WBD194 Audio Transcription

Bitcoin World #4 - Venezuela: Bitcoin Won’t Fix Venezuela with Javier Bastardo

Interview date: Thursday 13th February 2020

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Javier Bastardo from Cointelegraph. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, I talk to Javier Bastardo, a journalist for Cointelegraph, based in Caracas, Venezuela. We discuss Venezuela's political and economic situation, hyperinflation and the reality of Bitcoin adoption in the country.

“How can we use Bitcoin if we can’t even communicate with each other with WhatsApp?”

— Javier Bastardo

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: All right Javier, Adam, thank you for having me here. Thank you for inviting me to your office here in Venezuela. I had an amazing trip, just did a show in Colombia and also one in Santiago. I want to do a series as I go around the world just kind of finding out the realities of Bitcoin used in countries, because Venezuela's a really interesting topic, because a lot of people talk about that Venezuela has been an amazing use case of Bitcoin, it comes up again and again.

The reality's been very different, but as a starting point, I always think it's good for these ones to get into a bit of history of politics and the economy, which is really relevant here in Venezuela, right?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, well thanks for coming to Venezuela Peter. The problem is really difficult to explain, because we have its roots down in the world history, so we can talk about how the oil interfered with our economy, how many other things has changed what we could be as a country, but in the most recent history, we can talk about Chavez, and Maduro.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, because Chavez has a strong hold over this country even though he's not alive anymore. It was someone in the taxi that said to me that Chavez managed to win an election after he died and that Maduro won because of Chavez, but can we just go back a step before Chavez? I'm not sure how old you are and where this fits in, but can you just explain what Venezuela was like before Chavez?

Javier Bastardo: Well I'm not that older to remember exactly how it was, but as I learn, the people were struggling to get the food. It's not a new thing for us, so Venezuela is like crisis after crisis after crisis country. But people was not as miserable as I think we are today. The industry works better.

Peter McCormack: It was the richest country in South America though, right?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, but the same thing with the ubiquity was in the time. So, one of the things that helped Chavez to get to power was this precisely, that there were [inaudible 00:06:49] even when the country was rich. There were many people that don't have the money or these kind of things, so I think that even when we come thinking Venezuela a better place before all these things, it had its own problems back in the day.

Peter McCormack: Okay and Chavez came into power, populist rhetoric, populist policies, he was going to help the poor. Venezuela has a lot of oil, the oil price was high, so he implemented a lot of social programs and he was a very popular president, right?

Adam: Yes, he had great charisma. It was crazy, people was crazy for him.

Peter McCormack: I remember seeing a news story, I think, where did he still live in his same house and drive his old beetle?

Adam: Yeah, a red beetle.

Peter McCormack: Yeah. How many terms did Chavez serve?

Adam: I think three terms.

Peter McCormack: Three terms and did you start to notice the country start to... I don't know how to put this, but the very difficult position the country was in in 2016, which seems to have been the bottom, seems to be the worst time. When did this all start to unravel, though? Was it in the mid-2000s? 2010? When did it start to be kind of obvious that these social programs were unsustainable?

Javier Bastardo:I think this is a joke that I used to make with some of my friends, when did we lost Venezuela? That time, maybe after 2009, 2010 and after that point, we reached our top. Obviously, the oil prices decline have some influence in this, because the main police of Chavez was to spend, spend, spend the dollars that the oil gave the country, but after 2010 things get weird. People start to make lines to buy food. We used to eat too much arepas and many people just start to make lines to go and to make their arepas and many other things.

Peter McCormack: Was that one of the first signs that things were getting bad?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, just only the line... You'd see the people making the line was a big punch in your face about the reality about how things are becoming weirder. Also after Chavez died, after he was deceased, that things go also wilder. The prices becoming rising, rising, rising, the dollar rising, rising, so it's difficult to think, "remember how it was before." I don't remember how much the dollar cost, how much the expensive of life, it's difficult to remember before we enter in this crazy shit.

