Can Bitcoin Be El Salvador’s Lifesaver As Bukele And Bitfinex Think It Is? | Paolo Ardoino

Live from Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte, El Salvador, Paolo Ardoino, a familiar figure in the Bitcoin, space discusses how El Salvador, being a pioneer in integrating Bitcoin into their economy, remains a model for other countries to do the same adoption for their economic development. This places El Salvador as an attractive destination for companies and Bitcoin enthusiasts for relocation or expansion, and possibly become a global hub for digital innovation.

El Salvador gets all the praise for their openness to using Bitcoin as a legal tender and its continuous efforts for the betterment of the country through financial innovation and economic reforms. With many countries facing economic crisis, El Salvador remains a beacon of inspiration for being proactive and change-driven, a model for future development.

In this conversation, Ardoino introduces his company and how Tether (USDT) works in emerging markets, challenging traditional banking and finance. Projects like Tether provide decentralization, financial inclusivity, and stability for the rest of the population. Digital currency is an important alternative to the traditional banking system, letting even the unbanked population experience stability and accessibility. Ardoino’s vision and commitment to leverage Bitcoin technology show his full dedication to the principles of the Bitcoin movement. 

With different technological advancements addressing decentralization, a financial revolution is truly underway. From decentralized communications that safeguard privacy and freedom to developing more talents that can empower the local tech industry, all these innovations are meant to show endless possibilities when communities and technology unite and align. 

You can find Paolo here:
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Live From Bitcoin Beach

Transcript

Paolo Ardoino  
If you are a company right now and a company that of course is almost geography independent, and you are looking where to relocate or where to open an office, I would recommend El Salvador one hundred percent. It's a safe country first of all, and I think this is one of the best thing that happened in last two years, right. So if you are inviting your co-workers here, you want to make sure that they are safe, right with people around. The streets have an ice cream at night and enjoy their lives. The country is beautiful. The nature is beautiful. There are beaches like here in El Zonte that are incredible.

Mike Peterson  
Paulo, we're seeing quite a bit of you and El Salvador these days, is there a new home for you or whether we can look forward to?

Paolo Ardoino  
Yeah, well, first of all, thank you very much for for inviting me. And I really like El Salvador. I think the entire team, our company is really love the place. There is, we feel like is a unique opportunity for Bitcoiners. But actually, for people that are looking for a new home, as I think tweeted a few days ago, it's a country that is going is changing the direction compared to all the other countries that are or the majority of the countries that I visited recently. So I'm a European, I'm Italian. I spend most of my life in Europe. And so how Europe started to devolving, unfortunately, in the 80s was I was born in 84 was great. Everyone was happy. Things were working. Then more and more the country or the European Union started to go towards financial issues, money, you know, economical downfall. Security issues we are seeing like cities like Milan, Paris, Rome, London, that are becoming extremely dangerous. People are upset. The availability of jobs is not what was before. So I think we can describe Europe as as stagnating. Then I had the luck to start traveling quite a lot. And I visited, I came to El Salvador.

Mike Peterson  
I remember when we had we talked the first time you're hearing you said you actually hadn't traveled that much up to that time because when you were younger, you know, the the funds were short, but then you were just so busy with with tether blowing up the way that it has. And so have you had some more time to travel now?

Paolo Ardoino  
Yes. In the last two years, I travel really a lot. I mean, never stopped always on a plane. And El Salvador is the country where things are happening now. First of all, I think in general, the region Central and South America are the eastern region where you can see change, change in a positive way. Again, Europe stagnating, you can see here, people are trying something different or trying to become to emerge from this from, you know, the past decades of economical financial issues. And when I see El Salvador, I think is the culmination of this movement is a small country. And I think that the evolution the next renaissance of humanity will come from small countries. 

Paolo Ardoino  
Unfortunately, the countries are too slow to change direction, they, it's hard for them to put up the reforms that are important to bring them back to their original wealth to the origin of economical growth. El Salvador is, instead in a different situation small country has has a reelected government and a precedent that has been known for the law in the last four years to make real change, to increase security, to make reforms, economic reforms to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. They are to do things that no one else did. So when you look around and you want to find a new home, you don't want to be in a place that will just, you know, go down the beam or just remain exactly as it is for the next 10 to 20 years. I'm a little bit pessimistic on the, you know, with the word and sorry for the spoil, you know, exploiting the mood, but we need the word out.

Paolo Ardoino  
I feel like the word is going towards their action where for one side you have social unrest because, you know, people are, you know, as I said in Europe, but also I can see North America are upset, right. So, you know, in certain cities also in North America are become more dangerous. LA, San Francisco, I have many friends there. And you know, there are many social issues. Same applies to Europe, as I said, and look, this won't have ended up well. You add that to economical crisis, countries are print printing like crazy, even the US that has the most US currency, the US dollar, they print the $2 trillion in 2023, 2020 and 2023 by the way, it was a year that where nothing happened.

