Loading summary
Transcript62 lines
- [00:01]
A
In Venezuela, there are two exchange rates right now. If you believe the government. The government today I'm looking at the screen. The government right now says $1 is worth 321 boliores in the free market, I. E. Peer to peer markets. A dollar is trading for 780 bolivares. That is a delta of 143% in value. So you tell me how you're going to choose to send money to your loved ones.
- [00:27]
B
We're extremely pro bitcoin, we're extremely pro stablecoin and I think that's the huge opportunity that we have because it's a combination of an elite that really believes on these things and the population who are using these things every single day. So I think that's why Venezuela, everybody has to be extremely optimistic about it.
- [00:51]
C
Hey everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin. Thanks for joining this live stream. Before we get started, a quick reminder. Nothing you hear on Unchained is investment advice. This show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. And my guests tonight, they hold assets discussed on the show. For more disclosures visit unchained crypto.com. are you a builder who needs to add on chain trading to your product? The Uniswap Trading API from Uniswap Labs offers plug and play access to some of the deepest liquidity in crypto. Its on chain execution at an enterprise level. More liquidity, less complexity. Visit hub.uniswap.org to learn more. Looking to unlock your crypto's liquidity figure offers crypto backed loans with an industry low 8.91% fixed rate. They're the only major provider with decentralized NPC custody and new liquidation protection. Take out a loan at FigureMarkets Co Unchained. Today's topic is Venezuela and Bitcoin. Here to discuss are Mauricio Debart, Tolomeo co founder and CSO of ledn, and Jorge Jirasati, president of Economic Inclusion Group. Welcome, Mauricio and Jorge.
- [02:05]
A
Hola. Thank you very much. Glad to be here.
- [02:09]
C
Yeah. Oh my gosh. We have so much to discuss. So ever since the US captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, there's been a number of rumors swirling about whether or not the regime has tens of billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. Whether or not that's true, I know there's some dispute about that. There's also this whole history of bitcoin and crypto and stablecoins in Venezuela. We can dive into and there's a lot of avenues around how all of this news impacts bitcoin and crypto generally. And also going the other direction, how bitcoin and crypto affect kind of all this geopolitical tension. So let's start with these rumors about Venezuela's supposed $60 billion worth of Bitcoin. Mauricio, I know you're skeptical of these claims, so why don't you, you know, go into why, why you don't believe that they have such a stash.
- [03:04]
A
Yes, so happy to go through that. I wrote a piece on this just because I feel pretty passionately and, and I'll give you my, my thesis as well as my supporting facts or evidence. So the claims or rumors allege that Venezuela has amassed a $60 billion hoard of Bitcoin. And it lists three main sources for that. Bitcoin number one is a gold swap allegedly conducted in 2018 by Mr. Alex Saab, which has, who has been a very important figure within the Maudo and Chavez regime. This swap was allegedly done in to 2018 and it was to the tune of $2.7 billion. And Mr. Saab apparently was coordinating this, this transaction. The, the funny thing is Mr. Saab has actually been, was in US custody. He was jailed in the US in, in the US from 2020 to 2023. And if you follow the calculations, the rumors say he, he swapped $2.7 billion at anywhere between 3,000 and $10,000 worth of Bitcoin. By December 2023, Saab was released back to the regime by the Biden administration through a prisoner swap. And at the time of his release, the alleged Bitcoin he controlled, depending on the price you've put at the conversion, would have been anywhere between 10 billion to 20 billion. So we are expected to believe that a person who controlled $20 billion of approximately of assets was given back to an unfriendly regime through a prisoner swap. And at the time he was released, the Venezuelan central bank claimed to hold $9.9 billion in reserves. So this person allegedly controlled an equal or double amount of what the central bank would have controlled. And we are expected to believe that he was released to the regime holding $20 billion that would go right back into their hands. I don't think that aligns with the public record. And I have a very high. And also, most importantly, there is no on chain evidence for this transaction. So I will say that for that reason, I don't believe the swap was real. The second allegation is Venezuela sold oil for crypto and then Venezuela did sell or did sell oil for crypto. I'm not disputing whether Venezuela sold oil for crypto. What I find very hard to believe is that any of the crypto that was paid for that oil was rightfully returned back to Beneza and then, and furthermore sent back to the Venezuelan reserves. For the Venezuelan people.
- [05:38]
C
Is the national oil something, something Correct.
- [05:44]
A
This is Petroleos de Venezuela, Venezuelan oil company, basically. And so it is the state owned oil company. And to, to, to highlight why I don't believe any of these funds went back to the reserves, I would like to highlight one case of extreme corruption out of, out of many. Out of many. But there's one particular case of extreme corruption linking the state owned oil company and the crypto regulator Suna crypto. And this, this scandal exploded in March 2023 and it revealed that corrupt officials in Venezuela had embezzled $17.6 billion through fraudulent sales of oil to the state owned oil company. And this led to the closure of this regulator and the prosecution of those involved. And those funds were related to oil savings between 2020 and 2023. So $17.6 billion were siphoned to the pockets of corrupt people in three years alone. And that was only one corruption scandal. There is Tariq Alaisabi's corruption scandal which actually was a higher amount than that, also related to oil. So all I'm trying to say is I don't believe any meaningful proceeds from those oil sales were given back to Pebeza and furthermore did not send any additional profits to the Venezuelan reserve. So I don't believe there's any meaningful Bitcoin for that from that source. And the third allegation is that the Venezuelan regime stole and operated mining equipment. I know they did so for a fact because some of that equipment was my family's. They stole our equipment. And I also know they operated our equipment because of the condition the equipment was in when they gave it back to us five years later. They gave us basically the aluminum casings. That was pretty much it. Now that said, the operation of that equipment was not done to the benefit of the Venezuelan government. It was done to the benefit of Maduro's private debt squads. And the reason for that is the, the way Maduro would compensate his death squads off the books was that he would give them carte blanche to go steal ste or take assets from other people. And so this is why I, I believe that there is also no meaningful Bitcoin in the name of the, of the government regime as a Product of bitcoin mining or using stolen bitcoin mining.