Peter McCormack: And things under Maduro have got a lot worse?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, as you said, Chavez won that election as he was the one that choose like, "vote for me, I'm pretty clear as the full moon. This is my successor, you have to choose him because this is the way that we can continue with the power" and so on. We don't knew how Maduro was as a politician because he was a chancellor, he was not in the inner politics, so we don't know how it will work, so it only will get worse.

Peter McCormack: Okay and how would you describe the differences between Chavez and Maduro?

Javier Bastardo: At the first time, Maduro was a tiny leader. He don't want to speak so louder, many reference to, "I'm the son of Chavez, I'm the successor." Even the propaganda was, "when Chavez fails, not with him," so in this first space, he was trying to be so friendly, trying to be kind and trying to create this narrative of a good leader in a kind of way.

After he become more strong, after he kind of stabilized the power, he seems to forget this need to keep friendly, keep near to the people, so his leadership become a little stranger. He danced in the public TV, he tried to assume that everything is okay and there are other leaders around him that talk about what is next on government. He's kind of, "no matter what I do, I will hold the power," kind of.

Peter McCormack: Okay, try and explain to people listening how bad things got in 2016, 2017? The whole time I've been here, people keep referring to those years, and yeah, it was very desperate, but they also say, "things have got better since then." I keep hearing this, so how bad did things get?

Javier Bastardo: In that time, we get riots in the streets. Many people died because one of the worst things of the normalization of Venezuela is that people still die. People died for starving, people died because they don't have medicine. But in that time, people was killed by the public parties. This is a human rights violation, but nothing change since then, the regime have full control. People stop to protest because in 2017 there was a law that criminalized the protest, and there's also a law on hate crimes.

If you go to the streets and make a protest, you probably will face, or terrorism, or one of those two new laws. So to protest is really difficult, so maybe that's why their regime have had a stronger control here. In 2017, there was many people protesting.

Many people trying to make a change, a political change, but the opposition leaders led them along, "you clean the house, you do your riot, you do your shit there", butt they're done facing in the political game against Maduro to help those people that was protesting to achieve something relevant, so at the end of the day, people just died. We continue with this nightmare that only gets worse.

Peter McCormack: What was it like surviving during those periods? What were some of the most difficult challenges that you faced with regards to your income, with regards to buying necessities such as food, toiletries, medicine? Talk me through what it was like during that period.

Javier Bastardo: In that moment, I was living in another place in the city, but in that place, there was urbanization and it was difficult to buy things, but the people around the main suburb market there organize it to buy it directly to the people of the market and things like that. To be honest, in that place the riots weren't so hard, so in my personal experience, they're more near the space where I was, there wasn't so dangerous, but there were many places where the things really get wilder. In some places many people had the control of the streets and they closed the streets so the old people can't buy food.

Peter McCormack: So it's quite a desperate time.

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, even if you don't get affected directly, that is my case, you can't move outside your place because you will be in danger, or that you know that you can't go to the university because it's closed, and these things make difficult to have a normal life.

Peter McCormack: Or if you get sick, going to the hospital?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, in that moment was a problem, some people that think that they are making a good choice in closing the streets and that. Those other people that want to go the hospital, want to go to their jobs, I don't know, but they have a different point of view how we can stand against the regime, how we can fight them.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so a few interesting experiences for me. Firstly, is we just stumbled across a pro-Maduro rally and it was a lot of people, I would say over 100,000 people probably. Definitely tens of thousands. This endless line of people cheering, celebrating, they're all in red, they're carrying Chavez pictures, Maduro pictures, they're playing Maduro songs, they looked happy. I was surprised to see this, because I was under the impression that Venezuela was such a desperate state that no one would like Maduro. Also online, people were sharing this saying, "here's proof that people do like Maduro." What does that make you think when I explain that?

Adam: I don't really know people who really like Maduro. I think the government pay those people in food so they can go to the rally.

Peter McCormack: Are they pressured to go to these?

Adam: I don't know. I think so, yes.