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, the economy there was no recession, the economy is doing well, there's no, you know, no war that was, you know, officially involved in but still just crazy deficits.

Paolo Ardoino  
Yes. And so, and that is the best country because if you look around like Europe, with even Germany, that is the most efficient air, each country in Europe is having serious problems with many steel factories had to close or oppose their production, because of problems with energy and so on. Of course, there is a war against between Russia and Ukraine, but all these things are putting a lot of pressure on people. The gap between poor and rich is increasing, increasing like never before. Then you have the population the number of of newborns are is going down, you have the unemployment is going up. 

Paolo Ardoino  
And then you have things like artificial intelligence, that can really enter in the market and start, you know, removing jobs from, you know, from people that, you know, maybe they are doing, you know, not normal, normal job is and so, it feels like all together, it can is like powder that can is getting more and more nearby to to the fire and, and the political, the political movement, and the government's are not doing anything. They're just watching, they're just focusing on minor issues. On you know, on fortunately, you know, when I'm sure that some some listener won't like it, but you know, the walkies men and so on. He's coming to Europe as well. And I always be quite popular.

Mike Peterson  
Everything's falling out. And they're, they're arguing about how many genders there is, and this craziness.

Paolo Ardoino  
I like that everyone can do and say whatever they want, right? So it's not the problem of, you know, genders and so on. I mean, there, who cares? I mean, the ward is free the board is a beautiful. 

Mike Peterson  
And be the thing that government is focused on.

Paolo Ardoino  
Yes, so many resources, panting all on all these matters when people are upset, when people have big problems, they don't know about their future. In Italy, if you work like 40 years, you can forget about the pension. So you work, you pay taxes, and at the end if you can have high taxes up to 60%. And then if you're lucky, you know, the average salary is 1.2 thousand euros. But if you are lucky, you will get after 40 years work. And on a 400 euros per month in pension, but you really feel like it, you know, the health care, the quality of health care in Europe also is going down, right? Taxes are going up like you can imagine I get what I'm saying is he's explosive power powder getting more and more nearby higher. It is true. 

Paolo Ardoino  
And then you come to El Salvador and see actually things that are changing feels like to be in an arc, right? So a new found art that is being built by wise people. Of course, starting from the government, if the government is not aligned, you cannot do anything, right. So it's, there is no way to change things. But when you have the right conditions, you have enterpreneurs people like you coming here, from everywhere in the world, right? That want to focus on a really specific location, geographical location. Bring their talent, their intelligence, their context. And that's the only way to build a country from scratch. And the good thing about El Salvador is like, has his own history, of course, but it's also almost like a clean canvas. 

Paolo Ardoino  
You can start actually looking around finding things that needs to be fixed and actually fix it. And the governor will support you. If you try to fix things in Italy, they will, look at you, are you crazy? First of all, why you're busting, right? So why, you should mind your own business, don't come here, don't change things, we don't like changing things. And again here, you are in this miraculous place that where they will, if you start to fix things or improve things, or just you raise the hand and say, oh, I want to help, they will tell you, yes, great. Also bring your friends because they maybe they can help you too. Or they can help too, right. So that's why I'm here. That's why we believe that it could be a really a new home for our companies. Because we want to give to the guys that work with us the opportunity to experience what we found here. 

Paolo Ardoino  
And we want also to bring in the people from abroad. Of course, we cannot move the entire companies, but we can we want to give the opportunity for many oracle to many oracle is to just come here spend few days, few weeks, few months, and just contribute to the territory. You know, we have many of our collaborators that are always asking me oh, well, how is really the promised land?

Mike Peterson  
Well, I've been watching you guys over the last few years as you get more and more involved, and there's been different needs that have come up and you guys have have, you know, put money towards when there was issues with the gang violence really rose up. I know you guys did stuff with a bunch of different families that were affected. You guys supported the Senator that we have in Punta Mongo and so I've been watching you guys get really involved in so I've been curious on a personal level. Tether is this huge, has become this huge entity, you guys are about a hundred billion now, right? In Tether. And so I think you guys just recently released the it was the 2.9 billion in profit from, getting that right from the last quarter. 

Mike Peterson  
So your, as a company, you're the funds, obviously, it's a little bit different because it's stable coin, but the funds you guys have control of is like three times the size of the Salvadoran annual economy. The profits that you guys bring in are about probably on the yearly level what the Salvadoran government brings in and tax revenue. So it's been fascinating for me to see even a big entity like you guys see that there's so much potential here that even though it's a small country, you're obviously not focused on necessarily making money here in El Salvador, but you see it as like a base for the world. At least that's what I'm thinking. So I'd love if you could kind of color that in a little bit. What you guys have vision for that.