- [08:13]
C
Yeah, I mean all of those are really compelling arguments that you make there. So I would love to hear Jorge's opinion if he, you know, why do you think that this rumor then kind of has spread everywhere? I don't know if you saw like CNBC has been making a lot of it. They wrote kind of a long article. It, it quoted, you know, a number of different people who are involved in bitcoin and crypto in Venezuela. I'm just going to quote some of them. So somebody named Gui Gomez, founder and CEO of Latin American based bitcoin firm Orange btc, said, quote, it's very fair to assume Venezuela had meaningful exposure to bitcoin given that they were excluded from the global financial system. Probably they had gold, bitcoin and some dollars under their mattress. Andrew Fearman, head of national security intelligence at Chain and Chainalysis, also said that allies of Maduro had flown to foreign locales to exchange assets for more liquid funds. And he then quote, he then was quoted saying if they're willing to send a guy on a private jet with a ton of gold on board, it would make a lot of sense that they would also seek to utilize crypto assets for both store of wealth and also for cross border trade. So I understand like the way they're framing it, it's speculative, but do you just feel like even the way they're framing this is implausible?
- [09:44]
B
I mean in general, I think for.
- [09:46]
A
Everybody, everybody's imagination can become wild when.
- [09:50]
B
They think about the potential $60 billion Bitcoin and actually try to focus on the real tangible things that the bitcoin community and the investors in general can get from Venezuela, which is way higher than any kind of confiscated amount of bitcoin that there may be in Venezuela. Venezuela will become a huge opportunity for everybody who is involved in the crypto assets sector. The Venezuela financial system is totally destroyed. It needs thoughtful rebuilding. And what better than to rebuild the Venezuelan economy through the power of crypto assets, bitcoin stablecoins. And I think that's where the real opportunity is when it comes to bitcoin mining. Something that I really believe is that the same way that all the confiscated and expropriated assets of regular Venezuelan or oil companies have to be returned to their owners, they also have to be compensation to all the big bitcoin miners that lost everything in these years of socialism. So I really think that that's the real opportunity that people have. Venezuela, it's an energy Hub, there is so many opportunities to do bitcoin mining. We are a hydro. We can be a hydro power in the revision beyond oil and any other of the incredible opportunities that we can have in Venezuela.
- [11:15]
C
Okay, Mauricio, what do you think?
- [11:18]
A
Yeah, so I actually know Guy very well. Hi Guy. The guy who made the comment. And so listen, I think the reason this is getting people to, you know, getting some people to kind of run with it is because there's an element of plausibility around the claim, right? It's. We're talking about a country that manages a lot of oil flows, historically, has had a deep involvement with bitcoin. We were among the first countries in Latin to adopt it. So there's always this. When you, when you mentioned anything related to Venezuela and bitcoin, immediately you think there's an element of possibility, like there's a chance that this is real because of the ingredients that you're throwing into the mix, right? You're throwing a sanctioned government with a lot of oil and resources with a lot of, you know, shady slash speculative transactions. And then you're saying, well, why wouldn't, wouldn't it make sense for them to hold bitcoin at crypto? And again, I am not standing here and telling you that Venezuela has zero bitcoin, zero crypto, has never used it, has never touched it. They certainly have. What I'm saying is that the regime has a record of extreme corruption and incompetence that would not have allowed any meaningful value around those transactions to accrue to the reserves of the people. Let's remember that this is the same country that has hospitals in shambles, that has no power throughout all the country. There's program blackouts around most of the country for four plus hours. This, the state owned oil company went from 3.5 million barrels production a day in 99 to 800,000 today. These people cannot operate. They have expropriated thousands of private businesses and bankrupted every single one of them. So you're telling. I'm expected to believe that they ran the most sophisticated bitcoin treasury operation on planet Earth for the benefit of their people.
- [13:09]
B
I.
- [13:09]
A
Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
- [13:14]
C
Okay. Yeah, I. So there was one other. I don't know if you saw this super viral post on X. So whoever wrote this did not like necessarily say their sources. They said things like intelligence reports indicate things like that. But I did see also like another analysis of the actual and charges are indictment and crypto is not mentioned at all in there. And maybe it's just they didn't need to or that it wasn't involved in, you know, whatever those charges were. But like, yeah, so anyway, point is that this person tweeted that basically they were selling some of the oil for Tether and then because Tether has the ability to freeze funds, converting that to Bitcoin. I don't know if you saw that and what your thoughts were about that.