Peter McCormack: I do find it hard to believe that everyone is doing it out of force, though. I'm sure there is... Like the Chavistas right? They are people who are passionate, almost like they see Chavez as a saint, as a hero, and therefore if Maduro is required to carry on his legacy, if you don't have Maduro, if you have Guaido, he would undo this great work of Chavez. So I find it hard to believe that there are no people who support Maduro.

Adam: I think there's a little bit of people support. People mainly that make lot of money.

Peter McCormack: Yep.

Adam: But I don't think the people support Maduro.

Peter McCormack: What about Guaido? About a year ago he made some pretty bold promises, and one of the things I've noticed... So I went to his congress and there weren't a lot of people there. It was quite quiet as compared to the Maduro rally, and I've also asked a few people now, "who do they prefer, Maduro or Guaido?" And actually, quite a few people said they don't like either of them. They really don't like Maduro, but they don't think Guaido is the person to fix this, and a common point people make is that this isn't down to one person. One man can't fix this. I'm going to ask the question to both of you. How do you think this is fixed, and what would you like to see happen?

Javier Bastardo: Well I don't know if we can have a fix in the short term, I don't see it. I think the regime have a strong control over the inter-politics, so it's difficult to say that even if many nations around the world are serving Guaido, he can't make anything here, and I don't know if he have a clear internal agenda, because we saw he was pirating some ideas about how we can make this change, but nothing of that comes into the reality.

But of course, it's necessary to have some institution, some critical masses at least to make us appoint the voice of the people that don't agree with Maduro to release him, but I want to see a change, of course. I want to see these people out of the power, but I don't think we can make it only with external support. I don't know how to build a movement, I don't really know, because as the time has passed, many people just seems to be politic, they are helping the regime to continue the power, so who we will trust to make the work if they're...

You can't expect that one man can make the whole change, but if you can understand that one of those men that have values, that you say "well, he don't want to spend his whole life in the power", but we don't have those kind of politics. Maybe that's why Guaido has the strange influence on the political scene, because we don't knew him before he get in the interim president, but after one year, he still with a kind of [inaudible 00:26:05] inside the country, so maybe he can begin to build something inside the country, I don't know.

Peter McCormack: Okay, I also saw a lot of people online making statements such as, "well, Maduro got 68% of the vote. He is the legitimate president, and Guaido is nothing more than the attempt by America for a coup, and the only reason the Venezuelan economy is suffering is because of American sanctions."

Now, I personally find those statements kind of ignorant, especially having come here, especially having witnessed the propaganda that sits internally, the difference between the East and West of the city. But if someone was to say that you, what response do you have for them? It's a loaded question, because we've already discussed this, but what do you say to people?

Javier Bastardo: So the main problem with the election is that we don't understand any person like the regime and that any election is relevant number because many of the people that can vote don't vote, simply didn't go to the election.

Peter McCormack: Why not?

Javier Bastardo: Because the authority of the main authority of the elections here, they're obviously with Maduro, so how you will play with an arbitrary that is with the other team?

Peter McCormack: You can't trust them.

Javier Bastardo: So red cards over all candidates, so many of the leaders of the opposition are over the play of the elections. The main problem is when people talks about the elections here ignores that all the authorities are controlled by the regime. There is no a democracy, there is no a democratic election, all the people that want to participate as candidates can't make it, so we have now a theatre opposition, who is participating in conversations with Maduro and those are not the people we trust.

We don't trusting anybody, but the new opposition, this new kind of leader that are working to make a new thing, are not in need to have another authorities are trying to only have new elections are in this same kind of misinformation. We have an extra, super constitutional authority that was elected to make a new constitution, but it has had I think, two years or three years, I don't know, I can't remember.

