have, two hundred thousand Venezuelans here in Argentina. So, and also in Ecuador, there, there is a good chunk of Venezuelans there. So every-- so basically you have all these, Venezuelan immigrants all across Latin America. They have family back in Venezuela, and, their families, the minimum wage in Venezuela right now is Three dollars per month, like that's, that's what you get, three dollars per month of work, which is, is insane. And prizes in Venezuela, it's not like you earn three dollars and everything costs like a, like a cent of a dollar. No, that's not the case. you get paid three dollars per month of work and everything costs the same as in, the US, because the, in industrial production in Venezuela is, is, is in- Inexistent, it doesn't exist, and, everything is imported, and they import, they usually import it from the US," }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "22:55", "start": 1375.3, "text": "you know, things like, the US, the Turkey, and all other places. and so- And so all these, all these families in Venezuela, they, they have high expenses and low income, they have to depend on the, on the people that left the country, on their sons or their grandchildren, their brothers who left the country in search of better hopes. So basically now you have all these people across Latin America and they have a need to send money to Venezuela. obviously a ton of businesses and- And, opportunities, for this use case, arise. typically people will have a person that they trust to send money to the country. And that, that has become a big business opportunity. So what I, what I specifically meant in my tweet about this, about this use case between, Colombia and Venezuela is that there's, there's a problem that the, the exchange rate in Venezuela is, is essentially opaque, the exchange rate between the, the dollar and the Venezuelan bolivar, because it's a black market and everyone has a different price, a different quote. So there's, there, there are inefficiencies. When it comes to, selling dollars to purchase bolívares, everyone will give you a different price. So people in Venezuela have started to turn to the, to Bitcoin as a source of truth when it comes to, the exchange rate. So if you go to local bitcoins, Venezuela, so local bitcoin is actually the main way, right, also in Colombia? local Bitcoin has a huge, trading volume there. and usually, what people will do is, you have all these, individuals in the Venezuelan-Colombian border that do their, their business is to exchange, between currencies, between Colombian pesos and Venezuelan bolivars. So many of those, many, many people are doing this. W-what they do is they, They purchased your bolivars, or sorry, they purchased your pesos, to send money to your family in Venezuela, Venezuelan bolivars. So what they do is they use local Bitcoin as essentially as the backend for that trade. So they will take the pesos to a person in Colombia, and then they will initiate a local Bitcoin trade to send money to the person in Venezuela. And since local Bitcoin usually has the best, exchange rate, people are pretty- Arbitrage and that exchange rate, because, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer trading is, is big in the Colombian-Venezuelan border, and there are a ton of different prices, different quotes, so there's big opportunity to arbitrage the different exchange rates to take advantage of the fact that local Bitcoin system, the biggest, trading volume and that's where the best exchange rate is, so it's, it's a- A very interesting thing about what is happening there, and, it's not only in the Colombian Venezuelan border, it's also happening all across Latin America because if you want to send money to, to your family relatives in Venezuela, you usually have to go through someone who you have to trust, and that someone, that someone o-obviously has a, a, a process to send money to Venezuela to fulfill the trade, and, usually, they will find the best, exchange rate through, through local Bitcoin. So pretty much, my point here is that local Bitcoin is being used as a backend, for, for exchange or for sending money to Venezuela. it's, it's, it's super crazy, it's, it's super weird, but it's, it's what's happening. there's this guy, his name is Matt, I think. Matt Albo. Matt Albo. Yeah. Useful Tulips, right? Yeah, exactly. Useful Tulips. He did a research, a very interesting research on, on on the local Bitcoin Venezuela, story here. And he found out, he found out that, there was a big blackout in Venezuela last year. That blackout left the country pretty much, in a halt for, in a halt for like two days, three days. And what he, what he found was that when that blackout healed, the local Bitcoin trading volume not only increased in Venezuela, but all across Latin America. And also in Spain, which indicates to some degree that, that there's most of the local Bitcoin trading volume that is happening across, ac-across America is directed or has, or is influenced by Venezuela. And I think the, the most obvious explanation is that five million Venezuelans left the country, so that they're all across these countries, they have the need to send money to the, to V- Venezuela. So I think that's, that's the most obvious explanation. It's, it's, it's crazy, that, that, that, that this platform is being used for, basically as a, as a settle-settlement layer, if you will, for trading activity, back, from or to Venezuela." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:43", "start": 1722.58, "text": "Got it. So let me just walk that through in my head just to make sure I've understood you correctly. So the diaspora of Venezuela- Venezuelans around, you know, elsewhere in South America and some in Spain, they are basically wanting to send money back home to their family in Venezuela. But the problem is they can't directly send, send the Bitcoin, or they can, but their family might not be able to directly spend it. And so what you're saying is they typically will use local Bitcoin to, buy some Bitcoin, send it to a intermediate person, and they may be, say, on the Venezuelan-Colombian border, and they will do that trade, from Bitcoin back to the Venezuelan currency and then be able to give it to the family. Have I understood you correctly there, or can you just walk through the flow?