The Pomp Podcast - Eduardo Gómez: An on the Ground Perspective from Venezuela

Episode Date: January 28, 2019

Eduardo Gómez is the head of support at Purse.io, a native Venezuelan who has been working to expand adoption and awareness of Bitcoin throughout his country. In this conversation, Gómez and Anthony Pompliano discuss the current political issues in Venezuela, the hyper inflation of the bolívar, the creation of the petrodollar, the rapid adoption of Bitcoin, and he explains what's actually going on in his come country. ----- Join the Off the Chain newsletter. Pomp's daily email analyzes the crypto market for institutional investors. Simply, it’s the best crypto newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning. No frills. No bullsh*t. Just everything you need to know in a 3-minute read. https://offthechain.substack.com/ ----- BlockFi BlockFi allows you to keep your crypto, put it up as collateral, and receive a USD loan funded directly to your bank account. They do loans ranging from $2,000 to $10,000,000, and they're perfect for helping you reach your financial goals of all sizes. Visit BlockFi.com/Pomp to learn more about putting your crypto to work without having to sell it. ----- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off The Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off. Eduardo Gomez is the head of support at First.io and a native Venezuelan who has been working to expand adoption and awareness of Bitcoin throughout his country. In this conversation, we discussed the current political issues in Venezuela, the hyperinflation of the boulevard, the creation of the petrodollar, the rapid adoption of Bitcoin, and he explains what the hell is actually going on in his home country. This conversation was absolutely fascinating and I hope you enjoy it nearly as much as I did.

Before we get started, I want to talk about one of our sponsors, BlockFi. These guys are doing really interesting work in crypto lending. What they allow you to do is keep your crypto, put it up as collateral, and receive a US dollar loan funded directly to your bank account. They do loans ranging from $2,000 to $10 million, and they're perfect for helping you reach your financial goals of all sizes. You should visit BlockFi.com slash Pomp. Again, that's BlockFi.com slash Pomp. Again, one more time, type it in, BlockFi.com slash Pomp, if you'd like to learn more about putting your crypto to work without having to sell it. Definitely do it. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his

guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital, or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right, guys, I'm super excited to bring you this special episode. I have Eduardo calling in. Eduardo, thank you so much for taking the time to help us better understand the situation that's going on in Venezuela. It's my pleasure, Anthony. I'm so glad to be here with you. And shout out to your listeners.

Yeah, shout out to the listeners. All right. So just so people have context, maybe give us a little bit of background on yourself. as much as you feel comfortable doing and where you live and kind of just your day-to-day so that we have a better understanding. Okay, yeah. Well, for those who don't know me,

my name is Eduardo Gomez. I'm the head of the support department at San Francisco Bitcoin Startup Purse.io. I joined Bitcoin Space, I mean, I first learned about Bitcoin back in 2012. But it wasn't until 2015, 2016 that I started actually working full-time in the space. Did all sorts of jobs from freelance content creation, blog news writer for several websites, news website related to Bitcoin.

And in 2016, at the end of 2016, I joined Purse as a customer support agent. and I'm now managing the team there. I'm Venezuelan. I was born in Venezuela. I left there and I came to Argentina four months ago where I have been living here. I spent over three months living unbanked, fully living in Bitcoin and exchanging Bitcoin into fiat,

specifically cash. So that pretty much sums up my background. with bitcoin okay so so four months ago you moved from venezuela to argentina and you've been living for quite a while uh exclusively on bitcoin correct yes yes when i was living in venezuela i have my main uh my main um source of income has been from bitcoin i was getting paid with by this uh news website in bitcoin back in 2016 and uh when i was living in venezuela i was getting paid with bitcoin and then exchanging that that those bitcoin into fiat on uh approximately on a weekly basis due to hyperinflation inflation was so high that it

it only made sense if you were to uh exchange money frequently because otherwise you know if you were to exchange money on a monthly basis you were to lose a lot of money because inflation was going to eat through your savings yep and and walk us through what is the process like so as you're we're getting as you were getting paid in bitcoin uh and you would go weekly to exchange that bitcoin for fiat what was that process like what were the challenges that you faced in doing that or was it pretty easy um to be honest uh i i believe and i still think that it's easier to buy and to use Bitcoin in Venezuela than in the U.S. The reason being that back in 2016, 2015, 2016,