They're not writing a new constitution, they are simply making us, acting legislatively. We don't have institutions, the institutions that legislate those numbers in the election are the same that say we don't have starving, that we don't have blackouts.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so the state propaganda. As I believe it, it was Chavez who first started to break down the institutions and take control of the press. I believe that started before Maduro, right?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, we have a TV channel. Nobody sees national TV, because all the channels are, if not directly related to propaganda, are transmitting some things like you don't need to see, and there's no news, or really tiny news time in the national TV, so nobody see that. But back in the day, we have RCTV, that was a big oppositional channel, and it was shut down, so only gets worse and worse: rally on TV, newspapers, the press don't have paper to print, so they migrate to the internet, but they get blocked.

So we don't have any kind of big free press that can stand against the national propaganda. We have this articulated movement of politicians, of people that are trying to build a narrative around those, or that are trying to build a narrative around journalism about the investigation and if you can find a way to show some truth over something, you will be get locked. You will be get locked and you will be jailed.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I read about one journalist who was murdered, another influencer who was arrested and put in jail for tweeting, as I believe?

Javier Bastardo: What?

Peter McCormack: There's an influencer here, we spoke about him yesterday, who was arrested, did he go to jail for tweeting?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, that's it. He was covering over things like, "you don't have to talk"...

Peter McCormack: All right, well listen, that's a very useful background. We should also talk about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency because that's the reason I've ended up here. I've always wanted to visit Venezuela, but being in the world of Bitcoin, people are always talking about where the use cases are and Venezuela has become one of the countries which people point to a lot and say, "this is a great use of cryptocurrency, it's a great use for Bitcoin," and there's a lot of usage of it here. Before I came, you messaged me and said, "the reality is very different.

It's a lot smaller here than people think." Firstly, give me a picture of who is using cryptocurrencies here, which cryptocurrencies are they using, and for what purpose, and what the kind of size of the community is here?

Javier Bastardo: Well we are a tiny community, but we have seen that there are news about how we have new ATMs, how we have new payment processes, so we have many news over some things that are happened here, so there's things happening. But not in that big scale that people used to understand. So we have people that are cheering Dash, we have communities that work with Dash. Dash has some experience in many places, not only Caracas, but in other states outside here. The main case of use and the most remarkable is the LocalBitcoins transaction volume.

Maybe that's why people assume that we are using a lot of Bitcoin for everything, for store of value etc, but it's difficult to know how those people that are transacting over LocalBitcoins are really using those Bitcoin that we have transacted. As I work, as a journalist, I know many of the people that are making something here. You have little altcoins, you have people that are working on a wallet or blockchain, Bitcoin Venezuela, there are many projects, but mass adoption, I think you can go to the street and see people, "oh, show me your QR!" No, that's no happening.

Also, we have our own difficult with the power supply, with internet connection, so even if we have a bigger community, we have some issues that will make difficult to use Bitcoin or any other shitcoin, but I think that as we have an increase inflation and we are trying to avoid using bolivars, we are facing the dollar's problem, so we can simply use a bank account from America, or we can use PayPal, because the fees are really expensive etc.

Maybe that's why people use it to think that we are using a lot of crypto because we are taking a place or looking to fight for many currencies. We have pesos, we have reais, this is the money of Brazil, we have many monies fighting, and Bitcoin is one of them. There are other shitcoins, but cryptocurrencies are a niche phenomenon. I think that this is kind of problematic to say, because many people is making business over this narrative, so sorry, I don't want you to lose your money, but the reality is we don't have a really big movement of people that know how to use and how to spend.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so we'll get into the challenges. An interesting point there is that you mentioned multiple currencies. List me all the different currencies that are available here and how people use them in different scenarios. So, I will lead, I know obviously you have the Bolivar, you've become dolarized recently, although people were using dollars before, you have Bitcoin, you have the petro, you have the Colombian peso, you just mentioned the Brazilian real. So are there any other currencies people are using?

Javier Bastardo: Recently, I saw an article that talks about five currencies here. We can talk about the peso, the real, and maybe some petro, because even when there are... So some people said that there was one million transactions on the petro, but the people that say that is the people of the government, so I don't think that we can take that stat like, "oh yeah, they make that." Also the petro, Bitcoin, and maybe other, but a tiny number of euros.

