The Wolf Of All Streets - Gabriel Jiménez, The Controversial Mastermind Behind The Venezuelan Petro on Being An Enemy Of The State, The Importance of Crypto, Working For A Dictator And Much More.

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

From Scott Melker - "This episode is likely the most important and unbelievable that I will ever record. I had the honor and fortune to interview Gabriel Jiménez, the mind behind the Venezuelan Petro. Gabriel has always been an active member of the opposition and spent his life protesting the Chavez and Maduro regimes - so how did he end up on stage with Maduro presenting the Petro as it's architect!? I have the entire story and more, including why Bitcoin is essential to every day life in Venezuela. His story was made public recently after 2 years of research by the New York Times. He is still an "enemy of the state" in Venezuela, so he is just feeling remotely safe in the United States and can start sharing his story. This is the only podcast that he has been on. Buckle up." --- ROUNDLYX RoundlyX allows you to dollar-cost-average into crypto with our spare change "Roundup" investing tool, manage multiple crypto exchange accounts in one dashboard and access curated digital asset content and services. Visit RoundlyX to learn more about accumulating your favorite digital assets when making everyday purchases. --- VOYAGER This episode is brought to you by Voyager, your new favorite crypto broker. Trade crypto fast and commission-free the easy way. Earn up to 6% interest on top coins with no lockups and no limits. Download the Voyager app and use code “SCOTT25” to get $25 in free Bitcoin when you create your account --- 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, everybody? This is your host, Scott Melker, and you're listening to the Wolf of All Streets podcast. Every week, I'm talking to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, trading, art, music, sports, politics, and basically anyone else with an interesting story to tell. So sit down, strap in, and get ready, because we're going deep. RoundlyX.com is one of my favorite companies in the entire crypto space. What they do is they take all your small purchases and they round them up to the nearest dollar and invest that money into any of 25 crypto assets of your choice.

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right, free Bitcoin to try out my favorite crypto trading app. Use promo code SCOTT25. This podcast is powered by BlockWorks Group, the only events and podcast production company I trust. For access to the premier digital asset conferences and in-depth podcast content, visit them at blockworksgroup.io. I promise you will not be disappointed. Hi, everyone. Today's episode will likely be the most impactful and interesting that I will ever record with a guest whose life and career are shrouded in mystery. Everybody in the Bitcoin community has heard about the controversial Venezuelan national cryptocurrency, the Petro Moneda, aka the Petro. Today's guest is the mastermind entrepreneur behind the Petro. At the time, a 27-year-old

former United States congressional intern and Harvard student who was a vocal opponent of the oppressive Maduro regime in his home country. So how did he end up working directly for the very dictator and government that he opposed? That's the story that we're hoping to get today, a story that we are fortunate enough to be one of the first podcasts to share. I am extremely honored to welcome Gabriel Jimenez to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Scott. Literally, it's the first time that I ever speak publicly about it. I've been waiting for the whole investigation or the New York Times. They have been with this for more than a year. I've been waiting patiently to speak and to have everything back and fundamental. And now for the first

time I'm able to speak with my own words, the story of what happened, what we were trying to do, and the reasons that I keep trying. I keep trying to look for solutions and build solutions for the people because the crisis and the situation in Venezuela, it's terrible. We all know about it, but we cannot just stay with our arms crossed waiting for a solution. Well, we're going to definitely dig into that. And I'm extremely, extremely flattered that you were willing to come on the show and that you chose us as the first place to actually speak. But your story is obviously finally coming to light on the heels of the major New York Times article that was recently released entitled The Coder and the Dictator.

So let's start from the beginning. Tell me briefly about your upbringing in Venezuela. Yeah, well, I started in, well, I grew up in a small town named El Tigre. The reason is that when I was one year old, my father abandoned my mother and she moved to this small town. She grew up very poor over there. And from there, it was all my childhood I spent it over there in Antigua. The way that I grew up was selling wood tears on the side of the roads, selling sodas outside of the circus. I was making everything to move and to look for my daily livings, the same as my mother that had two sons. And when I was 16 years old, I had to move to Caracas

because I suffered an accident in a motorbike that left me in a wheelchair for about three years. And I had to move to Caracas because the surgeries were very expensive and my mother couldn't afford it. And she asked my father to cover it, and the only way to cover it, the surgeries and the physical therapy that I needed to be, was by living with him.

So that year is when I moved to live with my father for the first time that I actually got to meet with him again. And from there, my life was about, you know, hustling for working again. Then at the university, hustling to adapt the university for handicapped students and looking for solutions. But it's specifically when I arrived to Caracas when they closed the first TV channel of Venezuela that was named RCTV. And from that moment in life, even by me being in a wheelchair, I say I had to fight this. I cannot stand with this.

And on the university, that was my whole university career as a student leader. And I created an NGO and worked in social projects and in political movements against the regime. And I wanted to keep going forward. I wanted to keep looking for a different government. That's what everyone in Venezuela wanted, is that we felt that was the solution to have a different government. And many of my friends after the university decided to run into the political world, but my stance was different. I wanted to go outside to prepare. I went to, in 2012, I went to Boston, and then I started to study over there in Harvard. And after one year over there, I was offered for an internship in Washington with the Congresswoman Ileana. The reason that I was offered that internship over there

was through a group of libertarian leaders that is named the Fund of the Americas that I was part of since 2012. And they offered me this internship to actually go and work with her. It's in that year, in 2014, that the regime with Maduro actually accelerated oppression against the opposition.