there was this Bitcoin exchange called SirBitcoin. It was a very good exchange that allowed you to purchase and sell Bitcoin. And they actually had nearly instant fiat withdrawals. So coming in as a guy who was getting paid in Bitcoin, I was using Bitcoin to exchange my Bitcoin to fiat every week. And when you sell Bitcoin through Bitcoin, you could get the fiat, you could get your money into your bank account in less than 10 minutes. So you tell me of any Bitcoin exchange in Europe or in the US where you can get fiat in less than 10 minutes. After selling your Bitcoin, there isn't such an exchange. But sadly, you know, I was using that exchange.

I had no problems using it. But sadly, in 2017, at the beginning of 2017, the Venezuelan government, you know, they went after Bitcoin. They actually jailed one of the operations guy there. He was the first person to be arrested related to Bitcoin, you know. He was the first person to be arrested on charges of, you know, using Bitcoin. And since the government, the Venezuelan government imposed a currency control mechanism back in 2004, citizens have not been able to purchase dollars or foreign currency. So they saw Bitcoin and Bitcoin as a threat because it allowed people to get access to foreign currency because you could buy Bitcoin and then sell it for any other currency that you would like or even store it or keep it in Bitcoin.

So the government saw that as a challenge, as a threat, and they shut down Bitcoin. But then they realized, the high-ranking government officials, they realized that they could profit from Bitcoin because you have the Bitcoin mining machines, you get the ASICs. And they actually went after Bitcoin miners afterwards. They started shutting down mines, and then instead of confiscating the equipment and storing it away in evidence rooms, they used the mining equipment to mine themselves, these high-ranking government officials. So throughout 2017, 2018, the Venezuelan government, not as like an official policy, you know, but more as high-ranking government officials taking or moving their influences with the police and intelligence agencies to shut down minors. and then concocting the steel of that equipment to mine themselves. So that pretty much sums up what has been going on with Bitcoin in Venezuela, with cryptocurrencies.

The government then started banning people from importing ASICs and Bitcoin miners. And then they even went a step further and they stopped people from importing computer parts. So if you wanted to buy like a GPU, uh not not even for mining for mining you know even if you wanted to buy a gpu because you're a gamer or whatever they prohibited shipping companies from um importing gpus and and anything that could be used to mine a cryptocurrency wow so literally they just said we're not even going

to risk it they're just not going to allow you to bring any computing power into the uh into the country. Exactly. And when some people decided to import the equipment, the Venezuelan government actually stole the equipment from the customs agencies, you know, the depots and storage units where these companies kept their merchandise. So whenever some people decided, you know, I want to buy a GPU and during this period of time where the government banned import of that equipment, they pretty much stole everything that was sitting down in depots and hangers and deposit units from these shipping companies. And then what, did they allow people to buy it back from them, from the government or the government kept it in their mining themselves? Well, the modus operandi, the typical modus operandi of these crooks was that in 2017, it was more of like the head of the local police stations or the head of the local, you know, there's this NSA equivalent. What we have in Venezuela, it's an agency called SEBIN.

It's something like the NSA in the U.S. It's a civilian intelligence agency. And this guy, at least the head of some local headquarters spread throughout the country, they made unilateral operations to steal and seize miners from people. In some cases, you know, I've heard reports of people getting blackmailed, you know, hey, if you don't want to go to jail, you have to give us a percentage of your earnings or you have to give us some equipment or you need to give us some money. In some cases, they stole the equipment and then they sold it back to the owners for a percentage. it was crazy uh even after the government you know the government back in uh in 2018 they said you know cryptocurrencies are perfectly legal you can use cryptocurrencies here in

venezuela we encourage people from mining from setting miners but then they established a centralized database where you had to register and you had to say uh you had to stay where you lift? What was your mining power capacity? How many hashes and which cryptocurrencies were you mining? And you had to hand out all that information. I think less than 10% of actual Bitcoin miners, cryptocurrency miners decided to register in that database. Also, when things were getting hard for people to import ASICs. You know, the government first cramped down on ASICs because they were the most distinguishable piece of hardware equipment related to cryptocurrencies. And then when people started, you know, realizing it's so hard to bring ASICs to the country,