Peter McCormack: So what is the primary currency that people are using day-to-day right now?

Javier Bastardo: Bolivar.

Peter McCormack: So it's still bolivars, not the dollar?

Javier Bastardo: We are still using bolivars, but we use the dollar as the reference. So if we have a change, the change rate between bolivar and dollar, obviously you will have to pay more bolivars to afford your food, but people are trying to spend dollars directly because the merchant seems to want to keep the dollars, so they are making dollar payments easier and cheaper so people start to spend normally dollars. I live in [inaudible 00:43:37], so even there, I see people spending dollars and no problem with that.

Peter McCormack: How do you access dollars here?

Javier Bastardo: I don't know how the dollar gets into Venezuela. I think that is the people that are traveling here, and the border line.

Peter McCormack: Like me coming here and spending it?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, but not like tourists that come here. More people are visiting their family and they bring some in.

Peter McCormack: But if you wanted to get some dollars, how would you get it? Say if you wanted $100, how would you get that?

Javier Bastardo: I have to go to WhatsApp and say that I am looking for some dollars. The main problem with that is that I have to trust the people that I will buy the dollars. That make the deal reduce it to a tiny, little, trusty circle. After the WhatsApp, if I can find another, I go to ask to some friends that have many contacts that have... I don't know if I can call it to a member, but these people that used to know how to buy faster than me.

If I can [inaudible 00:45:15] I have to contact another person that I trust, and maybe he can find, but it's not so easy as you can find a lot of different people. Maybe that's why people that start to look on these options in the first case, because you can avoid the trust process, you can avoid some processes to just save someone.

Peter McCormack: So day-to-day then, the majority of the time, you're using the bolivar. Are you carrying it around in cash, or are you spending it digitally?

Javier Bastardo: Always digitally. You only have bolivars to pay for your transport, for the gas.

Peter McCormack: Okay, my handler mentioned to me there's an app now that most people are using to spend it. What was that called?

Adam: Pago mobile.

Peter McCormack: Is everybody using that?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, I only have one bank account, but I have a Pago mobile of a friend who went off of the country, so when I have to spend bolivars, I change some sat, I get the bolivars, and if the exchange rate is better in the bank account of my friend, I simply use this Pago mobile to move the money to my own account, because I have a public bank. I get the account when I was in college.

Peter McCormack: Is the app a bit like Venmo?

Javier Bastardo: I think so.

Adam: Yeah, it's like Venmo.

Peter McCormack: It's like Venmo, okay, so you can put money in and out of it from your bank account?

Adam: Yeah, you can transfer it to any bank nationally without fees.

Peter McCormack: Okay, but the bolivar, you've still got quite high inflation here. I saw last year it was just around 10,000%. Is that still a problem for you, or is this something you're used to? How do you cope with the inflation?

Adam: Yes, I think we're used to the inflation. Every week the inflation up 10%, something crazy.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so what is the use case for Bitcoin for you then? How are you using Bitcoin, and how are your friends using Bitcoin, and other people you know? What are the primary use cases right here?

Javier Bastardo: I said that I work as a journalist, I get my entire paycheck as Bitcoin since, I think two years. I don't have any other income, I only earn in sats. I lost my keys, so I don't have any Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: You lost your keys?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah!

Peter McCormack: Was it a boating accident?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah in a boat accident! Yeah, but I don't think others use Bitcoin as I use it, because I think this is a privilege to earn sats legally. A privilege here in Venezuela as we understand the Bitcoin's quality, but the bolivar is worse, so I do prefer the Bitcoin payment. But I don't think other people that are trying to exchange dollars to get bolivars are using Bitcoin to make this easier. I don't think they're using Bitcoin as I do, so I can exchange the exactly amount that I think that I would need in Bitcoin to get bolivars and spend in 15 minutes. I know I will buy, so I do a trade.

Peter McCormack: Is that on LocalBitcoins?