- [14:06]
A
Again, I'm not suggesting that these types of transactions didn't happen. What I'm suggesting is that they most likely that Bitcoin was most likely siphoned away by Jose Rodriguez and the corrupt members of Suna Creep who have been prosecuted and charged with stealing billions of dollars from the state owned oil company. So again, these transactions likely exist. What does not exist is the accrual of that value to the Venezuelan Central bank. Because what corruption does is that if you start out with a million and you want to get it to the people and you have 10 hops, you start with a million and you get a dollar. Right. And that's likely what happened in this case. You sold a billion dollars worth of oil and $10 went to the Venezuelan reserves. And so this again is why I, again I'm not disputing that there were Bitcoin transactions. I'm not disputing that they use Bitcoin and cr. I am disputing that they did it for the benefit of the people and not themselves.
- [15:04]
C
Okay.
- [15:04]
A
In the same way that they use.
- [15:06]
B
A traditional banking system to do all these.
- [15:09]
C
Oh, I think we're having tech issues with. Yeah, we'll solve the issues with Jorge's video and audio. So one other thing that I saw was bitcointreasuries.net, which is that website where everybody tracks all the, the DATs and everything. It says that Venezuela has 240 Bitcoin, making it the ninth largest Bitcoin holdings by a government entity. It's list 12-31-2022 as the acquisition date. I'm not sure where, where they're getting their info.
- [15:44]
A
Me neither. I'm still waiting for data from the Venezuelan Central bank. So I would love to hear when they got this. And I think, you know, God bless people that trust the information coming out of the Venezuelan Central Bank. I mean that takes a lot of courage I would say. And so I, I would just not take that for it's, you know, I would put a 210 pounds of salt on that number. And, and I would say again, is it plausible that there is some Bitcoin in the reserves? Yes, is it 60B. Is it 60 billion, Laura, is what I'm saying. It isn't like, could there be $10 million, $20 million worth of Bitcoin somewhere that they forgot to steal? Sure, sure. Did they accumulate 60 billion to the benefit of the people? Absolutely not.
- [16:35]
C
Okay, so now, Mauricio, I know that this goes to your personal story, but bitcoin mining also has, like, a pretty interesting history in Venezuela. You know, I think it started with grassroots interests, and then there's this whole confiscation by the government. So tell us, tell us about, you know, how it was that bitcoin mining initially got taken up by everyday people in Venezuela.
- [17:04]
A
Definitely. So I'll tell you, you know, the story of my family, which closely tracks the story of others around how we got to it. So the way we got into bitcoin mining was, as many people know, the real wave of despair and hyperinflation in Venezuela were triggered by the 2013 election, which was the first time the Chavista regime, through Maduro, basically openly stole the elections in the sense that nobody believed the results. They denied to do a recount. We went out to protest, to demand a recount. They shot at us. I was in the protest. I saw people die. It was incredibly traumatic. And it was basically a clear signal to the Venezuelan people in the opposition that there would be no democracy. And that is what led to the despair. And the despair and the migration was, in fact, what led to the hyperinflation, because everybody was fire selling their assets to get out of the country in 2014. So this starts in 2014, continues into 2016. My family at this point, who's already encouraging all of us to leave, my parents. My parents who were still there, were encouraging all of us to leave. But my youngest brother had just graduated university and he didn't want to leave, and he wanted to start a business in Venezuela. My father adamantly did not want him to do so, but he was rebellious. He had values. He wanted to stay. And he pitched my dad on this idea with very serious tone and said, I'm going to do this whether you like it or not. I'm leaving the house as an ultimatum. And the idea was buying bitcoin mining equipment. My brother found out that he could mine bitcoin through a friend of his, Venezuelan guy who was going to university in Houston, and his friends in college in Houston were mining bitcoin. But he couldn't mine bitcoin because the cost of energy was too high. But because he was Venezuelan and he knew energy Was subsidized. He called my brother and said, mario, let's buy some bitcoin miners together. Help me run them, and we're going to make a lot of money. And that's how my brother finds out. And so my brother then gets this idea to buy the bitcoin mining equipment at the end. Actually funny enough that the Houston guy at the end didn't actually go through with the equipment. It ended up being just my brother buying the equipment. But my brother buys the equipment and starts mining. And it was a huge risk to do so because there were so many unknowns. None of us had ever heard of bitmain or bitcoin or as six or wallets. Like, this was all very new. But the. The miner gave you a sense of tangible, physical, good. And it, it. It made you. It sort of created this. It was like a stepping stone to actually owning something digital, right? Like many people, like my father, my father was very comfortable with buying a computer because he was very used to hardware and electrical upgrades, and he could feel it and touch it. And you felt like it was less risky to buy this physical thing than this digital thing. And so bitcoin mining starts, and my brother starts mining in 2015, starts doing very well and making very good money at a time where no one else was making money, at a time when everybody was fire selling their assets and leaving. And so naturally, when my brother is going around asking people, hey, are you leaving? Are you going to vacate any industrial space I'm looking to rent? My brother was the only guy renting, so of course, everybody wanted to know what he was up to. And my brother would say, I'm mining bitcoin. And we were so happy that we had found bitcoin. We were secretive. If you came to us and you said, why are you so happy we found bitcoin? Let me show you here. Come to the facility. Look at this. It's freedom. Look at freedom. Do you want to feel it? You want to touch it? It sounds like this, like that sound. That's freedom, right? And people, their eyes lit up and they would come and they would be like, how do I buy it? How do I set it up? How fast can they come? And so now this is Asics. Asics are loud. They take a lot of power. But the sort of silent helper, or the silent blessing was GPU mining. Because GPUs, you could connect any legacy device, you can connect them to Nicehash. Nicehash would turn them into bitcoin for you. And so many people Started seeing an opportunity to boot up old computers, you know, fix rigs, take the graphics cards out of three, five old computers, put together the rig, and basically get start making money. Why this was so profitable in Venezuela is because energy and electricity was heavily subsidized. And so people were making money hand over fist. Freedom money nonetheless, money that they couldn't seize, money that you could take anywhere with you. This, it was revolutionary. And so this was, I call it the golden age of Venezuelan independent mining. This went from 2015 to 2017. But it all came to an end in December 2017. Because that moment was when Bitcoin rallied to 20K and the world, now the eyes of the world were on bitcoin. And it just so happened to coincide with a very tough time for Maudo because he was sanctioned. He was having a hard time with oil sales. He couldn't raise money through bonds, and he was desperately trying to raise some external money because everything he was printing got blown back into his face through hyperinflation. So he decides that he's going to try to get his hands on other people's bitcoins abroad, and he wants to take the possession and steal the miners that are in the country. But anyway, that leads to the petro and the eventual witch hunt that occurred from the mother regime which we were victims of. But I'll pause and see where you want to take it.