people started to importing GPUs to mine things like Ethereum or Zcash. A lot of people, So, I mean, the first batch of miners, they bought GPUs that had a video memory of two gigabytes, two gigabytes of video memory. And then when Ethereum, the Ethereum DAX size or blockchain size increased, it was no longer, those GPUs were no longer able to mine Ethereum. So those miners, they switched to CCache, which was a nice alternative. um and then the government then started cramping down on gpus too and you know they banned people from importing computer parts got it and then talk to me about uh the petro right and kind of what the venezuelan people what are they uh understand about that how are they interacting with it is something that they fear are they excited about it which is what's the general sense

So something that you need to understand before, something you first need to understand is that the government, the Venezuelan government, is an expert on creating diversions. You know, whenever the economy is bad, things are worsening, the government always comes up with a new scheme, you know, with something new to keep people distracted. they've you know they claim that their hardship the economic hardships that the venezuelan people are enduring are caused by the united states in what they call an economic war so um since the u.s uh cannot allow such a government to exist in on his hemisphere uh the u.s has started you know, sanctioning a specific high-ranking government officials. Despite what some people think, the U.S. has not sanctioned the whole Venezuelan economy. What they did is that they sanctioned individuals within the Venezuelan government. They started sanctioning, they

prohibited banks and other institutions from issuing bonds, in-bond instruments to the Venezuelan government. So the Venezuelan government, the Strat for cash, they decided to, you know, come up with this scheme of El Petro. El Petro is basically what my friend Alejandro Machado from Open Monetary Initiative calls an initial country offering. He says that El Petro is an initial country offering because the Venezuelan government with El Petro, what they're trying to what they're trying to accomplish is to monetize the oil reserves. Venezuela is the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, but it's extra heavy oil.

It's oil that is very hard to extract. It's costly to extract. And no one wants to invest in Venezuela because they know that the government is corrupt. So it's very hard to obtain that oil and other minerals because Venezuela also has gold, coltan, diamonds, and all sorts of natural resources. The government knows that it's hard to extract those. No one wants to invest. So they came up with this Petro thing, a token that will represent,

each token will represent a barrel of oil. They tried to market this. They tried to sell it to international investors. Funny thing is that they came up with this idea of a Petro. they encourage the local population the venezuela population uh encourage them to buy this petro but then you cannot buy petro with our own currency the venezuelan bolivar because they're not interested in people handing out bolivars and and exchanging it for petros because the government controls the monetary supply the the venezuela central bank has no independence from

the government. There is no separation of institution. And since the government can always print new money to pay people, they do not want you to give them bolivars in exchange of petro. They were trying to sell the petro to international investors in China, in Russia, in Saudi Arabia, but no one wanted to buy petro. China refused to pay for oil with petro. Russia refused to pay uh to pay for things with with petrol no one wanted petrol so uh this token became um something is mostly a joke uh the venezuelan population started hearing about el petro the government shield the cryptocurrency this cryptocurrency which is not real cryptocurrency because there is no real blockchain there is no real uh you know code it's just a website

that you go to that has a fake block explorer is something that it's very reminiscent of OneCoin. For those listeners of your show that have been sticking along here, some people may recall OneCoin, which was a cryptocurrency, supposedly a cryptocurrency. But in reality, it was just a centralized database with a fake block explorer. And Del Petro is pretty much like that.