And that year they killed more than 117 young Venezuelans because a big majority, about 80%, 90%, were students or young Venezuelans fighting for a better future. Many of my friends from the political war that I grew up at the university were constantly fighting, were oppressed, were in jail. And I felt that I had to do something.

I was right in the middle of the political war in the U.S. And my congresswoman, Liliana, that's one of the reasons that I decided to enter with her. She was a freedom fighter. And she was born in Cuba, but then she landed on the US very early in her life. And she was an inspiration for me from her position to fight the Cuban regime.

And there are many Venezuelans on her district. So I was in front of her office organizing a movement of Venezuela to create pressure to other congressional offices and to other Senate members to actually promote sanctions to the corrupt officials that were violating the Venezuelan regime. That was back in 2014. And I was one of the leaders and coordinators in that moment. And at the same time, there was something happening in the crypto world in 2014. That was the one year that many movements started occurring in the crypto industry. And because I was linked and I was educated in many libertarians' ideals, I truly believe in freedom. Cryptocurrencies were a current topic under these political groups. I started wondering about the power of cryptocurrencies back then in 2014.

But besides that, I also started focusing on the power of entrepreneurship to actually build and to actually have a big country and a big society. So besides my work at Congress, I at the same time funded a company, and that company that I started was Social Ass. My idea back at the time was to have a marketing agency. The idea of that marketing agency was to have it as a business while I was keep helping on the political world in the US. But that year, another time, my father has a problem and is accused of fraudulent transactions in Dominican Republic. And because of that, I basically lose all of my savings and everything that I have

because I trusted in my father and had it on my father's bank and lost my clients again, was directed by many people for the same scenes of of my father and had to to start over again had to start over i i was married at the time was a mexican woman that i i met in in boston while in boston and we were in Miami and we were able to grow up again. We had a commercial office. We were able to open a commercial office over there for the company. We were growing. We were doing everything distributed.

We actually go back to Mexico by almost the end of 2015. We were going to get the e2 visa um and we had everything ready to uh to do this new process when the opposition in venezuela won the congress for the first time in 18 years this in that moment when they announced their results, that I was right there watching the announcements on television, it's in that moment when I tell my then-wife, it's the moment to go back and it's the moment to support this change because for the first time, the people want something different.

The people have spoken. And what I learned in the U.S. is that that change doesn't necessarily mean that it's a change that comes from the politicians. That change can come, and the U.S. has shown us that many times, from big entrepreneurs and innovators that dare to change and change the actual life of the country. So we actually canceled everything, went back to Miami, sold everything that we had.

And to end December 27 of that same year, I mean, three weeks later, literally after that, we were landing in Caracas with a dream of trying to help change in the country. So you left a very, very comfortable life in the United States to go back to a country that was, you know, hyperinflation, was effectively war torn with a regime, an authoritarian regime, and you chose that life to go back and basically oppose that regime. Exactly. That's literally what I did. Many people have told me that I was crazy. Many people told me this. Even my family, my mother was worried to go back. The family of my wife was worried to go back. At that time, the majority of the population were just running away from

Venezuela because of the crisis. But I saw that I needed what I learned. I needed to apply it. And it was a moment to actually make a difference from that standpoint. Wow. That's an incredible story. So you were already profiled in the Wall Street Journal in 2017 for your work with Social Us. So you're no stranger to the press and to getting attention for your hard work. What was the appeal of working in Venezuela when you went back as an entrepreneur? And I know that you're not yourself a programmer, but doing programming and websites and marketing in a country where it was so difficult to operate? When I went back, we actually started at my partner's apartment, at his kitchen. And we worked there at his kitchen working. We were only three people.

Because before we were doing everything distributed, but now for the first time we had an office. And the office was the kitchen of the apartment of my partner. From there, my vision was that, OK, I'm not just going to build these solutions or like oppose and build these solutions that I want from just being a marketing agency. But by being a marketing agency, it will allow me to bootstrap projects that will actually build solutions for our actual problems here in the country. So I changed the vision of the social loss at the time and turned it into a tech incubator because I believe in tech as a possible solution for many problems and day-to-day problems that we had as you know

learned here from my experience in the U.S. And you were largely getting paid in dollars in cryptocurrency to avoid having to deal with the boulevard correct? Exactly and that that was when my process started about discovering a whole actually cryptocurrency school play a role in Venezuela. Because first I was a company, that means that I had obligations as a company to fulfill as any other company that is constituted. That means that I need to pay taxes, I need to pay permits, I need to have everything constituted. So that was one thing. Second, I was working with the international world. My employees didn't have a USD bank account. We started figuring out how they could keep their money. Many of them with only one bank account then they requested

to send it to one bank account and that person changed whenever they needed the money so it was very complicated and at the same time in the case of my then wife she couldn't open a bank account for a whole year because she was a foreigner. And there was a scarcity of cash because of the hyperinflation. There was these problems to pay my employees that we had to do complex systems, basically on trust to be able to pay them. And even swiping a debit card or credit card, the limit was about $10 per day. So you can imagine that if it would be a Friday and you will almost get to the limit on a Friday, if you actually eat something outside and you wouldn't be able to spend more money to pay for a cab or for groceries,

you needed to do a wire transfer. And that wire transfer needed a text message I needed to get the text message and to send the one transfer if she needed to end to request a cap so it was very complicated so it was very clear for me that an understanding cryptocurrencies from from before and what we were doing because we were growing back in at the end of 2016 were from three we were doing, because we were growing back at the end of 2016, we were from three. We were already like 12 people. We switched office and then switched office again in 2017. And we actually managed to start building four different cryptocurrency projects within the social apps. That's what we were doing.