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "29:28", "start": 1767.69, "text": "Yeah, that, that's, that's pretty much the process. So, it, it really varies between, be-bet-between, persons. So, in my use case, in my own personal experience, I know what Bitcoin is, I know what local Bitcoin is, I know how to use a platform. I go to, I traditionally what I do is, I, I log into- Local Bitcoin, I, initiate a trade with someone on the, Venezuelan Bolivar BTC pair, in the Venezuelan market. I initiate a trade with someone that has the same bank account, that I want to- Transfer my money to. I initiate, I initiate a trade with that person and I tell the person, \"Hey, I need a bank transfer for one million Venezuelan bolivars to this bank account, which can be my mom's bank account or my mom or my own bank account.\" And that person will fulfill the trade, they will send proof that he did the trade, I can log into my bank account to check or my mom's bank account to see if the money arrived, and I release the escrow, I release the Bitcoin to that person. That's my flow, that's my procedure because I know how to use it. But the thing about local Bitcoin is, local Bitcoin isn't so easy to use, it can be scary, their, their interface is, isn't very, UX friendly or, or usable for normal people. So that- That's, that's when the traders, that's when the intermediaries, that's when other companies are taking advantage of this, that local Bitcoin has the best rates, but not everyone can use it because not everyone has Bitcoin or not everyone, knows how to navigate around the platform. So they will fulfill the trade, they will, they have the Bitcoin, and they will sell the Bitcoin in the platform and they will charge in, in cash, if, if you don't know how to use the platform. So my point is That the, the, the local Bitcoin, platform is being used as, basically as, I don't know, transfer as a service or bank transfer as a service. That's pretty much what, what, what, what I'm getting to. So I, I think there's, there, there's definitely a big potential for people, and, and companies to, to build businesses on top of this, or build, use cases or, or and whatnot, on top of this. and so I think, I think that's the biggest story that, that is unfolding right now. One year, two years ago, the, the Bitcoin ex-volume in, in lo-in local Bitcoin Venezuela was, obviously during the bubble, two thousand sixteen, December two thousand sixteen, that's when we saw obviously the, the biggest trading volumes, right? but the, the trading volume has started to pick up pace again, it's slowly, going up, and it's very steady. And, w-we have heard reports, that the, the platform, the local Bitcoin platform, is, is also being used more and more by businesses in Venezuela, because they need to, they need to get money out of the country or back to their, you know, bank accounts in the US. the economy, the Venezuelan economy has dollarized compe- completely. My mom, who, never- ever touch a, a, a dollar bill. She now, she is now charging dollars for, she does, some artisan work, she paints, she does all, all these sorts of different things. So she sells her work and she gets paid with, with dollars in cash. And she now, she can go, she now can go to, to, a supermarket in Venezuela, in, in In my, in my home city, my, my hometown, and she can, spend dollars effortlessly, effortlessly, and, everyone will accept it, which was unthinkable maybe two years ago, because, legally speaking, it was, it was a crime to sell things in dollars. Everyone did it, but, but it was, it, it was technically illegal. and now everyone is, is, is doing it. The, the economy has dollars completely. The dollars being used by everybody, you will see kids going to, to, more, brick and mortar shop or, you know, the mom and pop store, in the, their, their homes, in the corner of the street, and they will pay the, the, the store owner with dollars, which was crazy, which is crazy, right? The, the economy has switched completely to, to dollars." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:22", "start": 2062.01, "text": "Yeah, that's really, interesting insight, and I'm curious, do you see- Or hear of any direct Bitcoin commerce, like people just directly charging Bitcoin for things, or is it that people, like, I understand most people would still wanna use US dollar in that case?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "34:38", "start": 2078.34, "text": "So, we, I have heard reports, it's, it's actually a public news, it's not a secret, there, there's a big supermarket chain in Venezuela that started to accept cryptocurrencies. It's a store called Taki. they decided to accept, Bitcoin, other altcoins like Dash and whatnot. there have been efforts by, you know, the company and people running Dash to market Venezuela's the main use case, for their currency. but I think that, I, I don't think they're being honest with, with their, with their, with their marketing materials and promotions because The country in itself isn't using, I, I mean, they're using the fact that many people or ma-many stores are accepting Dash as a sign of growth, but eventually if you go to the actual place and you try to, to pay with Dash or even sometimes with Bitcoin, the, the retail seller or the person, you know, the, the cashier She doesn't, she or he doesn't know what you're talking about. You know, the, the, the, it's, it's the owner who has the knowledge about these cryptocurrencies and will, charge you and, and, and get, and take your, your crypto. But the owner usually doesn't, isn't in the place. So, I think that they, they were very dishonest, with their, with their whole promo- with their whole promotion, promotional thing about Venezuela. I think I think, I think Bitcoin as in itself and all other cryptocurrencies, they're not actively being used for payments in Venezuela. Like people aren't going to their stores and the supermarkets and they're paying with crypto, that's not happening. Maybe if a big store like Traki, the, the main one that I was talking about, maybe they receive a bi-a Bitcoin payment, payment once per week, I don't know, I don't think I think that's, that's something that is being," }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "36:57", "start": 2217.3, "text": "that's reaching a, a point of, you know, mainstream, mainstream usage. I don't think that's the case. I think the bigger story and, and the biggest use case is, is sending money in outside the country, and the whole remittance business, the whole, forex trading activity that's happening in, in the Venezuelan-Columbian border. I think that's the main story here. And, I, I, I think the whole, payments and, and businesses taking crypto directly, I don't think that's, that's the case. I don't think that, that- People are paying with, with crypto in Venezuela." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:39", "start": 2258.68, "text": "Got it. And, the other question I had was around stablecoins, because if the economy is dollarizing, someone might say, \"Well, why not use stablecoins?