Paolo Ardoino  
So, you know, both Tether and BitFenix are, were born thanks to Bitcoin. So Bitcoin was born in 2012. Tether was born in 2014. And we have been driven by the passion that we have in Bitcoin as the ultimate currency. So we, and also we have been extremely lucky, right? If you ask would have asked me four years ago, you know, if Tether could become one under a billion dollars in market cap, I would ask you, what have you smoked? Because it was impossible to me in my mind because, you know, these are big, big numbers.

Mike Peterson  
And have the opportunity for treasuries to be paying 5%.

Paolo Ardoino  
Exactly. Like I mean, it feels like, so I think Tether is amazing product. Is a product that is so simple and so useful. That actually has been disrupting an entire industry that is the financial and payment industry. But it came along as a really simple idea. And as a way, as a complementary way to Bitcoin, right. 2014, the cryptocurrency and blockchain world was completely different. There were just two exchanges between Kraken, Bitstamp, Coinbase, okay, Coin and BTCC and trading across exchanges moving money across exchanges, arbitraging was super difficult. So Giancarlo Devasini, our CFO, came up with this idea of creating, like, we're using the same brilliant technology that Bitcoin was using, but for just putting $1 on top of it. So it's really simple as that. 

Paolo Ardoino  
And the only protocol available was Omni Layer before called Mastercoin. So we started with that. And for the first two years and no one really cared about Tether. Actually, even if we were going to exchanges or people like highly it'll hated in financial matters, they didn't understand Tether. And, you know after in 2017, then first introduced. And in 2016 Poloniex started to support it. And then 2017, we saw Binance. Basically, the birth of Binders and Binders are the oldest trading pairs again, they didn't have a bank account. And then a Warby started and OKX was formed. And all the other exchanges started to use USDT as their digital dollar. 

Paolo Ardoino  
And then more recently, we have seen especially after the pandemic we have we start to see USDT as the currency for the emerging markets into developing countries.

Mike Peterson  
Did that take you by surprise? I mean, having it be originally just a way for people to move money back and forth exchanges? Was it surprising when you saw people actually using Tether as currency?

Paolo Ardoino  
Surprise, no, I mean in a sense that it was a brilliant idea. And it was their actual way to use it and much more interesting and powerful. That compared to AbiTrade, right, AbiTrade in the end is quite boring. But we didn't have a marketing team until early 2022. So we were like, okay, this is happening. Fine. We're happy. 

Mike Peterson  
What countries did you see it happening in first? 

Paolo Ardoino  
Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, Venezuela, so all these countries started to adopt a lot USDT, I mean, for these countries is just the digital dollar.

Mike Peterson  
So if they wanted access to dollars, and that was much easier way to.

Paolo Ardoino  
Exactly. I mean, you could tell in to these countries, if you go in this country, so use the term Tether, they don't understand you. But if you use the term USDT, for them, yeah, okay, it's dollars, right? It's digital dollars. For them that's enough. They know that you can pay people, they can go to the barber shop, they go buy groceries, and that's fine. And that's the success of Tether. I mean, we believe in simplicity, right? When you create a product that is actually useful, that is simple, that people can use it in their daily lives, then you want, right? And we created product that will over its time steered in different direction. 

Paolo Ardoino  
And I would like to say that is all because you know, we were super intelligent and great in the business and strategy and so on. Now, just people took it and more it in something that they really needed. Because the vast majority of people need a checking account. In many countries, that 70% of the population in Vietnam, and even Mexico has 60% of the population that is not banked. And the most common thing that these people need is not a savings account and want a yield, no, they don't care. They have a bigger problem, they don't have a checking account. And for them, you know, the most trusted currency, especially compared to their national currency that is losing 70 to 80% of the value against the dollar is the US dollar. And so that's why Tether became so popular. So going back to your question, we are not here to make money, we want to make sure that we can contribute to the best opportunity of being of humanity in doing something cool. Something that will not unfold as many other countries in the world. 

Paolo Ardoino  
And I understand that I'm being pessimistic. But, you know, the something that I would say also related to the success of Tether, that unfortunately, I'm saying this with heart in my hands is the bigger success of Tether. So Tehter has more success in countries that have more problems. And is unfair, right? So is, you know, is not what you like to see, right? And so that's why we would like to invest part of our revenues in actually trying to make things better and do education and you know, bring talent and help local people, help local businesses. We announced what or but also in other countries, you know, we give grants to local businesses that we you know, that we meet around. Of course, we cannot do everything. We are not the government but we try to help because we believe that creating a safe and sound economy is the beginning of the country to resurrect for from its ashes.

Mike Peterson  
Do you feel it's kind of ironic that I know you guys are really Bitcoiners at heart and think that fiat currency longer term is trash. But, but your business model is tied to the dollar so strongly now it's, you're in this kind of place of tension. I'm sure that's not lost on you.