It's a fake cryptocurrency that the government tried to shield, and they tried to monetize oil reserves that are sitting deep down below in the ground that they know they cannot easily extract, and no one wanted to buy it. So they bombarded the Venezuelan population with marketing, and they talk about the petro-constant in public television. In mind, all television in Venezuela is controlled by the government, and they started shilling this fake cryptocurrency for people to buy. And there was this office in the capital where you could go to and buy Petro

and you had to pay for it with dollar in cash. And this office was pretty much empty all the time because no one wanted to buy it. So Petro is pretty much a failure. The government has faded into obscurity as of lately, and the government realized it was a failure. And the person who was actually in charge of the government institution that was overseeing the development of Petro was replaced by someone else. And this one, someone else, I can't remember his name right now, but this guy tried, he held the first blockchain conference in Venezuela, official blockchain conference organized by the government. And they invited all these guys, all these scammers from all over the world and foreigners, you know, Spaniards, some Spaniards came there and they made it look as if El Petro was going to skyrocket and it was going to increase in value when in reality, the government is actually using Petro as a way to devalue the currency because they have pegged the Bolivar to El Petro, right? And salaries are pegged to El Petro in the sense that if El Petro is worth a barrel of oil, the government has said that the minimum wage was going to be half El Petro.

And half El Petro, if oil right now is sitting at $50 per barrel of oil, so a minimum salary will be equivalent to $25. dollars but in reality petro trades for less than that and the minimum wage is actually less than six dollars per month can you imagine it 87 percent of at least more than 80 percent of the population earns minimum wage in venezuela and the minimum wage is less than five six dollar per month of work and a kilogram of meat costs like ten dollars so people are pretty much starving And the minimum wage is worth jack shit, you know? All right, before we continue with this conversation, I want to mention our sponsor again, BlockFi.

Remember, they do crypto lending. So you post your crypto as collateral, they give you a US dollar loan, and you can use the US dollars to do whatever you want. You should visit blockfi.com slash pomp and then tweet at me that you went. If you tweet at me after you went to blockfi.com slash pomp, maybe I'll throw you a like, a smiley face,

or the fire emoji. The fire emoji is the best. Remember, go to BlockFi.com slash Pomp, and I'll see you on Twitter. Let's talk about what's going on right now with Bitcoin in Venezuela. How do people on the ground interact with it? Is it being used a lot? Is it non-existent? It has increased significantly.

It's not like people are transacting between each other with Bitcoin. is mostly about people using specifically local Bitcoin, which is the only functional Bitcoin exchange in Venezuela. People are using local Bitcoin for things like buying it, and they also use local Bitcoin as a payment processor. because bank accounts in Venezuela, personal bank accounts, have very low daily transaction limits. So if you want to send money to someone,

the maximum amount that you can send to a personal bank account in Venezuela is about $96 per day. That's the cap, that's the limit. If you want to send more money than that, you need to have a corporate bank account. So what people are doing is they are using local Bitcoin. to make payments to, you know, companies are using local Bitcoin to pay suppliers, to do business to business transactions. And the general population is also using

specifically people outside Venezuela, emigrants, you know, people that left Venezuela, they're living in Argentina, they're living in Colombia, they're living in Ecuador, in Peru, and they're using local Bitcoin to send money to their family members back in Venezuela. The government has realized that the remittance business is another possible revenue source. I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but one of the main revenue sources of the Cuban regime, of the Cuban dictatorship, is the remittances that people send from Florida, from Miami, back into Cuba. Since there are no private banks in Cuba, it is the Cuban government that sets the exchange rate. So they control the remittance business. If you want to send money to your relatives in Cuba, you send money to the government, and the government is the one who sends the actual payment to your family members.

They control the exchange rate, and they take a huge cut. The Venezuelan government has realized, since there are 4 million Venezuelans living outside the country, if you go here, if you go in Argentina, if you go to any establishment, if you go to any restaurant, there is a Venezuelan working there. So all those Venezuelans, they're working hard outside Venezuela to send money to their relatives. And if you want to send money to Venezuela, it's becoming increasingly harder. The government has sent guidelines to private banks and public banks in Venezuela prohibiting people outside Venezuela from logging into their bank account. uh if you're if you're if you're accessing from outside venezuela you cannot log into your bank account i recently experienced the same problem uh i'm living in argentina i'm no longer able to access to my bank account in venezuela with my argentinian ip address on my computer

and since the internet infrastructure is so bad in venezuela there are no there are no vpn providers in Venezuela. So a good chunk of the emigrated people have to resort to intermediaries and a good chunk of them are actually using LocalBitcoin. It's what I'm using right now to send money to my family relatives in Venezuela. If I need to send money, I open up localbitcoin.com. I search for a trader because LocalBitcoin is a peer-to-peer trading platform. I find a trader that has the same bank account uh that my family relatives had and i initiated a trade with him i specified the bitcoin amount and then he made the bitcoin transaction he makes a fiat transaction to my relatives i call my relative i ask hey have you received the money right now and if he says if