\"" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "37:48", "start": 2268.43, "text": "Yeah, it's, it's, definitely an, an interesting use case. People are, especially here across Latin America, it's easier to market or to sell a stablecoin to people, instead of, you know, selling them a cryptocurrency. I think here Here in Argentina, I think that's the biggest, it could be the biggest market for a stablecoin, there are some attempts, there are some startups here that are working on that. There are a couple of Argentinians who work for the maker team, right? And they're big promoters of Dai. you have, there's a startup company called Cello, Cello, Cellos, they're building a stablecoin, they have a headquarters here in Argentina. I think there's potential For it, I, I, I-- but the problem is, it's, it's still the same barrier of entry, the long learning curve, because a stablecoin is just, it's pretty much the same thing as a cryptocurrency, so that you still have the complications of teaching people how to use it. and again, here, people here in Argentina, and I think you could say that all across Latin America, they don't trust having dollars in the bank, in the bank accounts. They want to have the thing in- The cash, the, the bills in their hands. So I think that, I, I think beating that cultural," }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "39:18", "start": 2357.78, "text": "that, that cultural rule or, or that, that sort of," }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "39:24", "start": 2363.55, "text": "on, that mindset of people, you know, wishing to have the physical cash, it's very hard, it's a very hard problem to crack, I, I think if anything, the biggest selling point that, that you could use to attract people to the stablecoin thing is, With DeFi, with, you know, the compound, the interest rates that you can get, by, lending your stablecoins. If you, if you, if you tell people, hey, you know, there's this digital dollar, and you can keep your money outside the banking system and outside the hands of the government, I think that's a compelling point. But if you tell them that on top of that, they can get, I don't know, four point five percent annual interest Rates on their deposits if they keep the money, in, in a decentralized pool, decentralized lending pool, a compound or any other. I think that's, that, that's like, a more," }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "40:32", "start": 2431.67, "text": "A more compelling case, right? A more compelling case, yes. Yeah. i-it's, but it's still, it's hard to market, it's hard to, to explain people what that is. It's, it's very hard to explain the risks, you know? so eventually, I think, I think the potential here, is, is, i-if you, if you want to sell Sable Coin, you, you have to also sell the lending and, and annual interest rate so you can get We, with a Sevcoin, I think that's the biggest, the, the best thing that you can do, yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:07", "start": 2466.58, "text": "Yeah. one other point I was ask- I was keen to ask you about around the border trade aspect of it. Are these in-person, you know, cash trades or are these more like bank transfer? I think you, you talked through a bank transfer example, and then the question is, are, you know, is the government clamping down on that? Are police stopping it or, you know, does the government otherwise care that people are using it?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "41:32", "start": 2491.65, "text": "the majority of the volume, the transactions that take place via bank transfers, the banking system, the government has made attempts to clamp down on, on, on people's bank accounts, there during, during the last two to three years, they have increasingly blocked more and more bank accounts, people have had to go to the bank branch and explain to the manager why their- So much money, entering or exiting their bank accounts. Usually, m-my dad actually, the, he had that experience. His bank account was, limited, it was rate limited. if you tried to send him, a bank, bank con-transfer over a certain amount And, and the limit was very low, mind you. the, the transfer would just simply bounce back. So he had to go to the bank branch and explain, you know, my son, he's living abroad, I live all, all my own, I don't work, he needs to send me money. And so basically, he, he, made a dramatic explanation to the branch manager to lift the, the, the, lift the limitation out of the account. He did, he did that. But many- Many people don't have, aren't unlucky, so the government has, has tried to clamp down on bank accounts. The problem is that the, it's, it's like an arms race, an arms race. Many of the exchange houses and remittance businesses and money traders in the border and all across Latin America, what they're doing is that they are renting bank accounts in Venezuela. So for forty, anywhere between forty to a hundred and fifty, I ca- Account, a hundred and fifty dollars per month, you can get a Venezuelan bank account, you can rent a Venezuelan bank account for, from someone else, and use it to do your bank tran- bank transfers, and typically, typically the, business bank accounts, they're more desirable because they have bigger, transfer limits, right? So these businesses in the Venezuelan border, called- Venezuela-Colombian border, they're using rented bank accounts to do their business, and, I think the normal population has, Had to get smart about this, like they're spreading out, the bank transfers. So instead of getting one big amount per month from their family relatives, outside Venezuela, they're, you know, they're sending several wires across the month. It also makes sense because of the inflation, right? If you send money to Venezuela at the beginning of the month, by the end of the month, you will have lost maybe about fifty percent of your, of your value, so it doesn't make sense to send one big chunk of money. I usually on, on my own personal experience, I send money to my mom, once a week, sometimes, Biweekly, and, my girlfriend, she sends money to her, mom in Venezuela once per week, sometimes twice per week, to work around the inflation and currency devaluation. So, I think they're, they're tactics to get around this. now, regarding the cash trades, peer-to-peer cash trading in, in the Venezuelan-Colombian border, it's, it's a risky business because of the, you know, criminal- Nality and, and insecurity that there is in the region, the border is a very hot zone, i's, i's where, there, you have paramilitary, elements, there are criminals, also government sponsor paramilitary, personnel, personnel, but, but pretty much the, the border, the border is, is right now is a, is a bloodline of the