Paolo Ardoino  
I think, I would describe it as poetic, in a way. It's I think, you know, the fact that we can help, you know, we tend to remember three things. Let's start from that. You invented stable coins. So, you know, fiat currencies on the blockchain, invent another important thing that and all these three things that I'm going to say are extremely upsetting for the establishment and traditional finance. So stable coins as a way to disrupt payments and checking accounts. Fully reserve banking, banking. So, you know, we have now 104% of reserves are highly liquid. If you look at Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate, Cincher. I mean, all these banks had invested in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years municipality bonds. I mean, it's like, you invest 50 or 100 million dollars in small bonds, issuances from places like I don't know, Amazon. I mean, fine is a great places, but, you know, they're not where you should put all the money of your creditors. And that happened in many banks in the US.

Paolo Ardoino  
What is so ironic too, because there's always been Tether fud from the beginning. And that's always been the oh, tethers gonna go down. And you guys have come through as the last man standing, as the banks have gone down, as exchanges have gone down, all these things. And you guys just keep looking stronger and stronger.

Paolo Ardoino  
Well, if I, let me do a segue here, so four years ago, right? Imagine a room full of people in the industry of Bitcoin and crypto industry it and in that room, imagine all the most influential people. And you, if you're looking around all these people were, you know, whisper you look at Tether they are, they're going down, they're like, you know, they're the black sheep and so on. And then, and then fast forward four years in the room, there is only us. So look at what happened to us in 2022 and 2023. I mean FTX and Voyager like Genesis and the oldest companies disappeared like and they did all the things like they were lending base on pinky swears like, you go there's and I create this token, I have 60 billion worth of it, because you know, I never sold a I only sold one $60 billion valuation. And but give me like 50,000 Bitcoin, so that I can trade. Like, how is possible and anyway, yes, so we, in a ways, kind of interesting and fun would happen. I mean, it's like, what I always say that we have been seen by many in the industry, as the villains. But sometimes someone's villain is someone else hero. And, you know, maybe for a small community, we could be heroes, we could be helpful. And the third thing that we invented is the fact that for every person, that purchased USDT or holds USDT, we buy a piece of the US debt. So these are the three things that we mended.

Mike Peterson  
So you guys are went like the number 18th largest holder.

Paolo Ardoino  
20th. Just do Germany thing. And you look at China is going down and China's selling you 2, 3, 4 years ago, they had $2 trillion worth of US debt. And now they are they have 700 billion. So we are the ones that to keep keep mine and we have we are the biggest distributors of a US App and for the US dollar. And yes, you are right. We are Bitcoiners. I also believe that not everyone in this ward is ready for for Bitcoin. I mean, when I talk to my parents, of course, you know, they know better. So they understand Bitcoin really well especially my father is he's a true believer. But when I when I talk around, when I meet people, that didn't have the time to my time to spend on Bitcoin, they still have problems, right? They have a problem to solve. And their problem is they don't trust their banks. And look in Argentina, if you even if you can buy dollars US dollars. And you leave them if you leave them in the bank account, the bank can seize them and use them. You know, the Centrum.

Mike Peterson  
Several times over history.

Paolo Ardoino  
So people are feed up. So they just want to hold their own money. But they don't have the time yet to understand Bitcoin. So the shortest path to Bitcoin is actually to give them a digital wallet. And then on the digital wallet is more likely to have USDT, and then is a really easy step to Bitcoin. So I'm the first person telling them, look USDT is not Bitcoin, there is a central company, we can freeze wallets, we have to comply with the regulations because we are using banking, right. So there is cheaper to transact than the US dollar, is faster. There are many advantages of USDT, in my opinion, compared to the US dollar, but especially with when it comes to cash.

Mike Peterson  
Still not decentralized. Central point of failure.

Paolo Ardoino  
I would, I would describe it as like, people would need the best approach to me for a person who's having Bitcoin as a savings account, and USDT as a checking account. The reality is that and that would be perfect. In 20 years, I hope that people would have Bitcoin at a checking account, and Bitcoin as a savings account. Is 20 years for 30 years from now, I don't believe in in rapid changes, unfortunately, it will take time, right?

Mike Peterson  
It's going to take time for people to start denominating in Bitcoin and that's something we, we push, we're believers in that, but people are creatures of habit, and they still want to price it in dollars.

Paolo Ardoino  
Absolutely. But in my point is that, in this moment, since we are still in the air of USDT as a checking account, and Bitcoin as savings account, the vast majority of people don't have the luck of having a savings account. Right? They didn't, they didn't have a bank account. And they had they didn't have money on the in the drawer, they had only some money that they could spend to pay for the bills and buy food. Right? That's it. So the more we can help people to start creating savings account, the more they will start using Bitcoin as their savings account. And then eventually people will start pricing things in Bitcoin but he's, he's a long way to the top, you know.