And all of these projects were self-funded by us and self-funded because of the bootstrap from the marketing projects that we did. And at the same time from international investors that believe in what we were doing. So we weren't the classic developer behind a laptop. No, we were a company that we were exposed to the regulations under the Venezuelan regime that they are the ones that enforce it. Sometimes today it's a bit harder to comprehend

because of the dollarization that have occurred and the crypto movement that have occurred nowadays on the country. But back at the time, if any merchant, if any merchant published a dollar price, they will be shut down. If any merchant actually put the price of an item that was regulated above that price, they will be shut down. That was the reason of the, I don't know if you remember the biggest lines of people making lines to buy food and buy toilet paper and those big lines. That was literally my day-to-day living on my case on the case of my employees and also on the case of it was literally in front of my office it was a supermarket so every day by going to to them to my office there was a big huge line of people crying and with the faces of desperation that they wouldn't be able to

actually get the corn flour that they needed to make the raripa. So it was evident that something had to be done. And at the same time, the political conflict was on their peak. After the opposition won, what the government did, the reaction of the government was to be more savage than ever before. They implemented an illegal Supreme Court. That Supreme Court basically took all the powers of the National Assembly. So you can imagine a powerless National Assembly and the dictator doing whatever he wanted to do.

People got enraged. Everyone got enraged. We actually rallied, many of my friends, me and former employees, many people rallied against that. And as a consequence, in 2017, the same year of the ICO craze, and at the same time that we were building these tools, more than 100 people died again under the oppression of the Maduro regime. They actually installed the Constitutional National Assembly.

That was the power about all of the constituted powers. So they basically could do whatever they want. People just stopped protesting. Everybody thought this is going to be like this forever. The opposition, basically, after winning the National Assembly for a landslide, they lost 20 out of 24 states on the next elections um so you can imagine like the whole uh sentiment of the society at the time it was so everybody gave up basically that was the feeling at the time there is like no way out of that. And you can imagine me selling everything, me going back to my country for change, for the ideals that I have always fought, having at the time more than 23 employees that I had at the time, all of them paid by U.S. dollars and cryptocurrencies.

I couldn't give up. Something that I learned here in the US, and it's a flagship of every entrepreneur, the resilience, the pivoting, the look for solutions where nobody else can. That is literally what I did. What it meant in that context, what it meant for me is that if all politicians are not bringing the solution that we were expecting, that we wanted this government to change, we had to do something for the

people. Even if they stay in power, let's actually think about what is the main problem that is affecting the people right now and well the economic crisis is evident you know there is a famous statement it's the economy so

for me the economic factor was a big issue and I realized that even if the cryptocurrencies had all of these potentials that they had at the time, cryptocurrencies were considered illegal in the country, illegal in practice.

I will dig a little bit deeper in this issue in a bit. But were the capital controls that were established since 2002 in the country that didn't allow the people to exchange their money freely and corporations to import and the price based on that fake official rate and that it was causing the black market to skyrocket for the US dollar and causing the hyperinflation. So yes, it's the government. But it's specifically this policy, one of the wars that is affecting the people. So if actually cryptocurrencies are good to avoid capital controls, but what if, what

if, instead of just saying, yes, cryptocurrencies are crypto, but what is it? Cryptocurrencies just destroy the capital control by allowing freely, without fear of persecution, to exchange their national currency to any cryptocurrency. That will make a big,

huge difference. Because it's not about changing the volibear to dollar anymore. It will be changing about their volibear to any cryptocurrency out there. And I also realized that the whole industry was underground. So my strategy was instead of staying underground and being a subject of extortion and blackmailing for corrupt officials that were taking minors and throwing them to jail,

instead of doing that, let me try something different and let me just go public and let me just publicly talk about what cryptocurrencies could do for the people what cryptocurrencies could do for uh for the people um for entrepreneurs for corporations because it's not and i know that this sounds cute and this story is about you know mariah um saving savingiah saving $20 in crypto through local Bitcoin. Yeah, that sounds great.

But the reality, when you have a government that is able to enforce and shut down businesses, if they are portraying in dollars, if shut down businesses, if they are going above the price of what the state, because there is only official market, if there is a government that punishes corporations and throw them in jail if they try to import without their official dollar, if there is that, yes, cryptocurrencies are going to be a tool

for a bunch of geeks and a bunch of developers. But it's not something that will make a difference on a population that is it will be the second biggest state in the US. It's more than 30 million people, more than the state of Texas, if I'm not mistaken. So so it's completely we needed a change in that. And I decided to go publicly and talk about this is not illegal. We are working on tools. And although Bitcoin was originally viewed as a threat to a government, obviously, it's decentralized. It's immune to authority. But eventually, the Maduro regime clearly saw an opportunity to use a national cryptocurrency to, you know, circumvent American sanctions and to secure international investment. And that's how the Petro came to be, correct? At the time, back at the time, the sanctions on the regime were very lightly.

The only sanctions that the regime had was to actually issue new debt back in 2017. The big issue that the government had was the economy that was scrambling and that was shaking the quip to power that they had. But it wasn't actually shaking the quip because, as I told you, society was surrendering. But they actually saw that this guy that, you know, has been profiled by Washington, this guy that, you know, is U.S. educated. This guy over here that is telling that these cryptocurrencies have a solution for the economy. Let's just talk about let's talk to him and see what is that that he's speaking about. That's that's the reason that they first reached me.