- [22:55]
C
Yeah. So hopefully now Jorge's video and microphone are working. So we will go back to some of the questions that he was in the middle of responding. I think the first one maybe was the one about the comments on cnbc. Is that the one where you were originally talking about, you know, where. Where people were speculating that they probably had exposure to bitcoin, you know, because they had been sanctioned and things like that? Is that where we were?
- [23:24]
B
Can you hear me correctly now, by the way?
- [23:26]
C
Yes, we can. Yes.
- [23:28]
B
Okay, good. Good. Yes. Okay.
- [23:31]
A
Yes.
- [23:31]
B
Coming back to. To my original comment is that first, Mauricio is right about everything he said about this sizable, gigantic bitcoin that Venezuela could have. And I think your question was why people are caught up with this story is of course, people's imagination blows off when they think about the possibility of having all this bitcoin out there. But what I told the people that were writing this story, Elizabeth, who was writing this story at cnbc, is that the real possibility in Venezuela is that Venezuela will become an economy based to a large extent on the power of crypto assets. It will just naturally happen. The financial system in Venezuela is totally destroyed. People don't have financial inclusion instruments. People right now are using stablecoins in everyday transactions to save money, to get money, to send money anywhere, to buy stuff. So naturally people, we can build our entire financial system on top of new layers of technology on what is actually working more efficiently and faster. So that's the first opportunity that I believe the crypto assets community need to be thinking about. It's not about this maybe lost 60 billion bitcoin, bitcoin or whatever, but about this gigantic opportunity of rebuilding a nation on top of your technology. So that's point number one, point number two. And by the way, it's not only because I want it, it's because people will demand it. Mauricio was just talking about freedom, money. This is something that right now is in the veins of all Venezuelans. We want freedom and we really understand that you need to have something that nobody can take away from you, that no government can take away from you. Doesn't matter if it's the socialist back in the day or right now or if it's an eventual government. And I think it's very healthy to have a society in which people have a healthy skepticism for power. And I think that right now these instruments like Bitcoin give people the ability to protect themselves from bad politicians. So point number one, point number two, I really believe that Venezuela can become again a hub for, for bitcoin mining. It can become once again a country with plenty of energy. It will not be subsidized energy like before, but it will anyways be way more very competitive energy cost compared to other countries. And Venezuela is very abundant when it comes to many sources of energy. So I really think that that's what the crypto community have to be enthusiastic about and that we have an entire society that the only positive thing that we have is that we can rebuild it as we please. And I think that we can build it on top of the crypto assets sector.
- [26:27]
C
I know when you talk about the energy portion, Simaruisio was just talking about how, you know, electricity was subsidized for people. Is there some kind of natural source like, you know, hydroelectric, hydroelectric energy or something like that that makes energy, energy production in Venezuela extremely inexpensive?
- [26:45]
B
Yes, exactly. As I, I'm sure Mauricio was speaking to, like, we have huge amount of hydro in Venezuela and we have basically a lot of sources of energy, of energy. Venezuela can really become an energy hub for many ways. I also think that it's very important that we are also responsible in the sense that all the people that lost their mining capacity and their mining facility and all the people that were expropriated in Venezuela in mining, but also in oil, in regular businesses, in land, in their farms, all these assets has to be given again to them, and there has to be some sort of reparation because these people really are the ones who can then take these assets and rebuild their country again. So what people will find in Venezuela is an environment in which what we want as Venezuelans, Mauricio myself, is bring your investment, bring your business. Of course, we need a political transition to make that happen. But I really think that that's why this is such a big opportunity.
- [27:48]
C
Okay, so. And then we. So we, we kind of jumped back to some of the earlier questions that we move forward to. It's sort of the story of everyday people mining bitcoin. And I think that takes us to about 2018, which is when the regime confiscated bitcoin mining equip, surprise price. That happened to be the same time when they introduced the petro, which was their failed cryptocurrency. So maybe just talk a little bit about what happened in that year of 2018, like on both sides. Like, you know, what do you think? Like, Maturizio seems to be hinting that because he, Maduro, was facing financial pressure, that he suddenly realized, oh, this, this is a potential way for us to, you know, evade these financial challenges. But, yeah, talk a little bit about those two things in 2018.
