We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. On today's show, we have the one and only Mike Peterson, who's the driving force behind the Bitcoin Beach Initiative down in El Salvador. During this episode, we talk about the big international conference that just occurred where 44 different countries and their central banks attended a conference where they discussed Bitcoin legal tender laws and all the considerations that get wrapped into it.

Starting point is 00:00:27 Mike talks about the delegation that then visited. that then visited Bitcoin Beach and conducted immediate Bitcoin lightning transactions and what the various opinions and points of view were coming out of that event. We also talk about the long-term impacts this is having on the population, whether Mike thinks this is replicable in other parts of the world, and much, much more. So without further delay, here's my chat with the one and only Mr. Mike Peterson. You're listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pish.

Starting point is 00:01:04 Hey, everyone, welcome to the show. Like I said in the introduction, I'm here with Mike, Mike Peterson. Mike, welcome to the show. And man, I'm excited to do this. We bumped into each other in Miami. And we were there having a conversation. We both got asked to Orange Pill Tim Tebow in a back room. And we ended up getting into a sidebar conversation and kind of distract.

Starting point is 00:01:37 directing the group by our own sidebar conversation. And man, I was thrilled to meet you because I've heard so much about Bitcoin Beach. And it's such an honor for me to have you here to have this conversation today. So welcome to the show. Thanks. I was stoked to meet you. You're actually, your podcast is one of my favorites. I listen to it every week. And just on a side note, how cool was Tim. I know about down the earth and like legit. I was surprised. Usually when you meet people in person, you're kind of disappointed. I'm not even a football fan, but after meeting him, I was like, wow, that guy is legit. That's what, that's exactly my takeaway, because my wife was there with us and we walked out and I said, that guy's legit.

Starting point is 00:02:17 Like, it's not some, like, you know, marketing thing around that guy. He deeply cares about people and trying to do what's best for them. And he was huge, by the way. Like, I was like, wow, this dude is, that dude would mess me. up. When you can see their muscles rippling through their genes, you know that they're pretty ripped. I was like, dude, this guy is big and he is deeply interested in helping humanity. And I was just, you know, I felt a little honored to meet them. And, you know, I'm not like a fan or anything. I was, you know, Jimmy Song reached out to kind of have a conversation. And I was, it was really neat

Starting point is 00:03:02 meeting him. But anyway, so let's go ahead and let's dive into your story. So you've told your story a lot of times on different podcasts. I just want you to do a quick recap, maybe a Cliff Notes version of your story for folks that maybe aren't familiar with it. And then we'll dive into some other stuff that I think is 44 countries coming to El Salvador about Bitcoin. I mean, there's a lot for us to talk about here. So give people a little bit of your background and kind of how you became this Bitcoin Beach figurehead for this movement that's happening down there. Yeah. So we bought a place in El Salvador about 2005, went there on a surf trip and kind of fell in love with the country and the people. And we'd spend a few months there every year and started

Starting point is 00:03:47 to get to know a number of people that were working in everything from like running children's homes, to have starting churches, to working with drug addicts. And we saw kind of a chance to spend a good part of our year in El Salvador kind of giving back and being involved in some of these projects. And kind of out of that came a desire to impact the community that we were living in, which is Elante. And there was a big gang problem there, a lot of historical poverty. most of the kids grow up without their parents around because they're in the U.S. working. And so we saw an opportunity to start really kind of pouring into some young promising leaders. Jorge Valenzuela was a guy who came to work to us when he was, I think he was in his early 20s when he started.

Starting point is 00:04:32 And we saw he had a real heart and connection with the community. And so we just started pouring into all these programs targeting the youth and trying to help them stay in school, stay out of the gangs, get on the right path in life. And through that, as we were trying to bring money down in different ways, I just kept thinking, man, if we just use Bitcoin, it would be so much easier because it's such a hassle with the AML, KYC laws, just trying to bring cash into the country. I mean, sometimes the best way to bring it in was to fly back to the U.S.

Starting point is 00:05:07 and to bring back $9,800 with you. So, you know, I'm always afraid to report it. the airport there. You don't want to get mugged leaving the airport, but it was, we just saw like how much that was holding back. And then a few years ago, we had somebody make a donation and they actually put the stipulation on it. It was a Bitcoin donation. And they said, hey, you can't just cash us in. You have to actually use it as Bitcoin. And I started thinking about it. I was an economics major in university. I've always been fascinated about, you know, why some countries are successful, why their economic systems work, why others don't.

Starting point is 00:05:44 And so I pitched this idea of, hey, let's take it a step further and actually develop this Bitcoin circular economy that gives these young people some hope and some stake in the future. And the rest is history, world history, as we've seen El Salvador adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. And now we see other countries that, you know, most recently the Central Republic of Africa and their Central African Republic. And then I have a feeling we're going to see several more in the next year or two. I have a question about that later on. So, and for people that aren't familiar, so Jack Mullers came down, integrated with you, Mike,

Starting point is 00:06:24 and then Jack started having conversations with the president and his brother, and then that led a lot to the Bitcoin tender laws. So at the heart of all this was this Bitcoin Beach initiative that you stood up to make this a circular economy around Bitcoin. So when you started pitching this, I'm just curious, when you started pitching this to various people, what was your distribution strategy? And then how did you bring businesses on board to start accepting it? Because I'm sure at first, this was a very hard pitch for people to even, like, what the heck are you pitch in here?