And when this there is this guy and because they reached me, it's the central bank. The central bank just wanted to know about cryptocurrencies. I actually go to the central bank with the purpose that the central bank said resolution related to cryptocurrencies. There was not even a topic related to sanctions or anything. It was never a topic. And then when there is this guy named Carlos Vargas that then became the superintendent, he was a political official from the government, but was basically a nobody at the time. And he came and he told me, hey, I just saw your vision about cryptocurrencies. I like it.

I was actually thinking in creating a cryptocurrency based on an old name, Petro Global Coin. And it happens that I saw a couple of weeks before a video of Chavez talking about a currency named the Petro. And then I realized this is the way that the government is actually going to move forward with a project related to cryptocurrencies. If we call this project the Petro, if we say that cryptocurrencies are an idea that materialized the vision of Chavez and bringing to life all of these solutions that I'm speaking and that I was an emerging authority in the technological world over there in Venezuela. That would be something that they could buy. And because I thought I explained that to him explained my vision to cryptoconstants to

vargas he requested us to to do a pitch deck um so he could uh show that to the government officials and we were like okay this is not going anywhere you know big bureaucracy how you think of comments. It was literally a feedback of nine pages. Nine pages. So that was how short it was. And out of the sudden, I lost track of that for about two weeks. I was focused on my projects in Venezuela. And then when I was in a conference in Bogota for one of my projects, a friend sent me a video. It's Maduro talking about the petrol. I realized, hey, these people did just steal a project or something. I just text Vargas and he told me, hey, you have to come back.

They just approved the project. And let me tell you how it was. There was a tech conference in Caracas. And in that tech conference over there, there was a guy selling Bitcoin mining machines. And that guy that was selling Bitcoin mining machines in that tech conference, that tech conference was organized by the government. Actually, Maduro went to that conference. And when he went to that conference. That conference was organized by the government.

Actually, Maduro went to that conference, and when he went to that conference, he saw that that mining machine was funny. He asked that guy, hey, what is it? And he says, no, that's to mine Bitcoin. You don't need the US dollar. That's under blockchain, the currency of the future, that is a new revolution. And Maduro asked the guy that was next to him, that was the vice president that supposedly Vargas talked to him and talked to Maduro explaining the project.

And he asked him, isn't that the project of of chavez and the bp at the time told him yes that's it so let's approve it and they went 30 minutes after that happened and actually spoke publicly about it i publicly approving that in the project. So when I went back, I was around Caracas around 11 p.m. I received a call, and it's a call from the vice president, the ministry of finance, the ministry of science, and Carlos Varga. And their questions were basically the very basics about cryptocurrencies. They didn't understand anything about mining. They believed that mining was the equivalent to plugging a computer

and having US dollars in their accounts. They didn't know anything related to blockchain, anything related to how it works. They didn't understand a thing about it. And you will ask me, hey, but how is it possible if the president just approved that on national TV? Hey, let's remember it's the Venezuelan government. The one that is under control of the biggest oil reserve

of the world and the fifth reserve of gold in the world and have created the worst economic crisis in recent history in Venezuela. So, yes, it's that people, the ones that we were talking about cryptocurrencies back in 2017 and talking about a national cryptocurrency that is basically like science fiction because it has never been done. So it was like I realized their lack of knowledge on the subject that they didn't know what they just proved.

They didn't know that this actually undermined the socialist model that they have tried to apply to the country for so long and the consequences of the economic disaster that it has. So it was for me, I realized that it was an opportunity to, if the project was actually released, the way that we were trying to make it, a limited currency of 100 million tokens that were fluctuate freely on the market and that will have the transparency that everyone, imagine now everyone being able to watch how the government is moving funds because there is a blockchain explorer. So imagine that power in the hand of the population

and of the global war nowadays. People say, no, it's to avoid sanctions. Hey, if you are a thug, all right, and if you want to avoid sanctions, you would probably do it through Monero's, through Zcash or through Bitcoin because of the liquidity that it has. You wouldn't talk publicly about, hey, I'm going to avoid sanctions with this that have

never been done. So you can stop everything that I'm trying to do that I don't even get it well. So because of that, and literally it was because of that moment that I realized that they didn't know everything and that I pitched back to them that I wasn't going to even ask for one bolivar or one dollar for the project, that the project was going to be done by a foundation and that the foundation was the owner of the project. And therefore, they were the ones that were going to continue the core development of the project and that we wanted to issue the token in a two-month period. So they said everything yes. And the main request in that time, that was the main request in the cryptocurrency, in the pitch deck that I sent them, is to legalize all cryptocurrencies, to make them all legal. So I was realizing that this is going to change our rules over here.

This is going to change our rules over here. This is going to change everything. I remember back at the time when it was illegal, I was speaking in conference, I always say that my dream was that companies in Silicon Valley actually look at Venezuela as a place to actually implement their solutions for cryptocurrencies, to actually test their solutions for cryptocurrencies, because we actually need it it because we actually don't have apple pay or android pay or venmo or anything related like that so we actually need this this solution and now and that that was my speak and if that was possible that is gonna open the door for that so i see you sorry to interrupt but you understood all of that, right? But your friends, your family, the people you worked for, they inevitably probably didn't.