- [28:42]
B
Yes, yes, I will let Mauricio speak about the specifics of bitcoin mining and what happened during that year. And I want to give a context to the audience about where Maduro was that year. Venezuela was entering into a hyperinflation period that year. That means that the inflation rate was over 1,000%. That was the hyperinflation means in 2017. Venezuela started facing sanctions in 2016, even before the sanctions, Venezuela's access to the financial system, to international markets was basically caught because the interest rates were extremely high with 30, 40% interest rates. And Venezuela was declining economically since 2013. So 2018 can be seen as a country, as a state desperate for resources.
- [29:29]
C
Borisio, why don't you pick up?
- [29:31]
A
Sure. Yeah. No, so I think Jorge did a good job sort of setting the stage for what was happening in 2018 and the corner that the regime was put in or was in. And, you know, I have, based on my experience and, you know, again, I have a thesis. It's a bit of a spicy thesis, but it is, I believe I will show you the evidence and you can make your decision. So in 20, Christmas 2017 rolls around and this is right around the time where Mauro is back against the wall. And Christmas is always a tough time because Mauro and Chavez had accustomed people to get free things in Christmas. Like they would come in with these crazy gifts every Christmas, right? And I don't know exactly when. I think the castle was one of these big Christmas pinata events, which I think was 2016 or 2017. But basically there were these events around Christmas where Mauro would raid the private inventory of a business like daca, an electronics store, or. I forget the name of the shoe company, Jorge, if you remember the shoe company that they raided the other Christmas, the name slips me. But every Christmas people were used to, you know, sometimes they would bring pork legs and, you know, they're the most random, like, special food box for Christmas, like the most random gifts, right? But people expected gifts, and Mauro had nothing when Christmas 2017 rolled around. And right around that time, he was starred for cash and he was seeing these crypto assets flying and everyone minting these coins out of thin air and making millions of dollars. So he gets, I presume he gets briefed and is told, Mr. Maluno, there's a lot of mining equipment in the country because we have the import records, see them coming in, and also this, this whole wave of, of ICO crypto crap tokens that are being minted. You guys, we can mint our own and we can, we can link it to this idea that it's linked to our oil reserves and we'll put some BS thing on the paper and people, you know, look at, look, they're buying all this other stuff. And so he comes up with these two great ideas. Around Christmas 2017, he creates a minor registry through SUNA Group where miners were invited kindly to register.
- [31:51]
C
And SUNA Group is the crypto regulator in Venezuela.
- [31:55]
A
Correct. And, and then he says, you know, alongside, we're going to make Venezuela a crypto country. So we have, we're going to have this regulator, we're going to have this minor registry, and we're going to have our own cryptocurrency, the petrol. And to celebrate this, I'm going to do an educational tour around the country to teach everybody about crypto. And these, these roadshows start in December and they have stops in different major cities. And it was supposed to be about the petro, but if you go back and look at the videos, I would look at the, I would watch the press conferences. If you Watch the press conference and the videos. These shows were actually exhibitions, exhibition halls for bitcoin miners. So providing hardware. So you would go into these education sessions and they would tell you, this is a bitcoin asic. This is what it sounds like. This is how much money it makes. This is how you could find them through their heat print. This is how you could find them when you listen to them. This is how you can identify them by looking at electricity loads. And most importantly, this is how much money they can make you. And by the way, if you find these anywhere, you can connect your wallet and you made money. And so this was a playbook for his cronies, death squads, if you want to call them that. Basically he was saying, hey, that squads. I'm going to teach you where these things are, how to find them, and I'm going to give you carte blanche to run them, steal them, go steal them and run them. And that's how you get paid. That's your Christmas toy list. And so, not surprisingly, January 2018, my our family and other miners start reporting these strange visitors dressed up as municipality reps. At the beginning it was just questions about electricity usage. Why has every other factory here closed down, but you guys are expanding. What are you making? Yeah, why? Why? Everyone else on the block sold a house and left. All these houses are vacant. Why is your house drawing so much electricity? How many people you got living here? And so, and then obviously once they found out, because obviously through the answers on the electricity load that literally weeks after they weren't knocks on the door, they were busting down your door with long guns and threatening you with throwing you in jail, asking you for bitcoin ransom and demanding your equipment. For our family's example, they raided our facility, they demanded $25,000 in cash and the machines to not throw my brother in jail for over some made up charges and they continue to extort us. They stole our equipment, they continued to extort our friends and family for years on end. And so that was my example. So that was the witch hunt. And that witch hunt claimed quite a few other people. So that's my experience.