country. many of the imported goods come from the border, border, and many, many government officials and many military personnel, they take bribes to let things in or outside the country. So, it's, it's not a big problem, because everyone is getting their cut. the government is, government officials and military personnel, they're getting, they're getting their cut, they, they take bribes in the border to, allow money in or outside the country There's big chunks of cash. there are many, parts of the border where, you know, there's smuggling going on. So the government has taken a very lax approach to, to solve or tackle this problem. They, they usually, they, they permit it, they allow it. but the thing is that since they allow it and, and the military is in, in, in this business, There is also wars, to allow certain smuggling to go on, there are many interests, across this chessboard, and so the, the, the, the border is a very dangerous place to be right now. there's also, there's also this interest, interesting, case that there are many people living in the Venezuelan side of the border, and they go to work to, Colombia. obviously this is, this is not un-unusual, right? Y-y-you maybe in the US-Mexico border you see this too, you know, people living in, in Mexico but they work to-go, they go to work in the US. But in Venezuela, it's, it's, i-it's It's even bigger because the minimum wage is so low in Venezuela that everyone, you-- in the poor, that if they're able to, they will work in Colombia, because the wages will be, bigger." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:43", "start": 2862.92, "text": "I, I'm also curious to know what is the impact of things like the Venezuelan petro. Has that confused things for people? Do people just treat it like a pass-through thing and they don't spend too much time in the petro, so to speak?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "47:57", "start": 2877.49, "text": "Yeah, it's, you, you touch a very interesting point that I was hoping you to- To, to mention. so Petro right now, you could see Petro as a, as a government-spon-sponsored, cryptocurrency that is, is really isn't a cryptocurrency because it's completely centralized. The, even the block, the blockchain explorer, it doesn't work. It's a, it's just a website. There's no other- there aren't other providers, there aren't, there, there's just one website that you can look up, for petro transactions, and that website, if it works five hours per day It's a miracle, like it, it usually it's down that website. The, you can't consult, you can't do queries for certain blocks. Sometimes you search for a transaction, it doesn't appear. It's, it's a completely, it's a complete mess. So this cri- this so-called cryptocurrency is run by, by a company that the government contracted. Nobody knows what, what, who this company is, what the employees are, who built this cryptocurrency. It's, it's a complete- Mystery. The only known thing, and that's because it's, it's said in the white paper, is that there are several master nodes. apparently this is, like a Dash clone or something. there are some master nodes, and those master nodes are, they're all in the same place, they're all controlled by the government, so there's no transparency when it comes to this cryptocurrency. the other thing is that, the, the cur- the, the, the Petro is traded on a couple of local exchanges, but Due to US sanctions and not only US sanctions, but also the, the potential risk of, of running this unknown cryptocurrency in, in your exchange. this cryptocurrency is not traded in big, big, big exchanges like Binance or, you know, Bitrex and, and the, the usual suspects, if you will. so the, the, the, the, this, this crypto is, is, pretty much an attempt by the government to- to, to get money, because what they say is that one petro is worth sixty dollars, which is apparently the price of a barrel of oil, and they say that to back this cryptocurrency, they have allocated a certain amount of oil reserves. But the oil reserves are in the ground, right? And in, Venezuelan oil is extra heavy, it's really hard to, to process, it's very hard to extract. So basically they're saying, hey, you know, we have the- Biggest oil reserve in the count, in the, in the world, and we want to monetize that. So it's like, my friend Alejandro Machado, said. Alejandro Machado is, is, is a guy who's working for, with a project called the Open Monetary Initiative. They're doing research on the different use cases for crypto in Venezuela. And what he said is that the government essentially is running a, an initial country offering, because the government is trying to monetize, they're trying to monetize resources that they cannot extract. It's very hard to, to extract that oil. There's not the, the, the oil output of the country has declined significantly in two thousand. In the year two thousand, Venezuela was producing three million bars of oil per day, and today they're getting less than seven hundred, bars of oil, seven hundred thousand. So the, the oil output has decreased significantly. So What's the value, r-right? W-where does the value come from? It, it isn't worth anything. they're also saying that they're going to monetize the gold reserves and diamond reserves. Venezuela has several, strategic minerals, reserves. There's still the problem that it's hard to extract. No one will invest in the country. No sane oil, industry company will, will invest to extract oil in Venezuela. So the- Value proposition isn't, isn't there, right? So what the government is doing is that they're trying to force down the petro onto people. There are, many, buro, bureaucratic processes, can be paid with petro, at least that's what they're advertising. So if you want to get a new passport, and by the way, the Venezuelan passport is a, is the most expensive passport in the whole world, it costs three hundred dollars to get a new passport. And it's, also it's very hard to, it's very hard and almost impossible to get, because they're not printing the, the damn passport. So pretty much you have people stuck, people, people stuck all across, the world because they can't move because they don't have a Venezuelan passport. So, so they're, they're trying to, they're trying to force petrol down onto people. Recently, like one, less than one month ago, they- Pretty much airdrop half a petro onto everyone who was registered, with, Carnet de la Patria. So Carnet de la Patria is like an ID, it's like a card, document ID that, you have to sign up for. And people will usually give you free money if you, if you have the, the, the, the i-that ID card. it's called the fatherland's card or the motherland's card. I, I don't know what's