Original subtitles

Well, thank you for having me.

I had the technological and economic international affairs

area for the government of El Salvador.

I worked specifically in the Trade and Commerce Secretariat.

And basically that means that I had to identify investment opportunities

as they relate to Bitcoin or to any crypto or blockchain project.

And I've been working with a lot of the companies that have come into El Salvador

ever since the law took effect

A lot of people had told us that we should have readapt to

El Colon, which used to be our currency

up until 2001 instead of the US dollar.

People were using colonias, however,

that would have been going into the past.

We wanted to go into the future.

And the future mean crypto.

The future means cryptocurrencies.

Especially Bitcoin.

And it was a no brainer, I think, for the President to think that

with the adoption of Bitcoin, he could have done many things

including the bonds, the volcano bonds that he's working on

in so many other things,

allowing people who are unbanked that don't have a bank account

that basically that translates into about 70% of Salvadorians,

allowing them to have access to digital money

to not only do transactions with Bitcoin, but also to save and to invest.

And I think that's a game changer for any country

Well, in fact since 2001, El Salvador

hasn't been able to print money because we use the US dollar.

So we don't have the power to print money and,

and even if we had the power right now to do it, I think it makes sense to see

what is going on, what is happening around us, what is happening in the world.

The fact that we are suffering from inflation in many countries,

I mean worldwide because countries are just printing money,

you know, lots of money

and they're not really handling the issues that we're going through.

So the idea of printing money, more and more money

is just a traditional way from the banking system.

And he hasn't really fixed anything in years

ever since perhaps the banking system initiated.

So is not we don't see it as a solution.

The solution is not to print more money.

The solution is really to adopt the future

I think like any other

adoption of of anything, education is key.

And I know that we are working really hard in order for the population

to become more educated when it comes to using Bitcoin is not just the government's

responsibility to educate the Salvadorian population.

We've seen that a lot of the companies that have come to invest

in El Salvador, they are taken to task that

and they're educating different segments of the population, academia as well.

They have come out with careers now on crypto

or workshops or

specializations, you know.

So it's it's government, private sector in academia,

and everybody's helping, trying to educate as many Salvadorians as possible.

That could be a challenge.

However, we're tackling it

Well, El

Santa, as well as there's another area called Bitcoin City

Bitcoin Citizens of El Salvador,

that's what it's called in that area, started before El Santee.

And people don't know about that.

It's in the state of Cincinnati.

And those two areas are unusual because they have been it

their populations have been using Bitcoin for about three years now.

And obviously they are more educated about their cryptocurrency.

They know how to do a transaction.

Lightning, you know, they use like the Lightning Network

they're fine, like you said.

However, in the capital city, if you go into a McDonald's,

if you go into Starbucks, if you go into any other store,

or it's a department store, you know,

and you want to buy a scarf, you want to buy shoes, you can buy it.

You can buy those items with Bitcoin.

And I think people are are getting the hang of it.

That means that they're getting little by little educated.

How do you deal with the volatility?

It is the government's

plan to launch a stable stablecoin

which will alleviate the volatility.

It is. It's how Bitcoin works.

And part of the creation

is, is to let people know that that happens with Bitcoin.

At the same time that right now is I believe it was 38.

Somebody checked last night Tomorrow

it can go up to 40 and then the next say can go up to 60.

So it's not really.

Yes, there is.

There's a high volatility, but at the same time there are perks.

Meaning if people invest, if people save money in Bitcoin, they know that.

I mean they say Bitcoin because bitcoin is money,

then they know that their, their income can increase

is not just going to go down, it's also going to go up.

So it's a matter of education. I think

the president announced that during the

celebration at the end of the

the Bitcoin Conference's Bitcoin week that we had in November,

we were at the beach

and he announced a few different things including the volcano bonds.

And you know that that

our teams are working on the civil coin as well as the volcano bonds.

And there is not necessarily that much public info that we can share

at this point.

What I can tell you is that now in February,

the Legislative Assembly is going to vote

on approving 20 different laws that pertain

to not only to the volcano bonds, but also to the residency status

and how

that's going to work out for people who actually want to move to El Salvador.

We have a lot of people, a lot of investors

that have come and bought homes already.

They moved with their families.

It's crazy what's happening.

The migration is crazy and it's real.

We don't have numbers right now on the number of people that have moved.

But what I can tell you is that we have about between 203 hundred

companies that we know have

incorporated because of Bitcoin.

They have come from other countries.

They have opened

a Salvadorian company.

Now, you know, like a subsidiary.

Right?

And, and it's about 200 to 300.

But I can tell you that we, we have people

who have migrated to our country

and have not only opened offices, but have bought property.

People from Singapore, Canada, the United States, Europe,

even from Africa and obviously from some other countries in Latin America.

So it's for us, it's crazy.

It's crazy to be seeing this

Bitcoin is a legal tender being El Salvador.

And that means that every in

any single bank in the country has to take Bitcoin.

So we having had an issue where,

let's say a customer goes into a bank and

and the bank refuses to use it, it's a legal tender and they have to use it.

Let's say if I had $10 million in Fiat and I wanted to transfer that,

they would ask me, where is this money coming from right then?

And they have the right to ask that question.

In the traditional banking system,

I don't

think that we have we have had that issue yet.

When someone comes with, I don't know, five or ten Bitcoins

and they want to transfer it to to a bank, we haven't had that issue.