- [34:50]
C
Wow, that's just absolutely terrible and I'm so sorry that happened to your family. So we're going to talk a little bit more about the lives of everyday Venezuelans under Maduro and how crypto also was a part of the solution for them or what they turn to. But first we're going to take a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. Hey, founders and developers if you're looking to bring on chain trading to your product, wallet or platform, check out the new Uniswap Trading API from Uniswap Labs. It's your plug and play gateway to global on chain liquidity. No deep crypto experience required and no need to manage complex integrations or ongoing maintenance. With the Uniswap Trading API, you'll get enterprise grade on chain execution combining both on chain and off chain sources for for the most competitive prices. Simply put, more liquidity, less complexity. And this isn't just any API, it connects directly to the Uniswap protocol which has securely processed over $3.3 trillion in total volume with zero hacks. So stop worrying about liquidity infrastructure and focus on building your product. Get access to the same liquidity that powers billions in swaps through one powerful API. Visit hub.uniswap.org to learn more. Today's episode is sponsored by Figure, which is transforming financial services using blockchain. They're the largest non bank mortgage lender in the US with over $19 billion unlocked on their lending platform. Now they're offering industry low crypto backed loans at 8.91% interest rates at 50% LTV for BTC and ETH and SOL. They differentiate themselves by offering decentralized MPC custody which protects your crypto ownership in a segregated wallet. They've also recently launched liquidation protection to protect you from liquidation during large price drops. Whether you're funding a major purchase, investing or even buying more bitcoin, FICR makes it transparent. Visit FicureMarkets Co Unchained to take advantage of their crypto backed loans to today. Back to my conversation with Mauricio and Jorge. So you know as Mauricio just explained, you know every day Venezuelans that were mining bitcoin. I did also read during that time that people began turning to stablecoins as well. So yeah, can you just talk a little bit about and and either one of you about you know, other ways in which people were using crypto everyday? People were using crypto in Venezuela.
- [37:33]
A
Yes.
- [37:34]
B
I mean right now Venezuelans people use stablecoins every day for transactions like Venezuelans right now because you cannot use Bolivars. Right? So you can use Bolivars. You cannot use your financial system rely on stablecoins. This has been the people to survive after many years of hyperinflation. We have had in Venezuela the highest inflation rate since 2013 of the world. Every single year. In 2017 it became hyperinflation. People did not know how to survive, how to receive remittances, 8 million people have left Venezuela. This is roughly a quarter more than population. So because of these, people started looking for solution and they saw that the stablecoin is the best solution for them. So in Venezuela, at prices.
- [38:27]
A
Stupid.
- [38:29]
B
Mauricio's story is very emblematic about they cannot allow even an ounce of somebody doing well or being prosperous or making money because they go and they try to steal it. It's in their bones. That's the reason why my country is like this. It is the reason that Venezuela is the only oil country that destroy its own oil industry, is that they cannot see anything that is profitable because they want to go there and steal as much as they can, as fast as they can. So Mauricio's story is really emblematic of the way my country is. And even lately, the regime has seen how people are doing everyday transactions on stablecoins. So right now they are trying to push people and force vendors to actually not sell their stuff on stablecoins, but to sell it through Bolivars by doing manipulation of the currency and exchange rates. So for example, a year ago people were able to just mark their prices on dollars. And it was working very well because it was a way to send the right signals to the market. But the regime, not even that can allow. So they start, they start making relation of the currency that makes people almost impossible to mark your prices in dollars. So that's just the way Venezuela is, honestly. And that's why people have to leave. Because if you are a bit successful, then they try to cut your head.
- [40:02]
A
Yeah. And I'll add to that. So I think, Laura, one of the things that's been fascinating over. So to go back to the sort of journey of Venezuelan history, recent history, right. We said Mauro of solely elections of 2014. This triggered a wave of mass migration and hyperinflation by 2018. I can, I don't know the exact number of people that have been out, but I would, I would estimate it'll be 4 million plus.
- [40:26]
B
Right.
- [40:26]
A
And that, that number just kept cranking higher to the current 9 million. Venezuela is a country of 30 million people today. It was a country of 30 million people when Chavez took office. Actually, it was 30 million when Chavez took office. It's 28.5 today. So net loss of $1.5 million in 1.5 million people in 26 years. The net winners of this. Sorry, the net winners of that was the world who received 9 million immigrants.
- [40:49]
B
Right.
- [40:50]
A
Venezuela, historically, the economy, the remittance slice of gross domestic product in Venezuela was like very, very low single digits. There were no remittances. Venezuela was a net exporter of capital to the world. We didn't have people sending money in. There was no diaspora. None of us ever wanted to leave up until that point. But what happened in 2014 is that many, many Venezuelans, some of the most productive Venezuelans I might add, started leaving. And this started creating the remittance slice of the pie. And the importance of remittances into the Venezuelan economy kept growing and growing and growing till today. I'm not sure what the number is, Jorge, but it's like a non immaterial amount of the Venezuelan gross domestic product is remittances. And keep in mind it's very hard to put a number on this because most remittances are not done through official rails for a good reason. So let me explain the dynamics as to why stablecoins are such an important rail for remittances. And once they are in, people don't want to get out of them. And it has to do with the currency exchange manipulation that the regime is undertaking at the moment in Venezuela there are two exchange rates right now, if you believe the government. The government today I'm looking at the screen, the government right now says $1 is worth 321 bodes in the free market, I. E. Peer to peer markets. A dollar is trading for 780 bolivores. That is a delta of 143% in value. So here's what happens if you Laura, Want to send $1 to your friend in Venezuela and you do so through your banks or regulated rails, your friend will get 321 bolivares deposited in their bank account, a regime controlled bank account. If you send them a stablecoin, that person has a spending power of 780 bodes more than twice. So you tell me how you're going to choose to send money to your loved ones. And, and then, and you tell me if anyone else in that environment would feel comfortable dealing in dollars in regime controlled banks at those exchange rates. There is no trust in the Venezuelan banking system because the banking system is the regime. Do you see what I mean? The only way to actually not have, by the way, which is not only a sovereignty issue, it's a huge privacy issue. You are supposed to tell the group of people that has hated and prosecuted wealth and prosperity for 26 years, you're going to tell them how much money you're making. Are you out of your mind? And so this is why it's so prevalent, and it's only going to get bigger. Anecdotally, when I speak to my friends right now in my town, Barquisimeto, three out of ten businesses accept stablecoins. And a lot of it used to be higher, but to Jorge's point, they've really pushed back now with this exchange rate enforcement. And so. But it used to be higher. And so I think if you liberate the Venezuelan economy, and I think part of this whole rebuilding. We have to fix the currency. I would almost just want to get rid of it, frankly. But before anything can prosper, we have to fix, obviously, we have to fix rule of law, we have to fix the death squad, we have to fix the democratic institutions. And part of that, we have to fix the money.