And all they, I assume, saw was that you were going to go work for this government that you deposed for so long. So what was it like the next day when you walked into work and you said, hey, everybody, we're going to stop working on all the projects that we've been working on? The Petro is our focus now. Well, the sentiment was worriness everybody less one person say that they they realize the opportunity to actually do something i also had to explain the economics to them on the context of, you know, when you have a company, you feel responsible for

the families and the livings of all your employees, so you don't want to go your company bankrupt or your investors to lose their money. I have to explain economics. If we also do this, we're going to be the leaders of this industry, and we're going to get so many job requests and so many projects that is going to pay off over the long time.

And at the same time, we are changing the economic model here. We are eliminating the capital controls for the first time in 16 years without shooting a gun because I'm not a person of guns. I'm a very skinny guy, likely like the says in the article. I fought with ideas. And this idea, if we were able to pull it off somehow, we have to trust in ourselves to actually if we were able to pull it off. And, well, the team actually just they were worried and they they support me my investors support me my team support me just

one person that in that moment you say i just cannot even understand it even true they were worried and everything my my my proposal was like i'm to be the one dealing with it directly. So you guys don't have to face that on yourself. But if we pull it up, we are going to make a difference in our country. RoundlyX.com is one of my favorite companies in the entire crypto space. What they do is they take all your small purchases and they round them up to the nearest dollar and invest that money into any of 25 crypto assets of your choice. They integrate with your favorite exchanges so that you can round up into different assets all at the same time. And they do this all without ever holding any of your Bitcoin. This is by far

the best way to dollar cost average into Bitcoin. You'll never even notice that the money has gone from your account and you'll look up one day and hopefully you'll have made thousands and thousands of dollars on crypto. RoundlyX, that's R-O-U-N-D-L-Y-X.com. Go sign up now. Are you sick of paying ridiculous fees to trade crypto? It's time you try Voyager. It's hands down my favorite place to buy and trade crypto and it's 100% commission free. Voyager gives you easy access to more than 30 top crypto assets. And you can instantly transfer cash from your bank account so you never miss a trading opportunity. Even better, you can now automatically earn interest on your crypto holdings. Currently, they're offering 5% interest on Bitcoin and 6% on USDC.

Yes, you heard that correctly, 6%. And there are no limits or lockups, which means your funds always stay liquid. Find out why so many people are making the switch to Voyager. Visit investvoyager.com or search for Voyager on the iTunes or Google Play store and get $25 in free Bitcoin when you use the promo code SCOTT25. Right. So you described the Petro as a Trojan horse for the Venezuelan people. That's a quote that I read from you. So you described the Petro as a Trojan horse for the Venezuelan people. That's a quote that I read from you. So you basically are saying that Maduro went ahead and approved this idea. They didn't really understand the implications of it. So you

felt that you were going to be able to infiltrate the system kind of unknowingly to them and secretly by creating the Petro. Exactly. Exactly. And just the following weeks, everything was literally a jest in every request that I asked. I asked about, OK, let's talk about the project for the first time publicly at the central bank. And there, if you see my speech or you see even the speech of Vargas that was embodying what we were doing, we were talking about transparency. We were talking about fighting the corruption of the state.

We were talking about a limited issue coin. So those were the main drivers of our dream. That very same night, we got to talk to Maduro and to the economic cabinet, and they were all in. And we had even international and American industry leaders that came to the central bank to talk about the possibilities and the potential of

cryptocurrencies to the people. And we were all there talking. We were all there talking to Maruro, pitching him about the reality of cryptocurrencies could do and talking. I always talk. And if you see my speech at the central bank, if you see my speech with other international media, the petrol was the spearhead, the spearhead for all the cryptocurrency environment, for any new cryptocurrency to actually be legal and be able to corporations to implement it, to entrepreneurs to be financed, to innovators to build solutions for mass adoption of the whole country. What happened? What happened right after is what everyone expected that would happen. On the same December, I had the first red flag of the Ministry of Science telling me that he was going to shoot me if I ever talked negatively about the petrol or about the regime, because he would rather die as a killer than as a traitor to the fatherland. Then on December, on January, when it was supposed that the president was going to talk about the white paper, the white paper, it was

a process that involved so many different companies because we created a foundation. It was more than 10 companies that were involved in the project. Again, I don't want to mention names because many of them are still in Venezuela and their lives are at risk. Many companies were involved

in this project. We had to get approved by every regulator and every government entity. And all of that went in about two weeks. In meetings with more than 10 people approving everything because the president said, yes, it's whatever Gabriel says it is. That was literally their commanding. And that whole project moved so fast up until January when my innocence was that by controlling the white paper and

issuing the white paper, that the white paper was going to be like the constitution of the technological development that we were doing simultaneously, I was going to be able to pull it off before they actually realized. But in January, the Ministry of Finance realized that he wouldn't be able to control the economy anymore. The same Ministry of Finance that controlled the mafias. The Ministry of Finance that is one of the main responsible for the economic catastrophe that it had. The Ministry of Finance that had the idea that the petrol was going to be be back to the oil barrel and wouldn't be able to fluctuate. And I had the idea about the Orinoco build that,

that guy that I will post publicly several times. He told me that if I don't, didn't give him the white paper, he wouldn't be responsible for me, for anything that happens to me. Right. So he wanted it to be an oil-backed stable coin, basically, and which obviously destroyed the entire dream and the ideal of what you were working for. Yes, yes. However, I was able to pull it off a little trick and my way to persuade him. If you read the white paper, the white paper that was published, that was only half of the white paper. There is no way to redeem oil just because of that. My worry is that they wouldn't be able that is that the back to the oil would be only for the price of the ICO and for the commitment of the government to receive the price of the, to receive the petrol back. So a minimum value as opposed to a stable value.