exact translation. So the fatherland's card, you have to get it if you want to get free money. usually the government will send, monthly bonuses. they're, they're essentially airdropping fiat, every month to everybody. With no regard to the cons- with no regards of consequence with, with inflation and the currency devaluation and the mo- relentless money printing that they're doing. So they're giving away free money and they're trying to do the same with Petro. They, they recently they airdropped half a Petro to every Fatherland's Card holder and, and there were these designated merchants that accepted Petro. So basically, long queues formed In these businesses that were accepting Petro, because everyone got a half a Petro for, for free. So the biggest victims in this, with this airdrop were the merchants, because they got paid with the half a Petro, but the government two days, sorry, five days after this, airdrop event, they stopped the platform, the, the, the payment platform, and the Petro is pretty much on hold right now. and people can't sell their Petros. So basically, the merchants who g- who, who receive Petros in exchange of goods, they can't sell the Petros into, into the national currency. So pretty much they got, got left with no stock because they, they sold everything because everyone there was an incentive to spend this Petro, and, the merchants, they, they don't have stock anymore, and they, they can't sell the Petro So this pretty much was a wealth transfer from the merchants and the store owners, the store owners, to people who got the, the airdrop of the Petra. that's, I, I think that first experience was, revealing, was a revealing, experience for everyone, because, the- I think it's very obvious that it doesn't, it can't work as a payment system because if the government is going to be airdropping petro every now and then, ev- there's a, this huge demand to spend it, but there's no purchasing demand, there, no one wants to purchase this thing. And so, that inevitably will lead to, to, to the petro crashing in value, right? And the sad thing is that the government says that the petro is worth sixty dollars But on, on the open market, in the couple of Bitcoin, in the couple of crypto exchanges that trade petrol in Venezuela, it's worth approximately fifty to sixty percent less than the government advertises." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:30", "start": 3390.2, "text": "Firstly, it's just that it's not a real exchange rate, right? So it's just like that same problem that the government just gives itself a really nice exchange rate, but the true exchange rate is much less than that. And the merchants have be-- basically been left holding the shitcoin bags, right? Like they had to- You know, they had to give goods, and now they're stuck with these bags that they can't even unload, right? So, it's, very unfortunate situation. so turning, I guess, back to more Bitcoin, and, you know, Bitcoin apps and so on. Have you seen any use of Lightning as an example or things like Phoenix app, Phoenix wallet?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "57:09", "start": 3428.94, "text": "no, not as, not recently. what I've heard is that there, there's a company in Colombia Colevalú, they're, they have this really nice app for people to exchange pesos into Venezuelan bolívares. So you, you sell your Vene- your, Colombian pesos, via the app, and you go to a, to a, a store front that will take the cash, and your family relative will receive bolívares in less than an hour. That was a very nice use case, and although for the, for the use- User is, is nothing Bitcoin related because they don't see anything about Bitcoin, but on the backend, the, the company will use, they will use things like Bitcoin, local Bitcoin, and, and Bitcoin exchanges to fulfill the trade and to send money to the person in Venezuela. So I think that's a very nice, very nice and interesting use case, right? You use Bitcoin on the backend, nobody has to know about it, and it fulfills a purpose. now regarding the more Bitcoin centric this aspect of things, I haven't heard of any, innovations going on in the country, regarding Bitcoin. I know that there's, obviously there's more and more interested to purchase it, to purchase Bitcoin, just to, protect your, your, you know, your network, your wealth because of your, the Venezuelan bolivar is just devaluing every day. But apart from that, the innovation is pretty much clamped down because the country is such an an turmoil state that there's, there's, there's no time left to think about innovation, you know? People, programmers, professionals in the country, the, the few that are, they're still there because the majority they just left the country. The few of them that are, they're there, they just work for companies on the outside, they do freelance work, for companies. in the US, where companies in Latin America, they get paid with dollars, and they don't have time to think about, solving the situation in the country. Now, the, there's, there are several, There, there are several wallets that you can use, of course. I think mobile wallets have, have real power to penetrate the market, especially like, Privacy, privacy center wallets like Samurai, they, they, you have a very interesting use case there because, having a mobile wallet means that you can pay anybody that you encounter, but also you have to think about the fact that, Venezuela is a very un-insecure place, so your phone can be stolen at any time, And so you have to build, you have to build products for that, you know, like with Samurai Wallet, you can, you can do stuff like disable the wallet, via SM-SMS. the, the, the, they have all, all these, privacy features and, and they are, they have, they have think about the wallet from the aspect of an adversary, right? And, and also you have, You have the potential to, build stuff that will allow people to, to purchase the currency, I, I mean, to purchase Bitcoin with the, with the national currency. There, there's the opportunity to build local exchanges. You have the opportunity to build, maybe exchanges that have a better UI than, than what local Bitcoin has. So I think there's, there's room for innovation, there's room for products, but- But, you have to think from the-- you have to think the most basic use cases because you can't go to, too far, because the economy isn't in, in, in such a place to think about advanced use case. People don't have enough money to be, messing around with, with, with crypto, the fees are high, sure. so you have to think about that. So there, there's, there are many things that you have to think about when building products. my friend, Alejandro. Who, who, who has been