- [44:23]
C
Yeah, I mean, I experienced what you're talking about on a much smaller scale when I went to Buenos Aires for DevConnect. Yeah. Because there's two exchange rates. And, you know, even though this is, like, in my family history, not. Not my personal history, you know, I have ancestors from North Korea, I have. And living relatives. So, you know, I understand this concept of, like, there can be moments in your life where all of a sudden the government is your adversary and you cannot trust the government. And everything you have to do is, like, secret, and, you know, you need to escape, otherwise they're, you know, gonna do something that is not in your interest. So, yeah, these are. These are concepts that I at least understand on a certain level, despite my kind of, you know, American financial privilege. I did actually then just want to go back to this bit about the petro, because we didn't kind of go into it in depth. You know, he launched that in 2018. It was sunsetted in 2024. So explain the trajectory of what happened there.
- [45:28]
A
So the petro. I still remember when the petro was announced. And sadly, there were some voices who lacked the context of Venezuela in the crypto sphere who applauded the effort. And they were. I remember seeing headlines as, oh, my God, crypto adoption. Venezuela is leading the charge. What an example they're setting for the world. And I was pulling my hair, just screaming to the void. And I was like, guys, because the sad part is most people didn't read because the Venezuelan petrol was done by the government. There was a publication, there was, like a law, there was, like, a document that explained how the petrol would work and the mechanics or the reserves and how do you redeem and mint and burn? And I'm pretty sure nobody else read it, but I Read it and I read it and I wrote a piece on medium back in the day that's called. The piece is titled the Petro is a Scam. Here's why. And the petro, actually it's a very simple read. All you have to do is read what the petro is backed by. There's a small section and I can show you the screenshot. But if you read what the petro is backed by, it said something like a barrel of oil, whatever, grams of gold, ounces of bosita about I don't know what the name in English is, Bosita is another mineral. And then at the bottom the catch all which was, or anything else the Venezuelan government deems worthy. And that's all you got to read that last one. That's all you need to know, right? And so clearly you have a centralized currency supposedly built on trust. Because it's centralized, right? Like it's completely not decentralized, launched by a group that has absolutely no credibility or legitimacy. And you're expected to send them your hard earned money, get this piece of paper and they have, you know, they, they have decimated a country of 30 million people. But they're going to be nice to you, they're going to be responsible, operating you. And so the petro and they tried really, really hard to make it, to sort of force feed it into the Venezuelan economy. So for a while they were paying salaries in petros and bonuses in petros and food stamps in petros and they tried to make the government, supermarkets accept petros. It was a complete failure because everybody that got their petros, even the Venezuelans, didn't trust the petro. Like you got it immediately. You went out of it, you're like, hell no, I'm not saving on this thing, right? Everything you got from the government you turn into dollars. You get rid of it. Just assume it's just as bad as the Bolivar, just get rid of it. And so the petro lacked adoption. It was ridiculed and mocked by many people in the industry. It was ridiculed by the old Venezuelans. What are you holding? Petrol. It was a joke. And so it got so embarrassing that they had to sunset it. Not to mention the crypto regulator, the Venezuelan crypto regular. The guys that were supposed to be protecting us and fostering the growth of the industry were caught in 2023 stealing $20 billion from the state owned oil company. So you think they stole $20 billion from Peresa and they're going to take care of your petrol reserves? That's cute, right? Like so. So no. So they had no choice but to sunset it.
- [48:51]
C
Jorge, do you want to add anything?
- [48:53]
B
I mean like Mauricio has a very visual way of explaining this because it's totally true, you know, for Venezuelans that we have been leaving this story once again and once again and once again in which the government, they just do everything. They can just take anything like that they can take. Petro is like a huge scam. People still by the way to this day, people ask me about it, but it's a total scam. It was at some point I believe also the officials thought that they could do innovation through petrol. That was one of the faces they had. I'm sure they later realized that they can do that through the traditional banking system and they really don't need any petrol or anything else. Especially by most oil that Venezuela produces goes to China. 80% of the oil that Venezuela is exporting is that is not going to the US through the Chevron deal before was going to change Petro to make those transactions. You can make it through other regular banking architecture.