Exactly. And that minimum value will create, because it's a limited issue coin, it will create certain stability because if it goes too high, you know, people wouldn't be as incentivized to use it to pay taxes or services to the government. I'm not talking only about people. I'm talking also about corporations, oil corporations.

I spoke with presidents of oil corporations also to talk about this fact. So that was the way that I was able to persuade them. But they wanted just the white paper. They forced me to give them the white paper. That night I

tried to talk with journalists to tell them what was happening. And then they published the, one of them published half of the white paper. Then things went out. People were believing that we were trying to take a percentage of the petroles for our pockets. And at the same time, the government used that to, and they request me and show me a file of folders of my employees telling me that they had everything on them

and that they could do whatever they wanted, that I needed to stay low. Then the day before publishing the white paper, when the president showed the white paper to the world for the first time, that he was saying that it was being developed by John Venezuelans, that it was based on Ethereum and everything. When that day happened, they told me, hey, we are not going to publish the technological part. When they told me that, I told them, hey, but this is a scam. If you're trying to sell something that if you're not showing how the technology is going to be and actually deploying that technology, it's very much like selling a house

without even looking at the planes or looking at how it looks like. So it was basically a scam. So I was opposed hardly to that. And the way that I received the support to actually publish the white paper was to publish it with our authorship. We published our authorship with the foundation authorship, and that's the first white paper that it went out a unknown and again a non-for-profit um foundation weren't you scared i mean weren't you terrified you were openly opposing the regime that you knew obviously was uh violent and was killing their opposition i was but i But I couldn't show it to my team. I couldn't back off. And if it was possible to actually make the change in the country that I always dream of, it's worth it. It's worth it.

Many of my friends have risked their life fighting for their deals. Many Venezuelans have lost their lives fighting for a better future. This was my fight. This was my way of trying to do something different. Many people could judge me that I was trusting on the government, but I wasn't. I wasn't trusting trusting the government, but I wasn't. I wasn't trusting the government. I was trusting the power of the technology, of the blockchain technology, of the

power of cryptocurrencies overall because people nowadays like to talk that, yes, Bitcoin is not the solution for Venezuela, but it's not about Bitcoin. It's about eliminating the capital controls and allowing any innovator to bring a solution and that solution being mass adopted for everyone without fear of persecution.

That was the main goal of what we wanted to do. So they stole your white paper. They basically stole your white paper. You published it yourself through other channels. And then what happened? Well, they sent me the political police to my house at 6 a.m. When they sent me the political police and paper, take off the authorship that it had, and they told that I was a CIA agent and a traitor to the fatherland.

And they declared the foundation, the one that was handling everything, as an enemy to the state. And that the project wasn't ours anymore because the foundation was an enemy of the state because I challenged the words of the finance minister over there. So that's what happened in that moment in time. A couple of weeks afterwards, my hope was, because this was my hope, because that's the reason that I was trying to do everything as fast as possible. The announcement of the ICO was for February 20th. My hope was nobody else can pull off in such a short amount of time this project because they don't have any idea about the work that we have been doing and the president already talked about it and he won by calf so because that was happening i had the timing on my favor so i had to to lay low they

tell me hey you know now you're um the cannot do it, but we need a company to actually, a Venezuelan company to actually compete with a Russian team that is coming to actually do the project. That's what they tell me. And this may be a mistake, but my hope was that I was able to outcompete the Russian team. They didn't let me to actually meet the Russian team. I met them for just, we were in a dinner with my team talking about the defense of the project. They didn't allow me to go to the ministry anymore because I was this traitor. And when I was with my team

on a dinner in Caracas, we saw a group of Russians celebrating and everything and we approached them. Hey, who are you? No, we came to do the petrol for the government. And that's when they told us their names and we investigated them. And they were a yoga

teacher an actor a model and you can imagine my frustration the project that i i was building and this is the people that supposedly we are competing with i i was completely enraged and i accused the government and i accused them that these people were scammers. These people were not the guys that they were telling who they were. They didn't have the authority, the skills, they didn't have anything to do it. And many of the companies that were on the foundation where we decided to be together through my company because i was the one that you know because it was my face and and i was the one like taking that that risk so we we ended doing it by uh by social us that's the reason that in the story to explain the foundation and

everything is a bit complicated but that's the reason we transition everything to social us. And what the government replied me back is that I was just jealous. I was jealous about the Russians that they had more skills than ours. So I was trying to fight this off, to outcompete them, to say, hey, we have everything already on place to actually make this work. They told us that we are going to do it. And just a few hours, the announcement that start of the ICO was going to start. And up until this time, I just want to state again, I have never received a bolivar or a dollar or signed a contract to the government up until that date. So everything was being, you know, bootstrapped by us because we wanted to

make this great work because if it failed, I knew what was going to happen um afterwards so we were in that room and around 9 p.m come against the russians with their models with their um actors and everything with a bottle of champagne uh to the vice president palace where i was and i was literally shocked about what was happening. Literally with bottles of champagne, taking selfies on the Venezuelan shield, you know, and they were like celebrating because they were going to sign the contract over there of the of the petrol so that they signed the contract of the development of the petrol even me by telling that they were scammers and everything and right after the announcement that i'm refusing because they and then they want me to became uh the salesman of that petrol, that it was basically a scam. So I was refusing to sign a contract to become that salesman that they wanted. I wanted to be able to be sure that the development of the project was going to be what it was