working with the Open Monetary Initiative, they have released, they have released research on this and how to build products thinking about Venezuela. They have, they have found out that if you want to build something, you have to think about the low bandwidth that you have, the internet connectivity is really bad, so you have to think about that. You have to think about the fact that, that phones they run on all software, there's all Android phones, phones there, so you have to build lightweight apps. Apps that can, that can run, on low bandwidth. So the, there are all these prerequisites. So it, it li- it leaves very, very few room for innovation. I, it's, it's very complicated. I think the, the main use case that we have to, that we have to think about is, is just, Bitcoin as a store of value and Bitcoin as a way to move money inside or outside the country. I think that's the main use case. I ramble a lot, sorry about that, but yes, I, I think it all comes down to To getting money in or outside the country." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:02:45", "start": 3765.99, "text": "Yeah, and so, presume then you-- we are seeing more people who would like to hold Bitcoin, right? Like use it more as a longer term savings. a-alongside that, People considering things like, you know, key management, backups, and so on, is that, is that something that you're hearing advancing in terms of people learning how to use, backups and sort of storage, longer term storage? not" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:03:16", "start": 3796.01, "text": "so much. there's, there's plenty of opportunities to think about that. I have heard about someone, there, there was someone who told me in a conversation, back at, I had- I attended Defcon 4 in Prague, that was in 2018, and, I had the chance to speak about the Venezuelan situation with, with Alejandro, with my friend Alejandro. we did a presentation there, and I, I believe, I want to believe that it made a, It made a good impact on people that attended the conference. When I, when I left the, the, when I left, when, when we finished, when, when we finished our presentation, a, a ton of people, you know, they, they approached me and they said, \"Um, hey, how can we build stuff for this country? What we can do?\" And there, there was this guy who presented me with the idea of maybe having like physical, physical cards or physical, items. That hold Bitcoin, right, and that you can give to someone else, that someone else can, scan the, the, the item will have, I don't know, like a private key built in, like a, that you can sweep. And scratchable cards was also, and, a discussion was brought up, in that presentation. So, because that's somewhat that people are used to, right? Right? People are used to exchanging physical things. They're used to money, on a day-to-day basis is a physical thing, is a, it's bills that you touch, that, that you, that you give to someone else. So I think there, there, there can be an opportunity to, Convert crypto in a physical thing," }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:05:06", "start": 3906.7, "text": "I, I think that's, that's a nice use case. In terms of private, in terms of key management, that's a very advanced topic. I don't think, we have to, we have to think very deep about these issues. People, normal people, people, they get scared when they see a Bitcoin transaction. I sometimes I still get, sometimes I'm still a little bit, bit scared when I send a Bitcoin transaction. Right? It's, it's, it's something you feel in your guts when you, when you move a large portion of your, of your, of your wealth from one address to other address, when you send money to so, from, to someone to pay, for something and it's a big payment, you still get some tingling sensation in your guts when you send that transaction. when, when we reach a point where we don't feel that tingling sensation in, in our stomachs, I think that's when, that's, that's the point where, Where we can feel at ease, right, when we have built things, products, and services that will allow us to make Bitcoin payments or crypto payments, without that, that awful nagging feeling that you can lose everything if you type something wrong. it's very hard to achieve, it's very hard to, to get to, to a point like that, For normal people's, for, for normal people, sorry, they don't, i-it's very hard for them to grasp, to grasp the, grasp the concept, the concept that, everything is, is all, all that, that they have is in a twelve, in a, is in a series of twelve words, and if they've lost that those words All their money is gone. I think, I think that's, it's a very hard problem to solve. I don't think there's, if you want, if you want the absolute, the absolute privacy, if you want to be in control of your wealth It's inevitable, you will have to, you have to think about storing your own money, you have to think about, securing your own, your own private keys, you have to think about, about all of that. So we, either we build things to allow normal people to use crypto, but that will also, that, that will also, sort of like corrupt the, the principles of Bitcoin, you know, the principles of, of self-custody. or we teach everyone to be a self-custodian, we teach everybody about the importance of, of storing their own Bitcoin, we teach everyone to be, basically libertarian. We have to teach-- So, that, that's pretty much it. You have to, you have to tell, you have to convince people to, You have to convince people to take up the responsibility of securing their own wealth, the securing their own money, and, I think we have to focus more on that, because we have, we have a couple of good, solutions right now for like wallets. you have big companies like Coinbase, Coinbase is a company that has received a lot of critics, across the years, ever since I joined the space in 2012, everyone was- Always complaining about Coinbase, it's, Coinbase is pretty much an enemy of, of, every, Bitcoin maximalist or people that is very focused on the self custody, because they're this big US corporation, big company, they're growing, eventually they'll be, they will become, Well, they're already a, I believe, a multi-billion dollar company, but it will get to the point that they're too big to fail, and they will get to a point that will concentrate the majority of, of Bitcoin in circulation. and so they, that, that company, Coinbase, they have, they have simplified a lot of things for people, right? And if you get too comfy, i-i-i-and they go bust, then, you know, you will lose everything. So, but they have- We've done a good job in terms of UX, in terms of ease of use, in terms of if you want to purchase Bitcoin, if