Starting point is 00:06:58 So we really wanted to look at how we could most effectively and efficiently get it out in the population. And so we started looking at different UBI type programs that we could do, we would kind of just do a distribution throughout the community. We did want to put some stipulations on it that it would be more targeted to people that had young kids and the people that were specifically had the needs. It got rolled out sort of like that. We did actually have a little bit different tact. Initially, we started paying the young people in Bitcoin to clean the local river, the beaches, actually start doing some repair work on the homes of the elderly and the community, kind of things where they could feel productive and actually feel like they were earning their

Starting point is 00:07:45 Bitcoin rather than just freely giving it to them. Yeah. And then during the COVID lockdown, we did kind of switch to more of a UBI system because at that point, nobody could work. They couldn't leave their homes and they were going hungry. And so they had a real need to have a way to bring some income in. And they also had a lot of time on their hands. So they had the ability to read about Bitcoin and kind of learn and put the homework in that they needed to be done to really understand it.

Starting point is 00:08:15 And so the COVID lockdown actually accelerated everything we were doing by a significant degree. And did the businesses, they were just open to accept it when the kids and the people that were receiving this just started showing up with, you know, $100 and Bitcoin and they want to buy whatever goods, the businesses were quick to adopt, or did that take some convincing? The first couple, we leaned on our relationships, people that we already knew that we could kind of strong arm into doing it as a favor. And so they were skeptical at first. But once they started seeing the percentage of their income that was coming from Bitcoin,

Starting point is 00:08:55 then they actually ramped up the efforts. They ramped up the advertising. And that just led to FOMO of the neighboring stores. They're wondering, hey, why do they have lines? Why, when everybody else is out of work, are people still lining up to spend at their stores? And they asked how they could onboard. And so it was really a combination of a few early adopters, and then FOMO took it from

Starting point is 00:09:18 there. So $100,000, how long did it take for you to kind of insert that into the local economy? So we've been, that was kind of over a several month period that initial injection went in. And then we've had subsequent injections that have funded, you know, specific programs. We actually started the first lifeguarding program in El Salvador. And so we've done a number of things like that where there was something that was needed in the country. We started paying the people in Bitcoin. And like the lifeguard program, the government eventually took it over and rolled it out countrywide. And so the groups actually saw. super proud of that, that they were the ones that brought professional lifeguarding to El Salvador. Wow. Fascinating. All right. So, Mike, let's jump into the current news. So 44 countries. When I saw this number, and I know that when they did the Bretton Woods Agreement, it was also 44 countries. And Buckely was tweeting this out, but 44 countries show up in El Salvador to learn about Bitcoin. I want to say that this conference was, what, three days long, a week. And the government

Starting point is 00:10:28 El Salvador put this on, very similar to the micro strategy conference that Michael Saylor put together for corporations in the U.S. You see President Buchaley and his economic team put this together. And then I know on the last day, they went out to Bitcoin Beach. And from what I understand, they all had their own digital wallets and were conducting transactions in Bitcoin to kind of see how it worked. Talk to us about everything you know about this conference, because I really don't know that much as to what took place and kind of what the scuttlebut was at the conclusion of it. Yeah. So this conference is put on by like a global organization called AFI. You know, it's kind of like some of those other big, you know, global organizations,

Starting point is 00:11:14 but it doesn't get as much media play because it's made up of kind of the forgotten countries like El Salvador. And so I think there's... I think it's 90 or 89 countries in total, I think, whose central banks are members of this association. And it is, I believe it's the association for financial inclusion. Yeah. Yeah. And so it just so happened that they had already planned on having this meetup in El Salvador even before the Bitcoin law was rolled out. Wow. Once, you know, it was canceled a couple of times because of COVID. And then when they actually went ahead, decided to go forward with it, they really wanted to focus on the Bitcoin adoption because El Salvador was the first one to do that.

Starting point is 00:11:59 Their whole objective for doing that was to increase financial inclusion. And so this was a chance for all these central bankers to better understand what was driving El Salvador to do this, what the results were, and how it might translate into their countries if they were to try to go down that same pathway. And so they reached out to us and asked, hey, can you guys come to the opening meetings of the opening sessions, do a presentation on the history of Bitcoin Beach, how the wallets are used, why this really increases financial inclusion. And then on the final day, can you host everybody, we want to bring them down to

Starting point is 00:12:39 Elzante, have them set up wallets, have them be buying coax and waters at the local store, have them try to send money home to family members that are in their respective countries, have them set up even different wallets. So they're seeing how you can go from one wallet to another because it's this open protocol and how that works so differently than PayPal and Venmo and those sorts of things. And so they really wanted us to be the experiential part of it. And of course, we jumped at the chance. We printed up a bunch of T-shirts and hats and swag.

Starting point is 00:13:13 So that central bankers across the world will be going in to casual, Friday's wearing their Bitcoin Beach shirts. So it actually went way better than we were expecting. I mean, I thought there would be more resistance. The people were just fascinating. They were watching lightning transactions happen. So instantly they were just shocked that, wait, that's it. It's already there. That's all it is. I thought it was much more complicated than this. I thought it took 10 minutes. It was eye opening for them to realize, hey, El Salvador can do this. We can do this. Anybody can do this.

Starting point is 00:13:46 Yeah, how exciting. You know, a little bit of a side note here. It's just too ironic to me that you have the IMF who puts on this presentation as if they're all about financial inclusion and they're doing things to help developing nations and things like this. And how against this they have been directly to El Salvador when it's just an open protocol. It's just an open mathematical crunching thing, like computer code that should effectively pose no threat to anything that they're doing if they're doing things in a fair and reasonable manner. And I think that's the concern and that's the issue, obviously, from our vantage point, right? But I just find it so ironic that they would have such heartburn over everything that's happening down there. And boy, isn't that the signal in all of this?

Starting point is 00:14:46 It's funny because I think that's actually pushing countries to want to understand it better. Exactly. Because they're so upset about this. It's got their hackles up. And most of these countries have pretty mixed to negative history with the IMF. Yes. And so I think there's assumption from a lot of these central banks of, hey, they want to keep us away from this. We need to figure this out.