Mike Peterson  
So for, I know if you're sent a list of wallets that you're kind of forced to sanction you, you guys can seize those funds, but in general people that use tether, they don't have to KYC to just to be able to use it, it's more just that those funds are seasonable at any time is that?

Paolo Ardoino  
Yeah, there is a difference on the primary markets and secondary market. So, the primary market is tethered to our platform, you go there ,you are an issuer, you want to, you know, you want to purchase USDT from us or redeem USDT from us, you know, there is a KYC process. On the secondary market that are blockchains exchanges and so on. So on exchanges, of course, you might have to KYC on if you use it on a noncustodial way through wallets through, you know, through noncustodial wallets. You don't have to KYC.

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, sense. So going beyond that, and getting back to what you guys vision for El Salvador here, I keep hearing these rumors of you guys looking to kind of revolutionize the way that companies and countries can raise funds. The way that we have now is very bureaucratic. And it's expensive for companies that want to raise funds. And you know, say they go to the NASDAQ to raise funds, just the paperwork and everything involved. And I'm guessing maybe I'm wrong that you guys kind of see El Salvador as being the new hub for this new economy. I don't know if you're allowed to talk about that or not or what your guys plans are. But I'm super interested because I see a huge opening in the market for that.

Paolo Ardoino  
Well, just because we like to make friends, we want to disrupt something else, not just the payment industry. We believe that there is complete unfairness in in the capital raise markets. If you live in the US, it is if you have a company, you can access to the you have access to liquidity you have access to capital. So if you have to raise $100,000, $500,000, 1 million, 2 million, it's fairly it's not easy, but you can do it right. It's the biggest market for that.

Mike Peterson  
Yeah. Even a lot of companies around the world though they'll set up a Delaware companies specifically because that's what they need to raise funds.

Paolo Ardoino  
Exactly. The rest of the world is different. So if you try, if you are in, even Europe is really difficult to access to liquidity, but even in especially in emerging markets, forget about it. So we believe that there is a way now that Bitcoin well, today, I think, broken the $1 trillion mark. There is a solution to that. So we as between BitFenix we created a platform called BitFenix securities we applied for the digital asset license here in El Salvador. We got it. And so, now we can help local and global companies to submit their perspectives, their idea, their company details, and raise capital from people that are registered with BitFenix. 

Paolo Ardoino  
And I think is is a much more democratic and efficient way to raise capital first of all, because you are used the intermediaries, if you are a small medium company, raise capital is really difficult. It is unlikely that you can raise a bond, you have to go to a bank and to a bank and get a loan. But with this condition, in these markets, you know, getting a loan from a bank is really really difficult. So, an issuing a bond is difficult because you're a small company. So, what we want to do is to create a platform for small and medium size companies of course, also big companies, but our point is that there is no market there has never been a market for small and medium companies. 

Paolo Ardoino  
So, we want to create something that allows stilll under regulatory regime right because we applied to a license you have we are working with a local regulator, we want to create a package so that the companies can take this package, this template, can look at if it's fitting for for their needs, they we can help them to tokenize their stocks or a bond you know with they have of course to disclose the interest there is a security right so you have to provide quarterly updates is in the is like the normal capital markets, but is more efficient. It taps into the Bitcoin liquidity in the sense that between x as many whales and big whales historically and is we hope and we believe and we have seen and we are received the interest from many Bitcoin holders the interest in investing in new products. 

Paolo Ardoino  
So Bitcoin are sort of like this, right? So either the invest in Bitcoin or they invest in nothing. And we believe of course, Bitcoiners also believe in real theory, in the real world capitalist. And so they don't want the only offering that you have on usually on exchanges, like Shiva, you know, all the dog coin and meme coins and so on. So they never do anything about Bitcoin. So they want something new, they want something that is meaningful, right? That is the capital markets, the imagine a coffee farm here, they need to renew their machinery, they can raise 500,000 bond, right? 

Paolo Ardoino  
Under $1,000 bond, they can do it on BitFenix securities, or you know, you have a real estate company, you want to create a new building, or, or a new school or like whatever, yeah, you can raise that capital, through people that believe that are interested in your country that want they have they have an attachment to your country. Of course, they want us to make money through a yield, they receive all information from you, they can review the information they can review, your stability is not free money. Right? So it's again, they you have to prove that you are worthy of.

Mike Peterson  
But it just levels the playing field with US companies. They have the same access now.

Paolo Ardoino  
Yeah. So I think he's, I cannot believe that other companies are not doing it.

Mike Peterson  
Well, that's what I'm thinking. I mean, I imagine this is going to be a multi trillion dollar market longer term. Obviously, I know these things take time. But I if I were running one of the exchanges in the US, I would I'd be concerned about what you guys are doing.