they say yes then i release the escrow and i give the um i give the bitcoin to my family uh i'm Sorry, I give the Bitcoin to my counterparty. We're also seeing, and the company worked for Peirce, we're seeing a lot of Venezuelans using Bitcoin to pay for things on Amazon. They use our service to buy stuff from Amazon by paying with Bitcoin. They get a 15% discount, and they use that to import goods. Back in 2016, 2017, before the government banned people from importing GPUs, A lot of Venezuelans were using our service first to import GPUs into the country, to import mining equipment.

So there is this huge surge in activity. Right now, to talk of specific numbers, specific stats, in the last weeks, in the last couple of weeks, at least 1,900 Bitcoin have been traded on local Bitcoin. Each week, more than 1,000 Bitcoin gets traded on LocalBitcoin compared to merely 300, 400, 500 Bitcoin from last year. Throughout the whole bear market, the Bitcoin trading volume on LocalBitcoin has surged dramatically. A few weeks ago, LocalBitcoin broke the record, the all-time high in volume to 1,900 Bitcoin in a single week. We're talking that more than $6 million, more than $7 million get traded on LocalBitcoin each day. One of the main factors for this is the currency control mechanism that Venezuela has.

So the local population cannot legally purchase dollars. You have to go to the black market. You have to search for people. Venezuela is pretty much running on WhatsApp, on Facebook, and Instagram because, you know, Venezuelans use WhatsApp a lot to communicate securely between each other. And there are big WhatsApp groups where you can find people selling whatever stuff. There are WhatsApp and Facebook groups of people selling goods, food, basic necessity goods, selling dollars. And a lot of people have started realizing that LocalBitcoin is a safer approach to buying dollars because there is an escrow system.

And I'm not saying this because I'm getting paid by LocalBitcoin or anything. I'm not getting paid by LocalBitcoin. I'm merely a user of the platform. I've been using the platform since 2015. I'm just saying it's the only Bitcoin exchange that works in Venezuela. All other Bitcoin exchanges have been shut down by the government. The government, through third-party proxies and through businessmen that are in bed together with the government, they try to set up some exchanges that are regulated by the government, but those don't work.

They don't actually work in Venezuela. So people have to use local Bitcoin. Trading volume is up. More people are using it. It's a safer way to, it's much more safer than buying dollars on the streets. And since you have people in an account, since you have money in an account, people cannot physically steal it from you. So another interesting use case is of people, people that have companies in Venezuela, they have a hard time to import stuff, you know, to buy supplies and stuff for the companies. What they do is that they use local Bitcoin to purchase Bitcoin.

They send their Bitcoin to a Bitcoin exchange, another Bitcoin exchange, and they exchange that Bitcoin into fiat, into dollars in the U.S. bank accounts. And they use the dollars to buy stock, to buy supplies, to buy merchandise, and then they pour that back into the country. And so what's the current situation right now? Right. There's obviously incredible dissent, if you will, on the political front where you've got one party and one leader in that, you know, kind of the incumbent saying that they're the president. If you're going to stay the president, then you've got a new kind of interim president that that many around the world are recognizing as the actual president of the country. What can you tell me about that? Okay. So to simplify things, what happened was that in 2018, last year, there was a presidential election in Venezuela where Maduro was the official political party candidate. And then all the competitors were pretty much faked. They were paid by the government to go to election because the political opposition, the true political opposition, did not present a contender to those elections.