Starting point is 00:15:10 Exactly. You couldn't have said it any better. What was one of the most interesting stories that you heard out of this event, this Alliance for Financial Inclusion, the AFI event? I think the most interesting thing was for us to have a realization that the central bankers are just normal people. I think a lot of times we put them up on this pedestal. We think that they operated this different level. They're just people with the same insecurities, the same you know, hesitations, the same lack of technological prowess. And so I think that's what one thing was very surprising was how much help these central bankers needed just to download an app where we have these 10-year-old kids in Alzante that

Starting point is 00:15:57 could download 10 apps in the time it took them to set up one wallet. But I think that that was helpful for us to see as we realize that a lot of times it's not even something major. It's these little things, these little hurdles we have to help them get over, and that will turn them from being a skeptic to somebody that realizes, hey, this is the future, this is the way forward. Yeah, isn't that so true? And you're looking at the central bank digital currency talk, and all the tech that has to go into getting something that actually has the technical maturation to release in a way that you don't crash whatever a customer. that you've got going with enough confidence.

Starting point is 00:16:40 And I don't know. I look at that Herculean effort that has to happen with a no-fail type outcome by these central bankers. And I think a lot of them are scared to death to go down that path to move away from the existing system and implement something like that. Fully knowing that if you get any of that centralized code wrong, like, it's going to be disastrous. Absolutely disastrous, right?

Starting point is 00:17:09 And it still has all the drawbacks of the current system they're using. So there's really not that much benefit to it. It solves nothing but their ability to control and interject their ability to cut off a transaction. That's the only thing that it brings, which is no benefit to a citizen. That doesn't benefit you and me or anybody else. If any, it's, it's just a worse money than what already exists. And I think for a lot of these countries, it doesn't even benefit them because then the US or the IMF can actually put more pressure on them and put more friction into the system

Starting point is 00:17:50 than already exists. And it'll actually cause a drag on their economy. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, let's talk about the benefits that you've seen to date because you have been up close and personal with this for multiple years now. And a lot of it has had time to settle in and you're actually seeing what's kind of percolating out of this. So walk us through some of the bigger things that you're seeing that this is created down there in El Salvador to date.

Starting point is 00:18:21 So I'll hit it from two directions. One is on more the micro level with individuals. We see with them, these people who have never considered what money is, who have never saved in their life have never even thought why they should save. They're for the first time asking those questions, what gives this piece of paper value? How does that compare to Bitcoin? And they're starting to think about the opportunity cost of spending versus savings because they're realizing, hey, if these projections we're hearing are correct and this Bitcoin is worth 10x in a few years, I don't want to spend it now. I want to save it. And so it's really turning them from spenders and the saver. So that's more on the micro level. It's also giving them this the sense of hope

Starting point is 00:19:08 that they can actually save and get ahead and not just keep falling behind because inflation is higher than any savings rate, you know, any interest that they can earn at the bank. And so it's really making them optimists instead of pessimists. But what I kind of really want to focus on today with you is more on the macro level, because this is where I think people are really missing the picture is how big of a impact this is having on El Salvador in the long term. People keep focusing on, well, El Salvador bought Bitcoin when it was higher than it is now. They have $30 million in paper losses. This has been a horrible failure and nobody should go down this route. Well, they're talking about this $30 million. They're not talking about the fact that last year they had $1.5 billion more in

Starting point is 00:19:59 private investment than they've ever had in any year before. In fact, private investment was, I think, 18.4% of GDP last year. The previous high that it had ever been was, I think, 15.9%. So they've seen this material increase in investment coming into the country. They're seeing numerous companies come in, set up legal entities, and we're just in the first innings. They're just trying to staff up now. I think there's probably been a couple couple thousand jobs created, directly created in the Bitcoin sector that will translate into probably 100,000 jobs in two years from now. And this is in a country of, you know, six, seven million people. So this is very material. And even bigger than those things is how it's changed the whole narrative

Starting point is 00:20:47 about El Salvador. It used to be, I couldn't get people to come visit me in El Salvador. They're like, no, I'm going to get killed. All I've heard about El Salvador is gangs. They have the highest murder rate. they literally overnight changed the narrative from gangs and murder rate to Bitcoin adoption, tech sector, becoming the financial center of Latin America. They've, I mean, you couldn't pay, you could not pay a publicity agent a billion dollars and have that type of results. I mean, just the, just one example, the 60 Minutes episode that we did last month. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:25 And that's worth literally tens of millions of dollars in positive publicity to the country. And that was just one out of hundreds of news agencies that have done big features on El Salvador. And so that's what people are missing. They're focused on this $39 million in paper losses and not these billions and billions of dollars of value that's been literally created overnight in the brand of El Salvador. Unrealized losses at that. Yeah. And I think in five years, even that, nobody's going to be talking about because they'll be gains. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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Starting point is 00:26:26 exciting. And I think if so people that might be listening to this from the U.S. or over in Europe or whatever, there's, because I hear this all the time, people are like, those numbers are small potatoes, Mike. Like, that's what your typical Wall Street or whoever that's listening to this are saying, those numbers are small potatoes. That's nothing in the global scheme of things. But Where I think that person is just so wrong is this is a shift, an incentive structure that can be replicated if a country decides to replicate it. So you had mentioned earlier that you think that there's a couple more countries that are going to come out here and maybe by years end or whatever that are going to start announcing

Starting point is 00:27:09 similar things. What are you hearing on that front? Definitely a lot of countries are watching El Salvador and they're watching how this plays out, specifically other Central American countries because it's right on their doorstep. When people talk about, oh, those are small numbers, you have to keep in mind that the total GDP of El Salvador is only like $30 billion. So a $1.5 billion swing in private investment is huge. They had an increase in tourism over projections of like $700 million last year. Those are big numbers.