supposed to be. And then they came, the chief of staff of the vice president with the military, and they detained me. And the lead developer that was with me at the time, he has his own company, they detained me. And they told me that we were going to be sent to the helicoide if we tried to communicate with the exterior world that we were going to be sent to the helicoide if we tried to communicate with the exterior world that we were detained because the website had a typo. Literally, that was the excuse

because people were making fun of the president because the website had a typo. So what happened is that around 6 a.m., they let us go and they told me that I was going to get instructions. I was called by the government officials telling me that the president requested me to be at the presidential palace. I went to the presidential palace and my goal to go to the presidential palace was to tell the president everything that was happening. Because as you can imagine, even within the government, there are many political powers, political movements within fractions within within our government so my my hope was to persuade the president that we had everything everything to make the project um the way that it was supposed to be the way that we explained him at la roca that is a bunker a military bunker

in in in caracas um we had everything and that that the other people wasn't doing anything. I explained what was happening. I was silent on the national transmission when I spoke that to Maduro. And then they showed me a contract that they told me that I had to sign on national television. So they put you on TV with Maduro and made you sign the contract. Yes, and made me sign the contract. And that contract, I have the original with me nowadays. The other copy is

the one that they had on Miraflores. It's the one that they published afterwards to tell that I was, you know, trying, like, stealing money. Because after that, I was literally pushed off of the project. They tried to persuade me to try to sell them the project,

but I didn't want to unless we were able to, again, do the development of the project the way that it was supposed to be. I didn't want the project to fail. They offered me $500,000 in a Russian bank account and everything. I refused to take the money. Then they charged me. Officially, they charged me with treason to the fatherland as a CIA agent, they told me that I was going to be let alone because it was bad for the people to see the creator of the petrol in jail. But they let me go and I was

trying to rescue my company, but they were going after my employees. They were going after my partners. They were going after my investors. And at the same time, from the opposition, I was being named as a collaborationist. I was being named that I was trying to make money from the, like, I was helping a dictatorship to have oxygen or whatever. Like, all of those claims from both sides of the aisle that literally destroyed my business, destroyed my reputation. Many of my friends that didn't know what happened, you know,

felt, like, betrayed by me. I lost everything trying to rescue the company and the different projects. And all of my employees lost their jobs. My investors lost their money, the project, that is the thing that I'm more shameful about, became a tool for propaganda, a tool for manipulation. And they could do whatever they wanted to do. And I couldn't do literally anything about it. Right.

So you became viewed as an enemy by both sides. Yes. Yes. Literally. Literally. And it came to the state that i even had to you know at the end the computers of the companies to to get food and and i had to to sell my car to be able to buy a ticket and go go back to the u.s because it was just a matter of time for them to

say hey what's going on the petro isn't working. Let's just blame Gabriel because I was already charged by them. And at the same time, by the opposition, I was also an enemy on many of their eyes. And the Petro never worked, right? Yes, the Petro never worked. Nowadays, it's basically a number in an SQL database. You know, so it's just a shelf of what it's supposed to be. But there are certain things that change that are worth mentioning. Regulation. It became clear that cryptocurrencies were legal. If you see many people always talk about

Bitcoin and local Bitcoin and crypto adoption in Venezuela or whatever, look at the chart of local Bitcoin before November 2017 and starting on December 2017 when the petrol was announced. Look at the different conferences, different educators. The whole nation started to talk about cryptocurrencies. My mother, like everyone, was talking about cryptocurrencies in the country. Businesses adopting cryptocurrencies like the biggest equivalent to what would be Walmart over here, the Venezuelan

Walmart accepting cryptocurrencies and many different businesses accepting cryptocurrencies, crypto ATMs in a country where capital controls and where everything was so enforced back at the time, we opened the valve to that change and that space of financial freedom. And that's the reason for that possibility.

I don't regret to try. I don't regret to try something different because I truly believe that it was possible to do it. I'm ashamed that I feel that I failed. I just don't want to blame the government, the opposition, my team. I failed. I took the risk and the decisions and maybe it was too impossible from the beginning but even this the the smallest chance if it worked it would make a huge difference in the context of venezuela it made a difference of the in the context of the industry if you go to caracas you will see many billboards related to cryptocurrency you will see many businesses talking about cryptocurrencies, that become illegal. And not only because it becomes legal under the law, but also because the government was

doing it. And in a dictatorial regime, the law is not what is proven. The law is what the government does and allows to do. So that is the statute that many people don't comprehend. And many people believe that crypto is just a bunch of geeks behind their computers. And no, if you're talking about nation, you're talking about businesses, you're talking about corporations, you're talking about financial institutions, you're talking about people that have to comply with regulations, people that have to comply with permits to actually make

it work for the whole economy. And that's what we try to do. In that aspect, we made some change. Well, you succeeded in that aspect. And I think the biggest critics around the world of Bitcoin always say that it doesn't have a real use case. But I think that that may be true in certain countries, but in a place like Venezuela,

it's literally saving people's lives on a daily basis. I mean, is that accurate? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And not only because the direct use of the people, but also because many businesses are using it to move their money, to import goods, and to offer services, and payment solutions, and different things that are being officially implemented and widely implemented in Venezuela that you don't see somewhere else being done the same way.