Additionally, it should be noted that elections in Venezuela are held with electronic voting machines. Okay. These voting machines have been used ever since 2006. These machines are manufactured by a company called Smartmatic. So in 2018, Smartmatic, after the election ended, Smartmatic, the same company that fabricates and manufactures the voting machines, they evacuated the managerial staff of the company in Venezuela. And from the U.K., they held a press conference and they said, hey, we cannot guarantee the transparency of the presidential election. At least one million votes were illegally added. I'm talking about the same company that manufactures the voting machines. The company said we cannot guarantee the transparency of these elections. so not only this election with the previous one and and they said that so

the whole international community well not the whole but at least at least a European Union and the u.s. you're not going to recognize this election this election was rigged because the same company fabricating the voting machines says that there were inconsistencies. So fast forward to January 10. January 10 was the day when the person that got elected in that presidential election in 2018 was supposed to, you know, swore a note and take charge of the presidency. But since there is a vacuum of power because the opposition, the political opposition,

and the international community says that last year's election was fake, it was a scam, essentially, if you think about it on legal terms, there is a vacuum of power. There is no real president in Venezuela. So the National Assembly, the Congress of Venezuela, which was democratically elected in 2015, and which is controlled by an opposition, but the political opposition controls the Congress, a Congress which was systematically shut down by the government.

The government removed all budgets and removed everything. They stripped away the Congress because it was controlled by the opposition. So legally speaking, as per Article 233 of our national constitution, the president of the National Assembly had to take charge of the country. And that's what happened. That's what happened. The president of the National Assembly, the Congress of Venezuela, controlled by the opposition, had to take control of the presidency

because there was a vacuum of power. So unlike what some media, international media is saying out there, there was no self-proclamation. There was no coup. There was no coup. It was just the political opposition activating Article 233 of the national constitution and electing and proclaiming the head of the Congress as interim president of Venezuela. What's going to happen now is that the military, the high ranking military officers, which are in bed together with the government, the or military run drugs. You know, this is Venezuela is a narco state. It's a failed state. Their own military run drugs. Their own military is in charge of illegal mining activity in gold rich states in Venezuela.

The same military supports an unofficial paramilitary arm of people called colectivos. Colectivos are people that have been funded by the government. They have guns, and they support the government. And whenever there is a protest, the first people to show up are these paramilitary guys who threaten people and who shoot people. They're the ones who commit murders in protests, and they are government-backed. So the international community has supported the political opposition

in Venezuela to take control of the country. There's going to be, in the near future, there's going to be two parallel states. One, the legal government, which is the political position, and the Maduro's regime, Maduro's narco state. Since the high-ranking military officers are still supporting Maduro, things are going to complicate further in the coming weeks. The political opposition, the head of the National Assembly or legal interim president has said that they have created a bill, a Congress bill to give amnesty and immunity to those high-ranking government officials who decide to stay together with the people and to overthrow Maduro. They're trying to guarantee the immunity and safety of all those military officers

who side with democracy and who side with the people in overthrowing Maduro. However, despite that the democracy is extending that offer to high-ranking government officials and military personnel, they are still with the government, at least the high-ranking officers, because the middle tiers and the middle hierarchy of the military, they are suffering the same. They are struggling the same as the general population. They earn low wages. They're earning less than $10 per month, and things are very expensive in Venezuela.

There are things that are more expensive in Venezuela than in the U.S. I was comparing prices the other day of dog kibble, dog food, and it's 50% more expensive to buy dog food in Venezuela than here in Argentina. It's crazy. Food is more expensive in Venezuela than in Argentina. So the middle ranks in the military, they're suffering the same as the general population. So what is going to happen in the coming weeks is that the U.S., alongside the international community, are going to put clear timeframes for the military to decide to side with the democracy. When the high-ranking government officials realize that they have nowhere to go, that there is going to be a clear timeframe for them to cross and have immunity, when they realize that the time is expiring, they will probably overthrow Maduro. Maduro is pretty much a hostage situation.

Right now, Maduro is a hostage because he is being held hostage by the high-ranking government military because the military knows they have to stick with Maduro because that's the only way they can profit them. They can keep profiting from illegal mining, from running drugs. But they also know that if Maduro falls, they are going to fall too. So they're making Maduro not to negotiate with the U.S. government and with democracy in Venezuela to avoid having the revenue sources cut short. What do you think the future of Venezuela and Bitcoin is? Right. As all of this is going on, obviously, I think people in the United States use Venezuela as an example all the time of an area where the digital decentralized currency has started to gain adoption. But what's your view as to what what's going to play out here over the next two to three years?

well in the next two or three years uh it really much uh i think the future of bitcoin in venezuela is tied with um it's tied with with uh with the political situation if the political situation continues to worsen and to you know be as it is right now we will continue to see increasingly more volume activity and trading activity in venezuela because people will continue to use Bitcoin to circumvent government controls, to circumvent banking restrictions. They will continue to use platforms like LocalBitcoin. So I think in the short term, middle and in the midterm, short term, midterm, Bitcoin transaction, transactional volume will continue to increase.