Starting point is 00:27:43 Those move the needles. And we're just in the like first inning of this. Companies are just figuring out how they can staff up. They're setting up their legal entities. They're trying to scale. This is something that is going to, you know, we're going to see 20-fold this in a few years. And that's what people miss is we're still in the first year here. Like if you look at when Singapore, you know, made it.

Starting point is 00:28:11 kind of sprint to become what it has today. It was nowhere near as fast as this has happened in El Salvador. Like, this is going to be, look like whiplash speed when you're looking at it 10 years from now. Where right now people, you know, criticize, oh, it's so slow. You know, I've seen tons of articles saying, oh, only 20% of businesses are using Bitcoin. 20% of business is using Bitcoin. Like, I don't know for sure that those are the accurate stats, but I'd be thrilled with those stats. I mean, that's huge to have 20% of businesses using Bitcoin. They'll say, oh,

Starting point is 00:28:46 only 5% of the transactions are in Bitcoin. I mean, that's much bigger than credit cards were when they were first rolled out. I mean, this is happening at a speed that we have not seen anywhere in history. I agree with you. I think the important point here is the financial rails are being laid. The templates for businesses and countries are being set, those protocols for how this is done are now in place. And now you just kind of need the spark to create the incentive for others to kind of follow down this path. It's already been laid and it's already laid out there for them to follow. And so, you know, we talk about it on this show all the time. It's all this macro backdrop. It's this fixed income market that's negative yields in real

Starting point is 00:29:36 terms to the tune of $100 trillion. And it don't seem to like it's going to be getting better anytime soon is going to be that financial push that eventually pushes everybody to these tracks and these financial rails that are being laid and I don't want to call it experimental because it's it's very real down there. But as far as people saying the numbers aren't, you know, offsetting, I don't think that you have the financial incentive. I don't think you have the obvious financial incentive for people to start moving to these rails yet, but I think you might be moving there very quickly in the coming five to 10 years. And that's what I think is just so important about this story. It's just, it's fascinating.

Starting point is 00:30:20 It's fascinating. People are creatures of habit, especially when it comes to their money. So I'm actually shocked that we've seen the amount of adoption that we had because people don't like to change things, you know, if they're kind of working for them. But that's the thing. This was not working for so many people. And that's why we're seeing what I would say is fantastic adoption so early. And I would be very scared if I were Western Union or any of these companies that have made this their market. They're going to have to adapt or they're going to die. Talk to us about the remittance. I know this is something that Jack Mahler talks about a ton. What does some of those numbers look like? Do you know any of them off the top of your head?

Starting point is 00:31:04 I don't know any off the top of my head. I still think it's probably like less than 5% of the remittance market is happening in Bitcoin. But the remittance market in El Salvador is billions of dollars. And so these incremental changes, it's something where it doesn't look like that much. And then a year from now, it's like, wait, how did we get here? We have half of these remittances coming over Bitcoin rails. We're saving the poorest of the poor, literally hundreds of millions of dollars. and not just the money, the convenience.

Starting point is 00:31:36 Now they can get it direct to their home. They can send it to the store and have a delivery boy come and deliver the food to them. They can have Amazon-like services that they would never be able to have if they had to wait, though they could adopt credit cards or something like that because most of them would never qualify. Yeah, it's going to spread. Word gets out fast when you don't have to go stand in the line for 30 minutes or an hour. and all those benefits that you're highlighting. So you've never had a meeting with a billionaire until this past year,

Starting point is 00:32:09 and then all of a sudden you have a meeting with three different billionaires in the past year. Talk to us about this experience and, you know, what, you know, produced this? And then tell us about someone like the questions, and you don't have to name them if you don't want to. But, you know, just tell us this story. What in the world's going on with this? I mean, it just goes back to everything we've been talking about before, like the world's eyes are on El Salvador, all these companies and wealthy individuals who, quite frankly, couldn't have pointed out El Salvador on a map a couple years ago, now feel they need to have an El Salvador strategy. They want to get boots on the ground, see what's happening here, see how they can actually help. They're not just looking what they can gain from it. They actually want to be part of this because they, see this as being something transformational. They realize El Salvador is a small country. It's not going to maybe move the needle for them financially, but El Salvador is the first to adopt,

Starting point is 00:33:13 and it could move the needle as far as Bitcoin adoption. I mean, it already has moved the needle. And so I think they want to make sure that it works. And so, yeah, it's been a humbling experience. You know, we're in Al-Zante, this small beach town of 3,000 people. And I've never met a billionaire here before and now, you know, it's a regular occurrence for them to come through town, to want to sit down, to want to understand what's going on, how they can help, how they can participate. And I think it just goes to show like this is the benefit that has come from the Bitcoin adoption. This is why it's going to be transformational to El Salvador because it's opening all these doors, it's opening an investment and it's bringing in good paying jobs. And that's when

Starting point is 00:33:57 People focus on Bitcoin price. They're missing all that. What's happened with all of this activity that's happening where you got 44 countries coming out to Bitcoin Beach. And when we started the conversation, you were talking about that local community and how you were there to try to create a spark. Well, you didn't create a spark. You created a bonfire. And maybe that's an understatement. What's the community think right now if you were going to take the pulse? Just to circle back one. thing I wanted to mention on the 44 central bankers that were there. It was interesting watching their reaction to being able to make these transactions and buy things with Bitcoin versus