But I know that if there was

if we had a problem, if a customer had a problem

and where they didn't want to take their Bitcoins or they were asking

too many questions as opposed to do it in a defi way,

then we would know about it or the customer

Especially now in social media, the customer will speak up.

But that hasn't happened yet.

Or not.

I mean, we're not dangerous.

What we're trying to do is to really adapt ourselves

to the changes in the world right now, to the future.

The future is digital with 3.0 is is already here.

I was about to say it's coming up now.

Noise is already here.

And if we or any other country doesn't adapt

to the changes, then we're going to get we're going to be behind.

We're going to be

we're going to be slacking, you know, in not working on behalf of our people.

And that's what we're trying to do.

People can say all sorts of things.

They can say that it's that the volcano bonds won't work,

but we know that they will

I think it was a very innovative idea.

Like you said, and I don't think anybody was expecting,

you know, to to hear about volcano bonds and just just the fact

that El Salvador is mining with volcanoes.

I mean, that's, you know, that should blow your mind, right?

So now when we think about volcano bonds and the fact that a lot of people already

have committed to purchasing to buying these bonds,

we know that the 20 laws that the Congress is supposed to pass

supposed to vote on are coming up in the next few weeks.

Now, in February, that's when we will know when they will be available

for people to buy.

And we also know that every time we talk about Bitcoin,

we also know that Bitcoin is just that.

The tipping point is just the beginning for El Salvador.

We're looking into the creation of dolls allowing, you know, having a law

that can allow people to create dolls, decentralized, autonomous, organizations,

as well as we know that we're moving towards defi inevitably.

You know, it's not just Bitcoin is really decentralized finances and decentralized.

Many of the things

in regards to maybe other other coins,

it's too early so premature to say that.

But when I say defi, I mean the use of blockchain in a law

that allows us to for instance, create

digital identity for our citizens,

especially in the areas of health and education.

You know, we don't want to be carrying around

a cart, a plastic card like an idea, right?

We want to have a digital identity where

if I go to the doctor in this state

and then I happen to have an emergency

for 100 kilometers away,

any doctor on that site can also check my, my

my record, my health record digitally without me having to have papers.

We want to get rid of papers and that can only be achieved through blockchain

no. And yes, I do know about that concept.

There is something that

our teams have talked about so

but I think there is so much going on

that we have to start with perhaps.

And I'm just making a

an assumption here

that the way we are going to adopt digital identity,

for instance, perhaps at the beginning is going to be in a centralized way

until we can move towards decentralized decentralization

because it will be built in on the blockchain.

But what you're talking about would also absolutely be revolutionary.

It will show that how democracy works, especially now in the future

in, you know, using Web 3.0 or in this case in the metaverse.

I mean, is is definitely something that we would aspire to

but it's real bitcoin.

I don't know where that's coming from.

I think the wallet has had a few issues, technical issues.

Right.

I know that the teams have been working

programmers and developers have been working

on fixing the bugs, on fixed making it more

easier, I guess, to to, you know, to use to be used but not sure

why people are saying that what the what their wallets have is not Bitcoin.

It is obviously Bitcoin

A few weeks ago,

we had a senator from Mexico

come to visit us and she has strategic meetings

with the government and private sector and academia.

And she wanted to learn about how El Salvador adopted Bitcoin.

And the reason why she wanted to learn is because she is from the state of Nuevo

Leon in Mexico and on Monterrey

happens to be the FinTech three.

It's all about fintech and it's a very industrialized state.

They are the Barcelona of Spain of Mexico.

And this case is like they could if they were to separate from Mexico,

they will be fine because they have the generate a lot of the

GDP for Mexico.

So they're very advanced compared to the rest of Mexico.

And she came to learn.

So we are in contact with some Mexican officials

who are pro bitcoin, who are pro blockchain.

Mind you're saying, my understanding is that she's interested in

launching her reelection campaign on the use of blockchain,

which is fantastic, you know, and it's a woman who's doing it.

There are other officials public officials

in Paraguay, in other countries who have knocked on our door.

And they they they're also asking questions

and want to know and they want to come and visit and is great, is great

to have all this support from other public officials in other countries.

I don't know who's going to be next.

I just know that it may not necessarily be a country.

It can be a municipality like Arizona or a state.

You know, in this case, it was in the United States.

A congresswoman, actually, a senator.

I'm sorry. I actually

wrote a proposal,

a law proposal for Bitcoin to be adopted in that state.

So if it happens emerging, it will be like in a way

like what happened with marijuana with cannabis in the states,

only a few states adopted it, but it's not legal at the federal level.

So it might be the same thing that is going to be happening

in the United States.

Want to invest in in Bitcoin,

on blockchain,

I think there's a lot of room for mining in El Salvador.

As you know, our government is already mining

with geothermal energy from a volcano, which is fantastic.

But there is a lot of room specially for green mining.

And I think what Sebastian is doing

is, is very innovative.

We welcome anybody

and everybody who wants to come in mine because it's not just Bitcoin City.

We have 170 volcanoes in this tiny country, 170.

So there is a lot of room for people who want to come in mine

that's a

question that only the president could answer because it really depends.

I mean, he's been buying on the dip

and so we have to see what happens with the price of Bitcoin.

But I wouldn't be able to tell you if he's going to buy in one time.