Paolo Ardoino  
Yeah, look, I mean, most of the people that are looking at similar licenses, they want to tokenize Apple shares, how boring is that? I mean, sure, there is a market that potentially there is a huge market for that. But I think is not impactful. We are here in El Salvador, because we believe that US dollar can become the central economy and the central financial area for Central and South America. And this is a chance in a lifetime, both for I think for us and for the country.

Mike Peterson  
I when I tell people that they laugh at me, and I'm like no, you wait even 10 years from now, you're gonna see that El Salvador is going to be a powerhouse in the finance world. Because of people like you guys that are coming in and taking advantage of the new technology, but also the way that the government is willing to support these things and push things forward and not be happy with the status quo.

Paolo Ardoino  
So what do you say right? First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you. Then they fight you, and then they jump on the bandwagon.

Mike Peterson  
Exactly. So how long do you think it'll be before you guys have issues that people can actually be purchasing and that will be true running freely.

Paolo Ardoino  
So we announced recently Bitcoiner secured El Salvador. So I think in the next few months, we are running down the, you know, all the requests. So we receive an enormous amount of requests.

Mike Peterson  
From companies that want to issue bonds or security. Okay.

Paolo Ardoino  
So we are doing our due diligence, we want to provide good products that are interesting that we know that they could be interesting for our user base, and they can leave the sign. So I think that we're again, going on the pessimistic, pessimistic side of things, that one, this is one of the moments in history where agriculture, agriculture is really, really important. Right. So we are seeing a lot of investments in globally in agriculture and food production. 

Paolo Ardoino  
So we believe that El Salvador could and there are many companies that I'm seeing in this region that are interested to expand their reach, right to create products that are also exportable in other countries. So expand the economy. So on one side, you are actually creating an important or defending important industry in the country that like agriculture, at the same time, you are increasing your GDP because now suddenly, you can you produce much more you can start exporting and competing on international level. So this is going to happen, it will take years for sure. I mean, we are not here for a short play. I mean, it's likely I would be surprised if will take less than 10 years, but who cares? When you build I mean, when you build things, and when you really believe in your mission, you know, time is just you have just fun.

Mike Peterson  
So the the Bitcoin bond, you guys have any announcements on that?

Paolo Ardoino  
Right? This is a tricky one, because it went back and forth before it was Bitcoin, the volcano bomb. And then volcano energy was created here in El Salvador, because the more bond market that the scale is quite difficult, right? Because it's, it's a lot of money. It's, you know, tranches of $250 million, up to 1 billion. And the, with the interest rates on USDT bills paying 5-6% for a bond that is, you know, investing in Bitcoin mining, the yield must be higher. And so we realized that actually talking to potential investors, what they were more interested in to it was actually stocks. So if you buy a bond after the bond expires, and you sure you get the nice yield, but it ends. Instead, they were more interested in ownership of renewable energy plant, and, you know, Bitcoin mining plant. So that is what we are focusing on this moment. And I think is, is like owning a piece of El Salvador instead of just giving money to us of a door that, you know, eventually we'll get back with some interest. I think, you know, maybe part of the story of El Salvador is much more appealing to the majority of the people I talked to.

Mike Peterson  
So I know the keeps coming up the El Salvador is going to have to renegotiate with the IMF for a loan and they're pushing them to back down on Bitcoin from everything I've seen that there's no chance of that happening. But does that concern you guys as as a company that there's these powers that be that are pushing on them? Or do you feel like El Salvador has the upper hand and it's not really going to be an issue?

Paolo Ardoino  
Well, it's that is exactly why I love also door is because is in a situation to the demonstrate huge strength and pushing back with the giants, right? So this is why it's so exciting because is is a poor country and yet is knows exactly where it is headed up at it to. And is not going to my opinion is not letting is not going to add.

Mike Peterson  
They don't let themselves be pushed around.

Paolo Ardoino  
Yeah, absolutely. So I believe we are you know, we are going to see that El Salvador, I talked to investors and making its own fortune. I don't see Bitcoin being removed from being legal tender, honestly.

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, I know, I don't either. In fact, I think the IMF wants to still be involved because they want to they know it's going to be a success and they want to claim victory in some way longer term. So I am interested to see how it plays out.

Paolo Ardoino  
That implies they are kind of I would imagine that they're kind of scared if other countries would follow the same example right? So you know, you don't want others to rebel to their lords.

Mike Peterson  
No, definitely. But I love that that's keeping them up at night. So what would you say to other companies? I know there's a lot of companies in the Bitcoin space, but also people that are just Bitcoiners that have businesses that aren't necessarily Bitcoin related that are looking to move to El Salvador. What has been your guys experiences? How you've been treated as a company and how easy it is to do things here? And would you advise other companies to pick up and follow you guys here?