Starting point is 00:34:40 Americans. Americans are kind of used to being able to do those sorts of things. It seems like no big deal. I could do this with Venmo. For them, it was amazing that they could themselves do this without having to qualify for any account with an open protocol that could be easily transported to their own country. And so I think it was kind of a lightball moment for them. And that goes to show like how it's impacted the whole community in Elzante. Like this has made the people in Elzante feel a lot of them for the first time, like they are not in some forgotten backwater, but they're actually leading the world forward. Yes. Yeah. It used to be everybody there was planning to try to sneak into the U.S. or, you know, a lot of them were joining the gang. Now they feel

Starting point is 00:35:26 like, hey, there's all these expats wanting to come to Al-Azante. There's all these business opportunities here. I'm super fortunate to be Salvadoran, to have a Salvadoran passport. I live in the country that these other people are wanting to spend potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to acquire this passport. I already have it. I'm going to take advantage of it and build a business here. And so we're seeing the vast majority of locals kind of sense that opportunity and want to make sure that they, you know, defer gratification, that they put the hard work in now so that it can benefit long run from that. I love it. I could imagine the look on the central bankers face as they were, you know, spending SATs immediately and non-KYC

Starting point is 00:36:14 wallets and then zapping it back to wherever they're from and kind of looking at each other thinking, we're not going to be able to stop this. This is going to be on. stopable, right? I can just imagine that sense that you get because I think, I know for me, the first time I set up my full node, I had my own wallet, I'm routing it through my node, and I'd call a friend and I'd be like, hey, download this wallet. I said, what did you notice when you downloaded the wallet? And they'd be like, oh, I don't know. I kind of did it. Did you have to put your name or anything into this? No, I didn't. Okay, now watch this. I'm going to send you five bucks, right? And boom, and just send it off. And it immediately arrives.

Starting point is 00:36:54 as we're like having the conversation on the phone. And it's just kind of this realization you can hear it over the phone. I can only imagine as they were witnessing this down there altogether. It's unstoppable. That's the thing you walk away when you have that experience. And for people that are listening to this, if you haven't played around with lightning and done this immediate settlement with a thing you can download on your phone right now as you're listening to this, boy, oh boy, you start playing around with you, you realize real

Starting point is 00:37:23 fast, like, how can anybody stop that? How can anybody stop? And you can't? That's part of why I think lightning is such a game changer. When you have to wait for a confirmation and you're showing somebody that, it kind of feels a little wonky. But when they see that, you know, they hear that immediate ping on their end that they received it, I haven't met a single person that I've onboarded and had to do a lightning transaction that still thought, nah, this Bitcoin thing's not going to go anywhere. I mean, literally, once they do a transaction, they're hooked. And so for a lot of these central bankers, some of them will go back and they'll start pushing,

Starting point is 00:38:01 hey, we can drive our country in this direction. We can be number three or number four. We can make history. We can invite investment. There's others that, you know, aren't going to take that initiative. But when somebody else in their country starts driving it, they'll be less likely to want to try to stop it because they'll be less afraid of it. They'll understand it. They'll see the potential of it.

Starting point is 00:38:22 And so I think we're going to see this play out in these 44 countries and, you know, in very different ways. But I guarantee that several of them within the next five years will have adopted Bitcoin. Yeah. There's a huge advantage to be a first mover in this, to have the plumbing and have the rails laid with so much, with so many bills for most people, denominated in, you know, fiat currencies that are much more stable in the buying power, you know, most people's bills, very few people have much disposable income. And so to be placing

Starting point is 00:38:59 a lot of your net worth or whatever in this when you don't have a lot of disposable income, you can see why the adoption is slow. And it comes down to these ideas that if you're having to pay the electric bill and you're having to pay a mortgage and you have to pay all these things, you don't want to convert it into Bitcoin and have to swap it back with the volatility that's there. But I think as these things that we talk about, like the bond market, like I mentioned earlier, start to really debase and start to really heat up, which I think is coming here in the coming five years, it's going to become much more obvious to people that they've

Starting point is 00:39:39 got to retain whatever disposable income that they have into this. thing called Bitcoin. And so these countries that you're talking about that lay that architecture and that foundation early are going to be the biggest beneficiaries of this financial shift and this change that we seem to be very confident as is on the horizon. Well, and I think during that transition period, that's why it's so important to have like the ability within the Chevo wallet that they can hold it in dollars or strike. We're actually getting ready to roll that option out within the Bitcoin Beach wallet. And so we see that as a bridge. When people first get into it, they'll choose to hold mostly dollars. But over time, we see them gradually put more and more in Bitcoin

Starting point is 00:40:26 until they become like me, where they just want to hold everything in Bitcoin. And so I think, and I think this is actually the most opportune time in kind of a down cycle for people to be learning those lessons, to be getting their feet wet, getting burnt a few times. And I understand that. so that when we come into the next bull market, like, they're going to be primed and ready to go. Yeah. For businesses, I mean, just look at micro strategy. From a business standpoint, Michael sweep in whatever free cash flows he's got into Bitcoin. All the other stuff, you've got to keep it in dollars so that you can pay whatever those fixed expenses are and your variable expenses for the business.

Starting point is 00:41:06 And then you just sweep whatever your free cash flow for the individual, it's your disposable income. That's those free cash flows. That's what you should be sweet. sweeping into Bitcoin and the rest, these wallets that are going to enable this in stable coins, I think are going to be the wallets that really kind of dominate the space because it gives that person, that optionality to, hey, you know, I can retain 10% of what I earn each month. And that's what's going into Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:41:33 The rest remains into that until you get this really big move. And then, you know, people just want to be paid in Bitcoin. And, you know, you and I, Mike, we obviously think that. is coming and, you know, it's just a matter of when. But it's really fascinating to see how important it is that we have the El Salvador's. We have the micro strategies kind of demonstrating and providing a template to the world for when that day potentially comes. If we didn't have people.