Javier Bastardo: Yeah. Obviously, we have other options. We have HodlHodl, a portal that recently we have a meetup, or a portal, to show people how to use it. But there is no enough liquidity, so we are paying the price of the KYC, but the liquidity's there so we are using it.

Peter McCormack: The liquidity's on LocalBitcoin? Okay I understand. Tell me also about the petro.

Javier Bastardo: Well, the petro is the mother of all the shitcoins! It's the worst, because it's centralized, it's run by the authoritarian government, it has no public information, you can patch around a node, you can see a block explorer but you need private information from the transaction to see something. You can see how are the movement, and people are receiving $60 million over their phones on national TV like a joke "yeah, I sent you the petros."

Take that, to make public politics go, so it have all the red flags that we find on the shitcoins but worse, because as you see we don't have that information. You have been here, so you can state that, but the government is trying to push this narrative that if we can make the petro a common tool of payment, we will save everything, everything will changed, we will be a crypto nation and will be the best country in the world because it is fast technology, we are making a historical movement etc.

Peter McCormack: But it's not backed by it all really? It's not like oil that's been extracted from the ground and being stored, it's the promise of oil in the ground.

Javier Bastardo: There is one thing in that oil that is extra heavy.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, heavy oil is hard to refine.

Javier Bastardo: And they'll lose two thousand, four million, hundred million, barrels are, I don't know, underground, and we don't have a strong industry that can have those outside and then, so it's not only a promise on that. It's like we magically will have that and we will have the... It's also backed on different commodities like diamonds, gold, so they are trying to diversify the backing.

Peter McCormack: Like a basket of... A bit like Libra.

Javier Bastardo: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: Okay. All right, I think that covers the main currencies people are using. In terms of Bitcoin though, you've got unique challenges here for using it. So I know Caracas, the power here is generally okay. It most of the time stays on, right? But there are blackouts in the provinces, as I understand it and if you've got a digital money, it's useless without power.

Secondly, when I was in Cúcuta, the two primary issues there that people were talking about, firstly, people are sharing phones. They don't have a phone each, which is a problem for something like Bitcoin, and also even if they have a phone, they don't necessarily have access to data. Are these the main issues, or are there other issues here that people aren't recognizing which would prevent Bitcoin being used widely?

Javier Bastardo: I recently interviewed Andreas Antonopoulous, and he asked me that, "if you don't have electricity and don't have the internet, how do you Bitcoin?" Well, I said exactly this, "we can't use Bitcoin in that conditions." In Caracas, it's okay, we can have a meetup, we can come here to the Bit Brothers pub and make a meetup and we have internet, and use Lightning and it's excellent.

But outside Caracas, the things get wider, like in Zulia, in Bolivar, in Merida, in all the other places that is not Caracas, they are struggling with daily blackouts. I have a friend that we have a podcast and we have many troubles to record, because he don't have lights many times, so how we can use Bitcoin if we can't even communicate with each other with WhatsApp?

Peter McCormack: Of course.

Javier Bastardo: So obviously we can face that, but the Bit Brother had the first Lightning torch in the mid of the blackout, so that's a kind of experience, but not all the users of Bitcoin have the mediums to make that heroic act to receive the torch immediate of the black.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so if people were looking into Venezuela and they wanted to help support Bitcoin here, what do you think the realistic use case is for Bitcoin here, here in the east of the city where people are relatively in a comfortable position. But also, is there any use for Bitcoin for people living in the poorer neighbourhoods, in the slums, or is that just a ridiculous scenario?

Javier Bastardo: I live in a slum, but I don't see clear because you have to be trusted in that kind of community to make a connection with someone that have, I don't know, like a soup kitchen. You have first to approach the people and then, "well, I have this Bitcoin thing. I can help you to make some donations." It's difficult to make this conversation more common with people that are working in that places or even with the people that live there, they don't have any interest in Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies I know. You can find some places where those people are working on some humanitarian projects, maybe you can help.

Peter McCormack: But as a donation.

Javier Bastardo: Yeah, like a donation.