Paolo Ardoino  
If you are a company right now, and a company that of course is almost geography independent, and you are looking where to relocate or where to open an office. I would recommend El Salvador 100%. Is a safe country first of all, and I think is the one of the best thing that happened in last two years, right. So if you are inviting your co workers here, you want to make sure that they are safe right they can go around the streets and have an ice cream and night and enjoy their lives. The country is beautiful. The natural is beautiful. There are beaches like here in El Zonte that are incredible. 

Paolo Ardoino  
 I mean, in Europe, you have winters and in you know in other like in Argentina you have with us also. There was a snow storm now in Europe, right. In El Salvador, you have great weather, you have good food, you have great nature's nature, you have the ocean, you have the administration, the government that is extremely helpful, they invite you and they they ask you all the time, what you need, what they can do for you to help you in your process, right? If they in order to expedite you know, the opening of the accounts, the companies and so on. So it's completely a different feeling than everywhere else in the world. Everywhere else is governed by bureaucrats. they hate you. They don't want you to know that they're don't. They want to exercise their power right to say no, here they want to say yes, they want to you to suggest things and help them throughout their great journey.

Mike Peterson  
Have there been any challenges, the you know, it's still a developing country is the responders talent when you guys have looked to hire for positions, like what type of challenges have you guys faced as you've looked to expand your operations here.

Paolo Ardoino  
So we are looking for different types of talent. One of the ones that is finally growing here is the software developers. So we have been contributing to Torvalds development, and also mi primera Bitcoin on the education side, we invested in co-founded in the plan B network, so that because we want developers to grow here, right, so he's okay to import talent, but at some point you need in order to grow companies from the territory, you need to draw the talent from here. And so with our investments and with our grants in education, also we had some graduates in from Mi Primer Bitcoin who come to be, they were hired as juniors in BitFenix and Tether.

Mike Peterson  
I think I saw some of them at the Plan B Conference in Switzerland this year, which was awesome to see.

Paolo Ardoino  
And these are great guys, the heart so thoughtful, they have their good coders, and and they're growing. So they can then teach, they can inform companies, they can start providing services. And so that's what you want, I think it will take 2, 3, 4 or five years to create the seniority that you need in the country, right. So nothing happens for free. But that is the origin to that we are looking at is five years to have the great talent in house talent, and then from there is going to be immense.

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, that's what I tell people. It's like you 10 years from now you want to imagine like these right now are the ones leading the way but they'll be able to mentor people that are coming up behind them. So I love that you guys are supporting all those educational efforts, which are all amazing. And but they need, they need that support. So we can have that first crew come through.

Paolo Ardoino  
Thank you. And if I can say one thing is that not only so I see the change in the country, but in a matter of months, so I was here in November for adopting Bitcoin. And in a matter of four months, things change rapidly. Now I see more shops. I should go around the city in San Salvador. I see more restaurants. More and more new buildings I see like gurus are you call them in English everywhere. Like they're building like crazy. So it means that investments are coming.

Mike Peterson  
Now just here in El Zonte there's I think like five different condo developments happening right now. It's, it's, you know, five years ago, you would tell somebody that they've just said you're crazy. So it's it's, it's exciting. It's an exciting place to be it feels like this is the center of the world right now.

Paolo Ardoino  
Yeah, it is at international stage for the country. And the most impressive achievement is kicking out and keeping out the scammers. That is really, really hard job. I mean, I can I can see how you know, you the country would be inundated.

Mike Peterson  
Well, Stacy and Max deserve high praise for that, because they are relentless, and making sure that those people either don't make it in or if they do they show them out the door.

Paolo Ardoino  
Yeah, Stacey and Mark is like they have hundreds of eyes. And they are dedicating their lives to this mission. And unfortunately, we have seen so many times how, you know, from a good thing, you have a great project, and now we get start to new and going downhill really fast. And it's now two years, two or three years and things are still perfect. I mean, our charts are improving every month. So yeah, this type of high quality development people happy people want that want to contribute. You have the right environment to make great things happen.

Mike Peterson  
One kind of more personal question for you. I'm curious is that you moving out of your role as CTO to being the CEO, I know you're a coder at heart and you love throwing yourself into things. Has that been a challenge moving to more heading and leading the company, and I'm sure that's gives you less time to code and develop?

Paolo Ardoino  
Well, he's a tough one. Because the first time as I was used to code hundred percent of my time, many years ago, I was still fused until a few years ago. And at the beginning, when you start coding less, right, first, you call 90% of your time and 80% of your time, now code that like 5% of my time, but I still code because it helps me to maintain myself fresh, and also stay up to date with the technology. But in a way, I feel like coding for me is a waste of way of life. Right? I think. Now, I imagined technology, I think about technology, and I don't need to code it. I know what is possible is like physics, in a way, right? 