Starting point is 00:42:04 And I think we're seeing more and more interest. Even this past week after all the central bankers left, there was another delegation from Senegal that was there actually researching the surf industry in El Salvador because they have surf in Senegal and they want to kind of replicate El Salvador's success. And they were just fascinated by the actual potential of Bitcoin tourism and the boom that El Salvador is seen from that. So they came and spent the day. They want to, there was a mayor from a small island off of the capital of Senegal that he wants to kind of roll out a similar thing. And so we're seeing this kind of constant inflow of inquiries of people wanting to have that advantage they see El Salvador having.

Starting point is 00:42:51 And I think another place where the game theory comes into effect is just understanding what drives politicians. Politicians love to see their name in the news. They love to see, you know, to be in the headlines. They love, especially if it's the big papers, the Wall Street journals, the 60 Minutes, the, you know, the CBS. the Fox News, those things. And so they're realizing, wow, just by adopting Bitcoin, El Salvador has really catapulted itself into a country that everybody knows about. I would say Naïve Kelle is one of the most recognizable presidents, you know, outside

Starting point is 00:43:30 of the U.S. and some of the, maybe the big five, to have a small country like that, to have the name recognition that the president has is phenomenal. And so I think that's going to be a driving factor, you know, along with the other things of them realizing, hey, I can put my name in the history books. I can go down as one of the first adopters that brought my country out of this kind of decades of financial repression. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up and customers now expect proof of security just to do business. That's why Vanta is a game VANTA automates your compliance process and brings compliance, risk, and customer trust together

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Starting point is 00:47:32 latching onto it. I'm curious, have you ever had engagements with President Bukaley? So the only engagement I've had with the president was on a Twitter spaces that was actually the night of the law being signed. And so that was the only direct engagement. We've had a lot of engagement with the Minister of Tourism, the Minister of Economy. And more recently, the Minister of Education, we're working with the Education Ministry to roll out a countrywide program of Bitcoin education starting from seventh grade on. So they want to do financial education, you know, primarily focused on Bitcoin across all the public schools. And we're working with my first Bitcoin, which is another nonprofit here doing Bitcoin education, to develop this curriculum. There will really be the first in the world.

Starting point is 00:48:21 I mean, really the first. Most countries don't do any financial education in the public schools. So not only they're doing financial education, they're doing Bitcoin-focused financial education. And that's what we need to develop, you know, the talent for the digital education. jobs that were flowing into El Salvador. To be quite honest, that is one of the bottlenecks right now, is there's so many countries that want to be attached to the name of El Salvador, to the phenomenon that's happening here, but they're having trouble staffing up quick enough because there's so much demand for these more highly talented programmers and people in the

Starting point is 00:48:56 space. And so El Salvador is trying to ramp up their education. There's a number of nonprofits that are stepping in that are doing different courses to develop this workforce that these companies are demanding. You have a housing project going on down there. Talk to us a little bit about this. So we have two very different and very exciting housing projects that we're working on. One is a social initiative that we're doing an affordable housing. We want to make sure that with all the development that's happening in El Salvador, specifically Elante, that the locals participate, that they're not pushed out to the margins. And so we have combined forces with

Starting point is 00:49:36 New Story. It's a very innovative, you know, housing focused nonprofit. And we're going to do, it's going to be between three to 500 homes in Elzante that will be Bitcoin only mortgages. So now the mortgages won't be denominated in Bitcoin. We wouldn't want to saddle anybody with that. They'll be denominated in dollars, but they'll make their monthly payments in Bitcoin. And that's going to allow a new story to significantly reduce the cost of servicing loans to low-income individuals. In the past, they've found sometimes just servicing the loans can cost 40% of the loan payments that are coming in because on a bank accounts, they have to go out and collect in person. It's very labor intensive. And so this is going to allow them to be much more efficient.

Starting point is 00:50:24 And it's going to allow the individuals buying the homes to have a record of all the payments they've made. They can pay from sitting on their couch, and it'll also obviously increase demand for Bitcoin in the local community. So we're super excited about that. Wow. So whatever the conversion rate is, their monthly payments denominate in dollars. So let's just say that the payments $1,000 a month.

Starting point is 00:50:50 They take that $1,000. They immediately swap it into Bitcoin. And whatever that conversion rate is, the person who lent the money is receiving that back in Bitcoin. And that's, yeah. And so just for a frame of reference, the payments are $60 a month. So these are payments that even these people making $3 to $400 a month, they'll be able to afford to own their own home to be able to pay it off over a 15-year period with an interest-free loan. Then those funds that are repaid will go to fund the next housing project. And so we're super excited about it. Actually,

Starting point is 00:51:24 Coinbase donated $2.5 million to fund this program. So I know CoinBes, base sometimes gets knocked on within the Bitcoin space, but our hats are off to them for kind of stepping up and really putting their money where their mouth is to support this project. And we're super excited about that. The other project that we're doing is going to be more focused on the expat Bitcoin community, people that are looking for second homes, looking for a plan B, or just want to get out of the U.S. or Canada or Australia, which I get inundated. with DMs from people that they want to escape. They want to come to El Salvador. And so we're going to do a pretty substantial project there in El Zante in the hills,

Starting point is 00:52:11 amazing ocean views, anywhere from 200,000 to a million dollar homes in that community. And it's going to be Bitcoin only. I mean, the payments are all in Bitcoin. The HOAs will be in Bitcoin. This is going to be a gathering place for Bitcoiners who want to live their life in Bitcoin. Wow. I can only imagine the emails, Mike. Just a follow up on that that kind of shows how much investments coming into El Salvador because of this law. It was actually a little over a year ago at the, or I guess it was about a year ago at the Bitcoin Conference in Miami before the law was announced. There was a developer, real estate developer in the commercial hall. and they had a couple projects in Nicaragua and Honduras, and they were denominated in Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:53:02 And so I went and talked to them. Actually, the president of the company was there. So I came back to have a meeting with him and explained about the Bitcoin Beach project and that we had this vision to do a Bitcoin-only housing development. And would they be interested in coming and looking and maybe partnering with that or trying to do something? And he said, you know, I'll be honest. It sounds exciting. But El Salvador, it's maybe on our 10-year roadmap, but it's just not a place where we see a lot of demand right now.