Peter McCormack: But there's no day-to-day use case for poorer people in Venezuela?

Adam: If I may weigh in here. One of the most recent experience, and it came from 2016, is that people has been bartering stuff. We have seen cases outside Caracas, especially where you cannot use the bolivar, because it's worth nothing. You have no access to dollars, so how you going to manage to get food, for example? So we interview a farmer, for example, that he grows plantains, bananas, and the other guy who grows tomatoes. So they came back to that era of humanity where they trade it, "I'll give you plantains, you give me tomatoes," and they went to one guy with some cows and they traded couple tomatoes and plantains for milk or for meat and that kind of stuff.

In these places inside the country, in the countryside, maybe they can find a use for this kind of digital thing. The big challenge here is what he was saying. First of all, people to get to know how the platform works, which benefits will it bring. And the other one would be people to trust this, in the data and of course, electricity. There's a big wall in front of Bitcoin users here in Venezuela.

Peter McCormack: One of the big issues is education. I know with you guys, Bitcoin is a store of value. You hold value, and essentially it's a savings tool, but it's a way of kind of countering the effects of hyperinflation. As you hold Bitcoin, as you need bolivars, you transfer out, and that stops you avoiding the 10% weekly inflation, right? So I get that, that's very interesting. That's obviously a use case for anyone in this country. Is there a culture of saving here?

Is this something that could be taught to everyone, because I hear it and I think, "oh yeah, that sounds like that's a great use case," but then I hear the average salary is $6 a month and I expect most people are spending every cent they have. Trying to teach about savings is almost condescending. Do you know condescending, patronizing? Yeah, I almost think it's condescending and it's just not a reality. What do you think about that?

Javier Bastardo: Well we don't have a saving culture here. We was the country with the most consumption of Blackberry phones. Everyone had a Blackberry. We are used to spend money traveling around the world. We had a thing like, I gave you some dollars so you can spend it on whatever you want. In this new scenario where you need to save money, people don't really have a low time preference. That's not a thing like you can have here, because you are forced to daily fight with the depreciation of your money.

If you are earning bolivars or fighting with the representation of your dollars because even dollars are getting inflated here because of all the issues that the production structure have or the merchant structure in general. So it's difficult even when we have these meetups that we try to educate the people around Bitcoin and we talk about it like a long-term time preference.

You can buy, I don't know, $100 and hold it for six months, maybe you will have more money in terms of dollars. Obviously, in bolivars you would have more, but you can have a little more money in some kind of view, because you are only holding their sats, so maybe is that a way that we can make this saving technology sexier, but it's not an idea that the people is used to. We don't have this saving culture at all.

Peter McCormack: I'm going to go back to alt coins, shitcoins, two that I've heard a lot about here is Dash and Bitcoin Cash. Dash has done a lot of work to say, "there's high usage of Dash here, there's plenty of adoption" and Bitcoin Cash, I think they put out something saying there's more retailers accepting Bitcoin Cash than Bitcoin here. Again, what is the reality of that? Is that true that are people using it? Why are they using it? Are they being incentivized? Is this a natural growth? What's the deal here?

Javier Bastardo: Here in Caracas, we have a mall that is called City Market that is a place where you can find many places where you can spend Bitcoin Cash. There are other places where you can find that they accept Bitcoin Cash, but I personally asked it to many of those and they are thinking that they are accepting Bitcoin, BTC.

Peter McCormack: Oh, they're confused?

Javier Bastardo: So they don't really know that they are accepting Bitcoin Cash, so this is the kind of misinformation that Bitcoin.com is doing over the people that is trying to diversify their payment options, so it's a kind of pain because they are thinking that they will get sats, but they are accepting Bitcoin Cash, they don't know. There's Dash and I don't think all the people that work with Dash are bad.

I personally knew some people that I think are working because they think that it could be useful to others and don't really know in detail that straight up, that Dash is a centralized movement, so how is that a cryptocurrency when it's centralized etc. They have built a community here, so yeah, you can say that Dash is a thing here, yeah. But not so big, like the numbers are plus 55,000 wallets of Dash. Here, I don't know where are those users. I don't know if they are faking the numbers, I'm not saying that, but I'm not seeing those people here.