Long term, if we are able to restore democracy in Venezuela, I think Venezuela will become a central hub for cryptocurrency in Latin America, because there is going to be so many startups coming to the country, so many people wanting to create new things in Venezuela. So I'm hopeful for the future of cryptocurrency in Venezuela, if we're able to restore democracy, if the democracy removes the currency control mechanism, and even if Bitcoin transactional volume goes down, because there will be eventually no need to use Bitcoin to circumvent a state, if there is a democracy, they will likely remove this currency control mechanism immediately. Even if the transactional volume goes down, I will be very happy. And I think we will see

a lot of investment um we will see a lot of uh innovation coming from startups so i think the future is very exciting uh for cryptocurrencies in venezuela the economy in venezuela has shrunk dramatically the gdp uh per capita was something like eleven thousand dollars uh uh twenty ten years ago, it's now sitting at $3,300. It's more than a 50% decrease in GDP. The whole economy has shrunk by more than 70%. And Venezuela has huge natural resources. It has huge natural reserves, lots of biodiversity, lots of beautiful places to go, a lot of potential for tourism. So if we restore, if we manage to restore democracy, there is going to be a boom in investment. If the democracy is able to open up the country for foreign investment, I think we

will see a boon again and Venezuela will become the prime place to invest in Latin America. Venezuela is located at a strategic position. Venezuela is one of the best strategic position countries because it has access to Europe. It has access to South America. It has access to the U.S. via maritime shipping routes, via aerial routes. So it is a very good country to invest if democracy can be restored. For sure. what um what's the one thing that you hope everyone uh listening to this knows kind of

coming out of the uh the podcast in terms of bitcoin venezuela in the future yes well it is important for for your listeners to understand that first there was no coup in venezuela it was just uh the democratic elected uh institution of the congress electing uh president in the in this scenario where there's a vacuum of power. Second thing that you need to understand is that the country has been undergoing since 2004 in a currency control mechanism that prohibits people from accessing foreign currency.

The regular Venezuelan cannot buy dollar. They have to go to a black market. So they have resorted to options like Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And the future isn't certain, but I think there's a good chance that democracy can be restored in Venezuela. And if you're able to support our efforts to restore democracy, please give a retweet on Twitter, on social media. Let people from Venezuela speak the truth of what's happening in the country and support all initiatives that are being undertaken to restore democracy in Venezuela. absolutely man listen thank you so much for uh for coming on and talking about this i think that

um you know you've really been able to uh to share uh information that most people don't have and frankly they need to be educated on so i really appreciate you uh you doing this and maybe we can do it again in a couple weeks or something yeah thank you so much i want to do a Shout out to, you know, things like local Bitcoin, which enables Venezuelans to trade, freely trade. And it's pretty much censorship resistant because it's peer to peer, even though it can be blocked by the government. The government has not done so because a lot of actually a lot of government officials use local Bitcoin. Shout out also to LocalEthereum, which is a more decentralized platform than LocalBitcoin, and it runs on a smart content. It allows you to trade Ethereum for fiat in a decentralized, secure way.

Shout out also to cryptocurrencies like Zcash that enable privacy payments. and please whatever you can do to retweet and spread the word what's happening in my country please do so thank you so much Anthony for having me on this podcast and I hope all your listeners enjoy this interview and have a good day I love it man you're the only person who's ever gotten shout outs in on the on the podcast so I appreciate it and we'll we'll talk soon Absolutely. just do it. BlockFi.com slash Pomp. Hey everyone, Pomp here. If you liked this episode of Off The Chain and want to help us take crypto to the top of the Apple, Spotify, and other podcast charts,

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