Paolo Ardoino  
So you might be a little bit more rusty over the years in coding, but you, you have the that internal experience where you know, exactly, you can see things and you know, you can see the matters, right. So, and you have you know, fresher talent and people or people in the end is one of the issues that developers have. I manage big teams of developers is sometimes developers tend to think that they can do everything themselves. Anyway, you will never be able to do everything yourself. So the moment you start to realize that as a developer, and you start, you know, delegating and working with others and understanding that toddlers have great skills and they can be helpful like they are as good as you then you start to realize that you can maybe start focusing on a bigger picture, like on how, you know the actual architecture and machine can work. And then you grow up and you understand, you know how many projects many complete different projects can be interconnected with the some of the technologies you're working on. And so it's like you are still really involved in the pure architecture. And you know, every single fiber of the project, but you are not anymore, the person that actually make it happen.

Mike Peterson  
It can actually do more. You can be thinking and planning it but have somebody else do the yes, the actual coding like that. Well, I know we have a dinner to get to so where can people follow you? I know you're on Twitter.

Paolo Ardoino  
Yes, I'm Paolo Ardoino on Twitter, first name and surname all together. I make memes and sometimes also, I hope you say intelligent things.

Mike Peterson  
And I know you're passionate about the other projects that you're working on HolePunch in case. I don't know if you want to say anything about those real quick.

Paolo Ardoino  
It will be a long grant. But I recommend everyone to go and visit keet.io, it's available on a mobile. So iPhone, Android, and also on desktop. It is the first peer-to-peer chat ever created. I'm saying that in a really bold way because I all the attempts on creating super private unstoppable chat all failed, either they're centralized. So they have central servers, or they are, you know, not really privacy oriented. So Keet basically created a startup from the era of BitTorrent. So creating these complete decentralized network unstoppable network file sharing, but file sharing is, is just for files, right? It was limited files. 

Paolo Ardoino  
The realization that we had five years ago is five years that we're working on this project, and I'm in silent mode for the first four years is that we could apply in the segment, we could improve, because we improve dramatically the technology behind BitTorrent, the open source technology behind BitTorrent, we improve it for the last four years to apply to real fast real time data streams. So video chat, you know, movies, songs, whatever, like everything in our life nowadays is social media is all real time data streams. So we work on that. And we launched the first project called Keet. And the beauty of it is that there is no way to stop it. If they would kill us. If we keep going. There is no server. There is Bitcoin for communications. There is no central server. The code is there. Today we have the big release for Valentine's Day is called Pair on Time. So I created this concept of peer-to-peer because I'm Italian. When we people we say peer-to-peer, Italians use pair peer, you know, they confuse things. So now we have the pair to be.

Mike Peterson  
I like that shirt, you always have two pairs on the pair to pair.

Paolo Ardoino  
And so we created the first technology that can as Bitcoin creates sovereign countries on the financial side, you need also sovereign communications. Now, if you are El Salvador and WhatsApp and Telegram decided to cut you off, the entire country stops. We keep. You know, even if the cut all the lines, the internet lies around El Salvador. People will keep and keep talking because it's peer to peer you will need central server. You need to all your messages going to and back right and so on and so forth. So it's a great technology I'm super excited, I think is going to be massive, I think will kill many web to centralized companies in next years is, you know, I'm big. I am extremely bearish on the cloud technology. I think that cloud is a lie. You know, it's smiley, you know, they told us for many years that cloud was necessary.

Mike Peterson  
And that's the way for them to control of the examination and own it.

Paolo Ardoino  
They told us, look, there is no way that people can talk to each other without passing through our servers, right? Every single app is like that. But the reason as you said, is that without having every single communication to pass through their servers, they couldn't make money. But the technology is like physics, right? Internet was built to be a peer to peer, you have your IP address, I have my IP address, we were supposed to have a direct connection with each other. No, they completely change that. They make it impossible or not impossible, they make it unbelievable, because even when I talk to the two developers, they don't believe it's possible. And so when I explain them how we do it, then finally they open their eyes. But we had this relentless, you know, education from web to companies and big tech companies that the word has to be centralized. And data centers have to be existing. Because you know, they were protecting our data. No, they are not protecting our data. They are stealing our data. And they're making money with our data.

Mike Peterson  
So you guys are taking on the world's banks, the fiat system, and now, Amazon and Cloud Services, you guys trying to piss everybody off. I love it.

Paolo Ardoino  
But we'll even the most in the safest country in the world.

Mike Peterson  
Yep. I love it. I love it. Well, that's a good note to end on. People make sure that you're following these projects. And we're definitely going to have you back on as things progress here. I'm very excited to see the exchange, you know, the equity exchanges open here and see countries companies start raising funds and just see what an impact that's going to have on the world. So I appreciate you sharing that tonight.

Paolo Ardoino  
Thank you very much for having me.