And that wasn't happening before 2017. Do you see any parallels between what happened in Venezuela and what's currently happening in the United States now with unlimited quantitative easing and printing $6 trillion for stimulus? I see similarities, but also we have to understand that currently right now we are under a global crisis that has never been seen before. So I just don't want to say that it will have the same effects of what happened in Venezuela, because you have to remember one key element that is exactly capital controls.

So you have that printing machine going like crazy in Venezuela, but at the same time, people wasn't able to move their money freely. So that created a black market that was under, without any structure or a black market that was just purely speculating about the value of the dollar and that printing pushing the price of the dollar itself. And that created that hyperinflationary situation right now. So there are similarities. And of course, we need to take a look of what is currently happening and not let just things pass just because of the crisis without being critics about it. don't want to be um alarmist and saying that the same consequences that happen in venezuela

are going to happen in in the u.s under the current circumstances that's very fair so you're in the united states what are you doing now well after i was able to leave after the blackouts in in venezuela I didn't have any money. A friend let me stay in his place in Chicago. He bought me groceries, and I didn't even turn the AC or the heater because I couldn't afford the electricity, and that house was basically there for work for him. He let me stay there.

I was able to meet some peers from the cryptocurrency industry in Chicago through different meetups that I went for the free food and for connecting to people. They helped me a lot they actually um introduced me and to a few other people and allowed me to do a few private conferences uh while in chicago that led me to the san francisco blockchain week last year that i was on a private conference too here. People here saw what was happening with me and they decided to support me. They told me, well, Gabriel, you're a builder. We believe in you. If you want, you can stay in my place

and you can come to our office and build because we know that you're not going to surrender. And that's basically what I'm doing. I have been advising a few cryptocurrency projects, non-for-profit again, related to Venezuela. I do it because I believe and I just want to go back to my home. So I wanted to change. And besides that, I'm nowadays working on a project that is based on economic independence. I realize that financial freedom is just one step of the whole staircase. If people are not able to get a living by themselves

and that feeling of self-worth, that financial freedom, being able to have $10, if you are not even able to earn them, that will cost you everything. So I just want to try to provide a different approach to the Venezuelan crisis right now. Not instead, but besides the donations that are currently happening, I want to focus on the Venezuelan crisis by providing jobs

directly to the Venezuelan people. Basically, it's a freelancer platform, but purely based on Venezuelans in Venezuela and Venezuelans that have migrated. So it's specifically designed for them. They are paid in cryptocurrencies. So that is the project that I'm building right now. The name is Jojob, but I'm currently working to pull off the MVP in the following weeks. So you're still trying to help the Venezuelan people through cryptocurrency? Yeah, I won't stop. I won't stop. That has been my passion.

That is the reason that I went back to my country. That is the reason that I risk everything. And you have to understand it i'm here under asylum and just by even doing that i'm putting my asylum on at risk and and in my country if you saw my story many people in people from the government and both the government and opposition they just didn't believe it they believe it that you know i bought in your time that i i was paying the sources imagine me and nobody controlling such an international media so people just claiming that all of that is bullshit or people talking because of my father that they don't know the story of my father and i you know so so all of these claims, but I know what my ideals are, what I stand for, and I want to stop trying to bail for my country.

Do you think that you'll ever go back to Venezuela? Definitely. Venezuela is my home that is kidnapped by a bunch of savages. That is the Venezuelan regime over there, Maduro and their peers. So my plan is to go back home. And while I'm abroad, I'm not going to wait and stand until everything changes to go back. I'm going to work on solutions for now and not for the future solutions for now for the venezuelan people and be able to somehow on the future um go back to to my home so uh wow um so so much to process that's really just an incredible story is there anything final that you'd like to add that you'd like people to know before we sign off yeah i, I would like to encourage Venezuelans,

especially the international audience that hears you, I would like to encourage companies, innovators, to think in Venezuela now. And not about a donation, not about fundraising and making an airdrop for Venezuela. No, let's think about actual solutions that could be widely adopted and could help the Venezuelan people. Let's innovate. Let's think about the reconstruction on Venezuela, but now, because in 20 years, our politicians haven't been able to pull a solution.

And I don't see that right now happening anytime soon. I think that innovators can make a huge impact. And that's what I want to encourage, especially in the crypto industry. There is so much to do and so much to do right now. So where can people follow you after this to keep up with your story? Well, I'm not very active on social media because I mainly focus on building. But my Twitter is Gabriel Jimenez. So over there, I'm on Twitter.

And you're very welcome to follow me. If you DM me, I always reply. And again, if you are doing something related to Venezuela, I won't even charge for my expertise. Wow. Absolutely incredible story. And you're just so brave in my eyes. And I'm glad you've had, you know, this chance to defend yourself and clear the air. I hope that people will hear your story, even your friends and family and understand why you made the choices you did. And also, you know, on a more selfish level and for the world, why Bitcoin and crypto are really so important in certain places of the world. So I have to thank you for choosing to share your

story with us. Again, we're incredibly flattered and, you know, definitely going to follow you and keep up and would love to have you back on as things progress, because I'm sure that you have very great things still coming in the future and that you're going to truly find your way to help the Venezuelan people. Thank you very much, Scott. And thank you for having me for the first time in your program. Amazing. I've been a big fan of you. I really appreciate that. We will speak soon. Let's go. Amazing. I've been a big fan of you. I really appreciate that. We will speak soon.