Starting point is 00:53:32 And it's probably not something we'd be interested in. But here, here's my number. Let's keep in touch. If I can help in any way, let me know. And later that afternoon, the video came on and Buckelly made the announcement that El Salvador was adopting Bitcoin. The next day, I got a call from this individual. and he said, hey, we're all, our whole team is coming next week. We're moving forward on El Salvador.

Starting point is 00:53:58 This is going to be our focus to build this community. And right now, this is a $100 million, you know, project that they're looking to do, which in a country like El Salvador, where the total economy in a year is about $30 billion, I mean, $100 million is significant. And that's one little part, just one little of these hundreds and hundreds of, you know, big projects that are moving forward that are benefiting, bringing jobs, benefiting the economy, and really driving El Salvador forward. Unreal.

Starting point is 00:54:29 Talk to us about the volcano mining and kind of your thoughts on the energy and whether this is going to materialize into much. The volcano bonds, I mean, the volcano, yeah, the volcano bonds and the Bitcoin City aspect, I think is a brilliant marketing campaign. I love the narrative. I love the thought of being able to mine with energy that doesn't produce any emissions. I have my skepticism. I have my doubts on weather, the combination of the warm weather in El Salvador, and then the

Starting point is 00:55:04 current cost of electricity, I don't know if it's ever going to become like a mining epicenter. I know for myself right now I pay about 30, I think it's about 30 cents a kilowatt for electricity in my home, which is about what I pay in my hometown of San Diego. And so neither of those, you know, obviously those rates are not going to entice miners. No. I do know for the volcanoes, you know, obviously they're locating right at the source. They can kind of be behind the meter. They don't have the transmission costs. I'm not an expert in hydro steam power. I don't know if they can really be competitive. I would guess it's going to be more of a niche.

Starting point is 00:55:47 thing, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong on that. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that develops. And you're very right. Like, Bitcoin mining just goes to where the cheapest energy, that's the beauty of it. I mean, it's just attracted. Those rigs are just attracted to the areas that you can get six cent per kilowatt hour, four cent per kilowatt hour. Those rigs are just going to show up in those locations. So, yeah, we'll see how it, we'll see how it develops. I do think the, the, the, the, the, issue, which has been tied to that, I think that is a whole other story. I think that is actually going to revolutionize the world financial system. If this goes off as I expect it will, I mean, I think that will be what drives a lot of countries to adopt Bitcoin because it could be done

Starting point is 00:56:36 in a way that for the early, you know, obviously it's not going to be sustainable for everybody. You'll get to the point where the early gains will already be had. But I think for the early adopters that are doing this while Bitcoin still has a long way to run, I think they're going to actually be able to pay off their national debt while borrowing money. I think it's going to be, I mean, mind blowing. Talk to us about how replicable you think Bitcoin Beach is in other locations. You said you had a couple people reach out to you to try to do this in their domains, but how replicable is it what you've done? Like what's needed? I think it's super replicable. I mean, I'm nobody. I'm not a tech person. I'm not some high

Starting point is 00:57:22 power to executive. I was just somebody stupid enough to believe that this could be done and that people would want to spend Bitcoin on their daily coffee. And so if I can do it, literally anybody can do it. And right now, we are really focused on kind of making Bitcoin Beach a worldwide initiative and supporting, there's a number of other great projects, a lot of them run by people, you know, much more talented than myself that just haven't had the media exposure and maybe the financial resources to get the momentum that we were able to get. So right now, that's kind of where I'm focusing on all my efforts. There's a very exciting project in South Africa and Musa Bay called Bitcoin Akasi.

Starting point is 00:58:08 And so many parallels to the Bitcoin Beach story, it's also a very exciting project. surf town, they actually had an existing surf-focused nonprofit that they integrated Bitcoin in with. They're seeing, I think they have a half dozen stores now that are onboarded. They're rolling out educational initiatives. They've actually started a lifeguard initiative like we did where they're paying the lifeguards in Bitcoin. And so for me, there's no bigger joy than seeing this, you know, come out of Al-Zante, come out of El Salvador, this lighten this hope, and go into a place like South Africa. There's another initiative in Guatemala, Bitcoin Lake, that's kind of a similar thing. A big initiative in Peru that actually has a ton of traction. They've onboarded, I think,

Starting point is 00:58:55 like a hundred stores. They have a couple thousand people using Bitcoin. The initiative's called motive. And it's, I'm surprised that the limited press coverage it's gotten because they've actually, I think, are doing more than we're even doing in El Salvador. So there's, you know, There's a project in Brazil. There's a Bitcoin Beach spinoff in Guatemala. There's Bitcoin jungle in Costa Rica. And so in true Bitcoin fashion, it's decentralized. It's not, we're not like some head organization that people run through.

Starting point is 00:59:25 They're doing their own thing. And we're behind the scenes helping support them and kind of push. And when we have extra resources, we push them their way. So I'm curious, Mike. Do you have a 501c3 here in the U.S. that people can make donations to that, you know, say somebody wants to send you $10,000 in Bitcoin, how would they do that? Do they get a tax right off if they're in the U.S.? How are you guys operating that? Yeah, so we do have a kind of an umbrella nonprofit in the U.S.