Peter McCormack: Have you spoken to the retailers and have you any idea of the volume of transactions that are happening?

Javier Bastardo: Well in Traki, that is a big retailer store, they have less than 1% of the sales in crypto in general, Bitcoin is the more used, but it's really little the percent. Also, there are other payment processors because in Caracas you have PundiX, that have a POS there, you have crypto buyer processor that uses software where you can pay, and you have other people that also have crypto buyer, or there are people that have [inaudible 01:06:26] that is other payment processor, but only have the option to receive the payment or make sure that people will spend money there.

We are spending money to test how that works, but in my personal experience, don't spend sats. You should exchange bolivars and spend bolivars on things directly, because these processors, even when they are trying to make something useful, they will charge you a fee. They will change the rates so you will spend more money.

Adam: And it takes forever. I've also gone to Traki, the store to pay with sats and usually you have to wait for half an hour because there's 10 cashiers, but they say, "o, wait, we need to get the managers, because we don't know how it works. We need to get the manager to come here to actually see you making the payment and make sure everything's fine." Something that, with bolivars, it would take you 10, 15 minutes. If you want to pay with Bitcoin or other crypto currencies, it will take you 30 minutes, 40 minutes.

Javier Bastardo: And back in the day when Dash was a real deep thing here, they was making meetups, they were giving away Dash etc. Back in the day, you went to the merchant and asked, "yeah, I want to pay with Dash" and they say, "well, the owner of the place is not here. We can't accept the Dash."

Peter McCormack: Because they didn't want it?

Javier Bastardo: No, they just don't know how to receive the payment. "The people that make the agreement with the Dash representative is not here, so I can't receive this."

Peter McCormack: So people just need to stop thinking as crypto as a solution to buying things in Venezuela?

Javier Bastardo: Maybe if we can find a way to make Dogecoin very useful so you can spend very cheap! But if not, if it is not simple, you can use it in a really easy way. People don't want to adopt it, and it's normal. We don't have the time to learn about Bitcoin, about other crypto. I have the time because I work as this, this is my job. I have to report on Bitcoin, and I have this privilege, but not many people have the time to, "oh yeah, I will learn about Bitcoin, I will run a node."

Peter McCormack: Okay, so to close out, what's the message to everyone who keeps focusing on Venezuela, keeps looking at Venezuela and go, "there is your Bitcoin use case, Venezuela. Look at Venezuela. We can help the people of Venezuela." What's your kind of closing statement with regards to that?

Javier Bastardo: Well, we are a few Bitcoiners here, but we understand the importance of censorship resistance, we understand the importance of the centralization, we are a few people working on education and stuff, helping others to understand how this works. There are projects working here, so there are people working here, but this is not a very massive thing, so you can help many people here trying to help them with money. Help them to get donations of Bitcoin, like with the humanitarian project of Bitcoin Venezuela. Maybe it's a good way to help people to get the spotlight, to get more donations, but I don't know.

Peter McCormack: Okay, all right. Well listen look, it's been amazing to come here and see it. I think it's an amazing city, an amazing country. I really like the people, I want to come back. Hopefully I'll be able to come back, and big love to you guys for your hospitality, it's been really good. If people want to get a hold of you, if they want to talk to you about what's happening here in Venezuela, how do they reach out to you?

Javier Bastardo: You can find me on Twitter at criptobastardo, with an I, not a Y.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, in US, UK it's with a Y.

Javier Bastardo: No, with an I. You can find me as criptobastardo and also in Satoshi en Venezuela, that is an educational project we are organizing here. Also you can find the Bit Brothers VC.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'll get it. I'll put it in the show notes. All right, listen, appreciate your time, guys, thank you!

Javier Bastardo: Thank you, Peter!

Adam: Thank you very much, glad to have you!