you want to introduce Bitcoin to somebody in the US, the easiest solution for them to purchase the, the, the, the coin, the, the Bitcoin is, is through Coinbase, Coinbase, among other, of, of course, you have other providers. so, I think that's, that's problem number one, right? Who, who do we trust? Do we-- Do I trust myself or do I trust someone else to hold my is to trust myself and do my own custody, but if I'm not a, if, if not, if I'm not careful, I can lose everything. and the second, the second problem is how to get Bitcoin, how to purchase cryptocurrency. I think I, you know, I've been in, in this space for a long time, and, and, in, in the span of seven years, not much has changed in terms of fiat on-ramps. If you want to purchase crypto, it's still the same companies, it's still Kraken, it's still Coinbase, it's still Bitstamp, running the show," }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:10:23", "start": 4223.53, "text": "And then you have the casinos, Binance, the BitMEX, the BitMEX, they're, they're essentially casinos because they're, they allow, they allow trading, with just, signing up with, with a, with an email password combination. They don't have KYC, I, I mean, they have KYC up to a certain point, at least Binance. but they're just casinos because they don't have fiat on-ramps, because if they have fiat on-ramps, then they have to be regulated. So I think that's a, The, the on-ramps. If you want to purchase crypto in Latin America, you have to go, you have to, two, you have two main ways. if you are a newbie, you are rookie in this space, you will have to go through a local exchange. That is the most trusted in your own country, here in Argentina, you have Ripio, you have Crypto Market, you have Satoshi Tango, you have different exchanges, but the quotes and the prices that they give you are very bad. So if you want the best rate, you have to go OTC with local Bitcoin. Local Bitcoin usually has the best rate, and so, but then you have to deal with the, with the uncertainty that, you know, that there's a counterparty on local Bitcoin, if you're a new- Be the, the UX can be very scary. So their, their, their limited opportunities are limited, their limited fiat on-ramps, and the fiat on-ramps that, that exist and that people can trust are very, They, they have very bad prices, so i-it's going to be expensive to purchase, crypto. So that's, for me, that's, one of the most important problems to solve, the, the, the on-ramps. And of course, you have the long-term problem of fungibility, which is a topic that I think will be, will be big in the coming years. It's still something, something that many people don't pay attention to. I mean, the regular users, for them, a Bitcoin is a Bitcoin, but for- For other people that, you know, they, they think about the long term, they think about the, what's happening right now with law enforcement, with, with, with the subpoenas that are going on in this space, with the companies in the crypto industry, when they think about the darknet markets and how they, bitcoins that come from hacks, bitcoins that come from, from drug dealing, those bitcoins are worth less than, than, than the bitcoin, the, the clean bitcoin, if you will, the clean- coins. So, you have products like Wasabi, which is a really nice wallet that I'm using, that allows you to mix your coin to do your, to do Bitcoin mixing, and so I think this year we can, we can really think about that, their innovation in the, in the, in the roadmap, Maybe in the next couple of years, it will take two to five years for Bitcoin to incorporate, technology and features that will make, mixing coins more easier, more cheaper, so the idea is to get to a point where one Bitcoin, one output is worth the same as a-any other output, and that, And I think that's a big value proposition, because a dollar is a dollar, and you can, and you have two dollar bills, and it doesn't matter where they came from, it doesn't matter if, if a hundred dollar bill came from a murder, than a hundred dollar bill that came from a, from a farmer that, you know, get, they got their paycheck and, and, or they get, got paid in cash, doesn't matter what that, what that hundred dollars came from. We want to get to that point, even if some people think it's immoral, I, I think, I think fungibility is, the biggest next problem for Bitcoin that needs, needs urgent solving." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:14:24", "start": 4464.43, "text": "Yeah, so I mean, the, there's a few points I can sort of extract from there. So in terms of building products that work for, let's say Venezuelans, it, part of the challenges, if you will, are firstly, I guess, the cost. So the cost of having a hardware wallet and then even the cost of having- Like a more recent Android phone that can have, you know, the right, you know, the wallets that run all these different features and so on. So there are a few of the, I guess, things to think about. from a more Argentinian perspective, do you see day to day, you know, Bitcoin spending, light-lightning spending, is it more used in certain cafes or things like that?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:15:05", "start": 4505.94, "text": "there, there, there are a couple of p-places that, accept Bitcoin. you have Bitcoin ATMs. my first experience with a Bitcoin ATM was here in Argentina. It was, it was something that blew my mind that I was exchanging Bitcoin to physical cash. It was an experience that I don't know, it's, it's one of those first experiences that you can't replicate, That's, that when I did that ex- that exchange and I used that ATM, I, I thought, wow, how far have we come? there, there are places that accept Bitcoin here in Argentina, sure, but they're very, they're very niche. if you go to Microcentro, Microcentro is downtown Buenos Aires, is where the big office, office space buildings are, where the main, there's a lot of, a lot of trading activity. You know, trading desks and basically big businesses, is, is in that place. But then you also have, you have also the, there, there are individuals called, cambistas, and they have cuevas. So cambistas are people that exchange dollars, that exchange pesos into dollars and dollars into pesos, the, the national currency. and cuevas is, is a, is basically, A, a dark office where you go to sell your dollars or, or you go to, to w-with your pesos to purchase dollars outside the banking system, which is technically legal, but it's, it's un-allowed. So all these people down there, you can see physical stores that, that say, \"Hey, we accept Bitcoin,\" and you can see the Bitcoin accepted here payment. but in, in my experience, when I went to those places, they, they