- [49:59]
C
Okay, that's actually a good segue because I did want to ask about the fact that, you know, part of the reason I think that the Trump administration did, you know, execute this operation to capture Maduro is because there are countries that are considered adversaries of the US such as China, Russia, Iran and Cuba that were cozy or are cozy with the Maduro regime. As we all know, China is very, how should we put it? You know, blockchain forward. They have their digital yuan, they're doing a whole bunch of different kind of state sponsored blockchain projects. This digital yuan is actually going to start bearing interest next year, which is in contrast to the US where the banking lobby wants to prevent US stablecoins from offering interest. And I wondered, you know, kind of when you see like everything that you know about what's happening in crypto, but you also understand these geopolitical moves involving these different countries that are also trying to use crypto to further their interests. How do you think crypto will kind of play a role or how do you think it could affect the balance of the. Yeah. Geopolitical power across the globe.
- [51:12]
B
I mean all institutions are trying to enforced the way they should be enforced. And for these countries are thinking about parallel way, alternative ways in which they can develop their own financial architecture.
- [51:26]
A
You know, I, I think you know, just your question is around how will crypto technology or crypto rails sort of shift or impact like geopolitical balances yeah.
- [51:38]
C
Or, or just like these efforts by these different countries. Because it could go either way. You know, what they're doing could impact crypto, and what they're trying to do with crypto could affect the power of balance in the world.
- [51:51]
A
Yeah. I think my view around the sort of meta impact that crypto assets, digital assets broadly, are having on just geopolitics, I'm actually looking at it not necessarily through the lens of this particular conflict. I'm looking at it from things like these golden visa programs or investor programs that you're seeing pop up in different parts of the world. Like the US is now pretty aggressively trying to lure successful entrepreneurs with these types of investor visas. These same things occur. Like there's a golden visa in Dubai, there's a golden visa in Portugal. There's golden visa programs that are starting to pop up here and there. And what I'm taking away from this is that governments are starting to understand that productive individuals have mobility now, especially with digital assets. Digital assets give you way more mobility than physical assets. And the younger generation is over indexing more and more and more into digital assets. I've spoken to countless bitcoinists who will tell you what are your assets here. I own my home and I own my bitcoin. That's it. Right. And a person like that is a person that is very mobile. And so if you propose a better package, that person might decide to uproot and leave. And governments are understanding that not everything is what they charge you on income. Not everything is what they can, what pound of flesh they can get from you on capital gains. Sometimes the government benefits from having people enroll their children in schools and buy cars and buy food at restaurants and add to the gross domestic product and economic activity of the country. And you're starting to see issues like, for example, in the UK you introduce a new wealth tax. Oh, did you get more tax revenue? Whoops, I guess they left. Right. And the same thing started to happen in other places. And so countries are starting to realize people are mobile. If we push them too hard, they might go away. And again, going back to this example, many of us who left Venezuela are young, successful, and have digital assets. That makes us quite mobile. And so if things get fixed and if the right package to return our pitch to this cohort of successful digital entrepreneurs, there's a non zero chance it adds back a giant boost to the Venezuelan gross domestic product. So that maybe not necessarily head on the type of answer that you were looking for, but that was sort of my take on the meta view.
- [54:42]
C
Okay, well, you guys, this has been such a fascinating discussion. I've really enjoyed chatting with you. Is there anything, just because I know that I'm not an expert in these types of matters. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you feel people would be interested to know that is at this intersection of kind of what's happening in Venezuela and Bitcoin, crypto, stablecoins, anything related?
- [55:06]
A
I would say don't, don't dismiss the real chance digital asset companies have to play a role in the rebuilding of Venezuela. As Jorge said, one of the biggest layers of infrastructure that has been gutted is financial services. And you are looking at an economy that is pretty open to digital assets. They've been using them out of necessity. They know the tech, they're not afraid, and they're going to be desperately needing services they can trust because the ones they have, they can't. And so I would say there is a real opportunity to help rebuild the financial infrastructure in that country.
- [55:51]
B
Imagine a world in which Venezuela becomes democratic and there's a transition to a normal pro market government. There will be a serious consideration whether how to use a stablecoin in Venezuela like in another country has been used. Like Mauricio said, we need to fix our money. So how does stablecoin plays a role into that? Considering that the Bolivar cannot be the only currency that we hold because everybody's doing everything on dollars in usdt. So the reconstruction needs to come also from that side. So I really think that that's something that we really need to look into that because in all other countries, stablecoins, for example, are accomplished, but in Venezuela they really can become the central element. That's everything else surrounds all the financial architecture surrounds that. So Venezuela has opportunity also. Something that is very important for people to know is that because all of us experience hyperinflation and all these issues, all the people that want to come back to rebuild Venezuela, which not only is people that want to do politics, but also people that want to be in the private sector. We are all extremely pro crypto assets. So there is a mentality there in the leadership of the country because, you know, the people that build businesses, the people that want to do politics, then eventually become the intellectual elite of a country. So they decide, they think how to rebuild things. And in our case, all of us, we're extremely pro bitcoin, we're extremely pro stablecoin. And I think that's the huge opportunity that we have because it's a combination of an elite that really believes on these things and the population who are using these things every single day. So I think that's why Venezuela, everybody has to be extremely optimistic about it.
- [57:49]
C
Okay, great. Well, thank you both so much for sharing all your thoughts. And we'll have to see how all of this continues to play out because it definitely feels like this is going to be in the news for a while. So. Yeah. So thank you so much.