Starting point is 00:59:55 It's more focused on what our initial work, which was supporting different churches and working with different missionaries. That's kind of what this spun out of. And so we still have that available for people that want a tax write-off that want to give to the local programs, you know, specifically to the Bitcoin programs. And we'll keep it in Bitcoin if, you know, that's generally what we try to do. But a lot of people in the Bitcoin space will just want to give directly. And so we'll send them a QR code or a lot of times we'll actually encourage them, hey, we have enough right now for this month. Send it to the project in South Africa because they're being held back by lack of resources and they'll actually be able to get more.

Starting point is 01:00:35 more bang for the sat right now than we will because we're set for the month. And so we're really trying to be open-handed about it and make sure we're spreading these resources to all of these projects. Is there a site that kind of lays out all these other initiatives that are happening that are similar to yours that a person can kind of see, you know, the 10 different major efforts that are taking place and which one that they can kind of reach out to to, do you know, of anything that lays that out? We're working on that right now. I'm embarrassed to say that it's not up yet, but that will be on our Bitcoinbeach.com website.

Starting point is 01:01:13 We're in the planning process right now. We'll actually have a landing page and links for them to donate to all of those, you know, organizations directly. We feel it's always better for them to go directly if they feel comfortable. Some people would rather turn it over to us and sense that we have a better idea of who needs it most. But I like the direct contact. I like for people to feel like they're giving directly. Then they can go to South Africa and help do the English classes and participate in these things directly. But within the next month, that will be up on our Bitcoin Beach website.

Starting point is 01:01:48 Okay. Most of our listeners are from the future. So if you're listening to this, in the future. If you're listening to this in the future, go there now, and I bet you it's up on the site. this is phenomenal, Mike. I can just tell you from a person watching from afar, it's just so impressive to see what you've done. And just you've lit in a fire that is just spreading a torch, you know, and you're just lighting these torches all over the world. And I mean, look at what's just happened in El Salvador. And now it's happening in all these different countries. You've got countries showing up, learning about this, coming out to your site.

Starting point is 01:02:29 what an exciting time. I mean, you just have to feel like almost like pinch me. Like, how in the world is this real? How in the world is this played out? And in the timeline that it's played out. Like, how long have you been down there? So we've been down in El Salvador for about 10 years, but this project was only rolled out in 2019.

Starting point is 01:02:50 So it's really been shocking how quickly it has rolled out. And it's funny, I actually went back. and I had written a white paper of sorts to present to the original donor that funded these things. And I laid out this very aggressive timeline of all these things that were going to happen. And I'm shocked, like all those things actually happened as I described them and even faster. And so it's, I'm actually going to probably try to publish that in the next couple months here. Because I think people will realize, like, this was a very stupid idea from a naive individual. who thought they could do this and it worked. So if I can do it, if our small team of

Starting point is 01:03:35 most of the people had never even left the village of Elante and they were able to drive this worldwide phenomenon, then anybody can do this. You just got to step out out of your comfort zone and, you know, do the work. Have you had a conversation with the original donor? Yeah, just through cryptic text messages. I've never met the donor. I don't even know if it's a man or a woman. And so, but I have had some email messages back and forth. And, yeah, obviously they're thrilled about what's happening. Unbelievable.

Starting point is 01:04:09 Unbelievable. And it's shocking for, I mean, it was a very generous donation, but in comparison to the impact that it's had. Oh, it's unreal. I can't think of anything else in the world that's had this like million-fold ripple effect impact. And it's so fitting for Bitcoin. I mean, it's so Satoshi-esque. It's just right in the line with all that that, you know, somebody that doesn't want any credit, doesn't even want to be known who they are, kind of spurred this whole thing. Unbelievable.

Starting point is 01:04:39 I'm speechless. Okay, so the Bitcoin Beach website, we're going to have this in the show notes. Is there anything else that you want to have added into the show notes, Mike, that you want people to be able to ping? Because they're going to hear this. They're going to be interested. They're going to want to maybe donate and participate and be the next 100,000. and donor that creates another massive spark in the world. What do you got for them?

Starting point is 01:05:04 So we're really more active on Twitter than anything else. I mean, the web page is more of a landing page. We're trying to be better about it. But Twitter is where we're up to date on everything. And then it's also, too, when people want to donate, we can, if we have our budget met for that month, we can push them directly to some of these other initiatives. and so Twitter is really the best place to follow us. Okay, fantastic.

Starting point is 01:05:30 I know you're very active there. You're very responsive. So just look Bitcoin Beach. Wow, very exciting. Mike Peterson, thank you for joining us. We will have that in the show notes. If there's anything I can do to help out in the future, please let me know. Well, when are you going to come down?

Starting point is 01:05:46 I mean, we shouldn't be doing this remotely. You should be doing this in person. I am going to come down. I need to get my travel straight. I got a bunch of trips lined up, but I am going to come down there, and I look forward to that trip a whole lot. Come down for the adopting Bitcoin conference in November. I don't surf, though. Hey, we've got the best instructors, so we'll get you out there.

Starting point is 01:06:11 I promise you I will be a disaster on a surfboard. The water's 85 degrees. Even if you're a disaster, you'll have fun and enjoy it. So that's what's so great about surfing in El Salvador. Mike, thank you. Thank you so much for your time and coming on the show. It was a privilege, Preston. Can't wait to see you down there in Alante.

Starting point is 01:06:30 Yes, sir. If you guys enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show on whatever podcast application you use. Just search for We Study Billionaires. The Bitcoin-specific shows come out every Wednesday, and I'd love to have you as a regular listener. If you enjoyed the show or you learned something new or you found it valuable, if you can leave a review, we would really appreciate that.

Starting point is 01:06:52 it's something that helps others find the interview in the search algorithm. So anything you can do to help out with a review, we would just greatly appreciate. And with that, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you again next week. Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses, or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson

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