haven't still- downloaded a Lightning app and we usually, we do, normal Bitcoin, transactions with normal wallets. So I don't think, I think it's still very early, for, the majority of Bitcoiners to catch up with Lightning. there are some, innovation taking place here in Argentina. You have people, Most of the people are rootstock, they are building their, their own side chain and, and whatnot. They're here from, from Argentina, they, I think they recently moved to Uruguay, they have an office there, but they're from Argentina. you have, you have a dedicated, Bitcoin space, which is called Bitcoin Space. it's basically a build, a, an office building with many startups, some focus on- Around Ethereum, some focus around Bitcoin, there's monthly meetups, there's, there's a lot of community building effort taking place in Argentina. there's the developers of the Moon Wallet, which is, which has Lightning enabled, I think. and so I think there's innovation taking place, but it's still too early, it's too, it's still, it's still very, very small as of now. We haven't catch up with Lightning usage yet. I haven't, I haven't seen anybody, using it, as of now. But there's, there's potential. There's, there are very smart people working on that here, and I think we'll get to that point." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:18:42", "start": 4722.8, "text": "Yeah, that's great to hear. Yeah, there's a lot of, good tools and things being built out. So I guess that, that's pretty much most of the questions I had. Did you have anything else that you wanted to touch on before we finish up?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:18:53", "start": 4733.8, "text": "I think we, we cover everything." }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:18:57", "start": 4737.91, "text": "I, I, I This would be the, the technology, the technology is in a very good place for, for people, to use it as it is. we have many, we have many people using Bitcoin, for everything. I myself, I use it. If I can live off Bitcoin entirely, I think, I think many other people can do it too, and I think the technology as it is is good enough to serve a purpose. I can buy a flight ticket with, with Bitcoin, I can buy gift cards with Bitcoin, I work for a company that allows people to, use Bitcoin for Amazon purchases. we have decent Bitcoin exchanges. I think that there's, there's We, we, we came a long way, definitely. We came a long way, but we, we, we still need to solve, very basic fundamental problems to allow normal people to use the technology. I think we'll get there, it's going to take a, it's going to take some, some more, years of work, but, we will. And there's still the question, will we see a big government, actively trying to stop this technology? will the economic uncertainties and geopolitical, uncertainties around our world today, drastically affect Bitcoin? I think we will. I think when you see a president, Actively sending, not threats, but implicit threats to the head of the Federal Reserve to print more money. I think those, those are wake up calls, you know, those are wake up calls. I come from a country that destroyed, destroyed their own national currency in an effort to, essentially," }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:21:03", "start": 4863.28, "text": "Essentially maintain power, maintain control of the country for as long as they could. They achieved so, they destroyed the currency, they printed money relentlessly, and they're still in power. in Argentina, the same, the, the governments are putting currency control exchanges. our ability to, find, economic freedom, freedom is being restricted. So we have to think about that in the long term. We, we have to think about our rights as citizens, in our respective countries to access any currency that we want, to dispose of our money as, as we want governments in Europe are banning cash, they're, they're, they're, they're cramping down, clamping down on cash because they know that that's a risk. That's a risk because people can do with cash whatever they want, they want to, they want to Pretty much restrict every sort of venue for people to avoid taxes, and in that process, they're destroying our economic freedoms or, or economic rights. So I think that's something to think about in the future. I think that's something to think about, no matter what, what country are you in, no matter if you're in Venezuela, third world country, no matter if you're in Spain, no matter if you're in, in Finland or, or Sweden or in the US. Populist governments are popping up, cash is being dis-is-is-is on, on a dead list. So, watch out everyone, everyone, buy Bitcoin. I, I think those are my, my closing thoughts." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:22:49", "start": 4969.01, "text": "Excellent. and lastly, just where can we find you online?" }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:22:51", "start": 4971.73, "text": "So you can find me online on Twitter, my, Twitter handle is colyx, and that's where I hang out the most. I usually share updates about what's happening in Venezuela, what's happening in Argentina, and, you can also, if, if you use Purr's or Prolog, feel free to reach me out, I'm the support manager there and, And yeah, I hope, I hope that, crypto becomes more useful. That's our, our, that's pretty much our motto in, in the company I work for. We want to enable people to spend Bitcoin and, and, and use actively use Bitcoin. And you can't live off Bitcoin right now. I think, we need to encourage that more. We, we need people to, to use Bitcoin for their day-to-day lives. that way we can increase the usage of this beautiful technology." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:23:44", "start": 5024.84, "text": "Excellent. Well, thank you very much for joining me at Water." }, { "speaker": "eduardo_gomez", "time": "01:23:47", "start": 5027.3, "text": "Thank you so much, for this interview. I hope the listeners had a, had a blast and had a good time, listening to my ramblings and babblings." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:23:57", "start": 5037.17, "text": "Just a quick announcement, as Peter McCormack can no longer make Advancing Bitcoin conference, I'm actually stepping in as the MC. So it's on February sixth and seventh in London. There's some awesome speakers there like Andrew Polstra, Andrew Chow, Jimmy Song, Stephan Sniezarev. If you're interested, I think it'll be a fantastic conference. Go to AdvancingBitcoin dot com And use the code Livera for a discount. Otherwise, as usual, you can subscribe, get the show notes, find the transcript at stephanlivera dot com. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }