Bitcoiners - Live From Bitcoin Beach

Was Bitcoin Country a PR Stunt? Insider Reveals What Really Happened With Bukele and the Bitcoin Law | Lina Seiche

• Mike Peterson

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What actually changed with El Salvador’s Bitcoin law? In this episode, Mike sits down with Lina Seiche, creator of The Little Hodler and founder of a Bitcoin-focused business now based in El Salvador. Lina shares what it's really like on the ground, from working with the Ministry of Education on a nationwide Bitcoin school curriculum to navigating the evolving business environment.

They dive into the recent IMF deal and the wave of commentary it triggered in the Bitcoin world. Despite speculation, Lina explains why the changes to legal tender status haven’t altered the daily use of Bitcoin or the momentum behind financial education in El Salvador.  She also highlights the country’s push for education reform, giving a behind-the-scenes look at the public school program teaching kids real-world money skills before they even hit high school.

This episode gives an unfiltered view into a nation experimenting with currency, curriculum, and autonomy. It’s also a reminder that sometimes real innovation doesn’t come from headlines but from people quietly building, like Lina and her Little Hodler brand that’s now part of classrooms across the country.

If you’re curious about where Bitcoin meets policy, why financial education matters more than ever, or just want to know what a plush toy has to do with education reform, hit subscribe, drop a comment, and share this with someone who still thinks the IMF calls the shots.

Connect and Learn more about Lina Seichi
The Little Hodler: https://thelittlehodler.com
Lina on X: https://twitter.com/LinaSeiche

Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
X: @BitcoinBeach
IG: @bitcoinbeach_sv
TikTok: @livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: bitcoinbeach.com



Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:

00:00 — Why Lina started writing Bitcoin schoolbooks for kids
01:56 — Is El Salvador still a Bitcoin country after the IMF deal?
04:35 — What changed in the Bitcoin legal tender law?
06:10 — How El Salvador teaches financial education in public schools
12:10 — What makes it easier to start a business in El Salvador?
18:22 — What does “you can just do things” really mean here?
24:09 — Will El Salvador benefit from US nearshoring and trade shifts?
26:25 — Lina’s advice for business owners thinking about moving
31:08 — What’s inside the Bitcoin curriculum for grade school kids?
36:47 — Did the IMF deal change anything on the ground in El Salvador?
40:53 — How Bukele doubled down on Bitcoin when pressure increased
47:26 — Where to get Little Hodler plushies and Lina’s new projects

Live From Bitcoin Beach

Lina:

So with the books themselves, my main objective was financial education, because we don't have that. Actually, very few countries do that at all. I didn't get that, yeah. So they always say, Oh, the German education system is so great. And, yeah, of course they do. They do good things, but we also stuck in the past quite badly so, and we didn't get financial education at all, which should be like on the top of your priority, on for your priorities, you

Mike Peterson:

Juliana, we got you back here In the studio. Hi

Lina:

Mike. Happy to be back. Good. To update your intro. Your house looks different. Yeah,

Mike Peterson:

I don't want people to know what it looks like me. That's my wife said. She's like, Oh my gosh. We have people showing up on our doorstep. I'm like, No, it doesn't look like that anymore. So

Unknown:

great. Do Yeah.

Mike Peterson:

How many is this? The third time we've recorded together, is the third time? Yes, have we recorded in this

Lina:

studio? No, I have recorded with ephrat here.

Mike Peterson:

Okay, yeah, but we haven't recorded here?

Lina:

No, I recorded once with you, the first time I visited, yeah. And then once another time, but we were in the old one, yeah. And then today, here, okay,

Mike Peterson:

nice, nice. Yeah, no, I love that we have Bitcoiners coming through and using the studio. And,

Lina:

I mean, I understand why they want to use it.

Mike Peterson:

Oh yeah, no, it came out, fabulous. Yeah. It's bigger than my home, Paco. And Andy did a great job with the place people. When they come in, they're like, oh my gosh, my wife said she's like, I don't know if you're good enough to have a studio. Thank you. You have to be like, Joe Rogan level, well, I'm excited to delve into the nitty gritty of what's happening here in El Salvador on the ground, and we've talked in a few of the other podcasts. But with you being like living here, I want to get your opinion on what is happening in El Salvador, as far as is it still Bitcoin country, because I keep hearing from people that they're they're disillusioned, they're upset about the IMF deal and and they're questioning, like, if bitcoin is even being used in El Salvador anymore. And I'm like, where I'm at, it's used more than ever. The tools have gotten better. Like I see more and more companies moving here, more and more Bitcoiners, but I know there are some people that that, you know, feel that it's lost its magic and in some way. And so we'll kind of delve into that and the misconceptions that have kind of come with the the IMF deal. But do you hear any of this? Or am I just on the receiving end, you know, because of the Bitcoin beach project and that sort of thing. What's, what's your take? I think

Lina:

probably all of us were in Bitcoin who are in El Salvador heard this for a while, because where bitcoin is in El Salvador, right? So, yeah, I did. I did hear some of it. I heard a lot of El Salvador changed its Bitcoin law so it caved to outside forces. El Salvador changed his Bitcoin law so it's no longer Bitcoin country, which then makes me wonder a Does, does the person speak from local on site experience or from the outside, because that makes a big difference, usually, from what I've seen, yeah, and also

Mike Peterson:

both I have seen some people that had moved here specifically because of that, that have now chosen to leave. I don't know if just their expectations were not connected to reality, and so they were always kind of destined to be disappointed. You know, we're in a transition period in the world of moving from, you know, the the dollar being dominant, to the eventual Bitcoin standard. And so that's, you know, going to be something that plays out over, probably, over decades. And so if people expect it to, like, be instantaneous, they're

Lina:

going to that was never going to happen, yeah, but I think it depends really, on, well, you can say if, well, if you say Bitcoin country is, and I mentioned this to you earlier, right? If you say Bitcoin country is defined as a country in which, by law, the government is forced to accept Bitcoin, then, of course. Today no longer you would say El Salvador's Bitcoin country, because the law was changed, right? I would posit that's in a bit of an odd definition, especially for Bitcoiners who historically preferred free currency choice, yeah, and also tend to not generally care so much what governments say or do. But I did see that a lot. Hey

Mike Peterson:

guys, just a brief interruption. We'll get back to the exciting show here. But I just want to really ask a favor that you guys could make sure that you're subscribed. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you are listening to this on a podcast, please take take a second and review this. You know, you don't even have to write a lengthy review or anything at all. Just click the number of stars that you want to give us. It really helps us in the algorithms to make sure people are finding out about what's happening here. All right, back to the show. But

Lina:

if you say that Bitcoin country, factors that make Bitcoin country, Bitcoin country are that it uses Bitcoin, that it encourages the use of Bitcoin, that it promotes the use of Bitcoin on the highest order through the president of the country himself, that it's

Mike Peterson:

down through the school system, which we'll talk about, the role you're playing in that effort. Yeah,

Lina:

that its vendors are able, but not forced, to accept Bitcoin. And maybe also, yeah, and also that people are invited to come here. Bitcoiners are invited to come here and build their lives, their existence, their businesses under favorable conditions, much more favorable in many other countries. But also, maybe most importantly, that it's a place that leads, by example, the first mover that now has its first follower, which is no other than the US, which is a huge deal. If you consider these things, which are all still happening, worthy of the title Bitcoin country, then El Salvador is still Bitcoin country issue? Yeah,

Mike Peterson:

so, so question, what are the odds that Trump will admit that he followed Bitcoin, that he followed bu Kelly's example?

Lina:

Probably zero. But, you know, they have a good relationship, and that's as good as it's gonna get. I mean, what more can you ask? No, I

Mike Peterson:

mean, it's a huge advantage to now having the US be pro Bitcoin than before, I feel like they were putting pressure on El Salvador, especially behind the scenes. They were, you know, kind of had this threat hanging over them with getting kicked out of the SWIFT system and the bank and all these things that the government, you know, doesn't directly control in the US, but in actuality, controls. And so I think we've kind of passed that threat where now, and I think it's been like a little bit of a whiplash for even the people at the embassy here from the US Embassy, because before they had administration was very anti Bitcoin, and now they're serving a president who's very pro Bitcoin. So I think even they don't know how to like handle that, that type of change. Think

Lina:

a lot of things have changed with the with the new administration, and you can tell, and that's certainly good for El Salvador. And yeah, the Bitcoin thing is like an extra little cherry on top. Yeah,

Mike Peterson:

yeah. I know when, the when, the when, when Rubio was coming down to visit in this region. All the embassies in the region were like, scurrying to get all the DEI stuff out of the embassy and any traces of anything out, which is complete opposite of how they had been before. So it was, it's been kind of fun seeing that development and just how much more healthy it is. And, you know, and the relationship between the US and the United the US and El Salvador is just so much better now than it was, yeah, and it's

Lina:

probably also one of the best in the region, compared to the US relationship with other nations, and that's something that I find quite interesting. It shows sort of, we have a lot of quarrels going on right now, geopolitical quarrels, right? But if you want to see some good foreign policy, you see what they're doing, because they, I mean, they're going to meet in the White House in a couple of days, right? Yeah. And that all of that is the result of just a much more open and warm, positive starting point, which ultimately is going to be good for for El Salvador, which benefits from a better relationship with the US, right? Yeah, yeah,

Mike Peterson:

yeah. Obviously, for El Salvador, there's, there's just so many ties, and the relationships there run so deep. So if they have a good relationship, that's better for the Salvadoran people. And there's, there's so many benefits that come from that. You know, obviously we saw recently the moving the Travel Warning from a three to a one, which, for those of you who don't, did you see that? Oh,

Lina:

yeah, I talked about it.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, for people who you know, don't know that the State Department issues like travel advisories for all the countries in the world, and four is the worst. One is the best. And historically, El Salvador has been a three, which is, you know, that it's not quite North Korea, but it's, you know, one step below, and they just moved it to number one, which is even a lot of European countries are number two. German, Germany too, Germany too. Yeah. So from the State Department's point of view, you're much safer coming to El Salvador than you are going to Germany. And do you think that, would you say that as as as a German? I would say

Lina:

that, and I've said that for a while. The thing is that if I talk to fellow Germans, there's a very strong sentiment of, yeah, you know, things are getting worse here, but it's not as bad as over there. So it's very interesting. Sometimes the public opinion or narrative lags behind reality, and then at some point you cannot deny it any longer. And then, yeah, then things change, and this is one of those big steps towards that. Well,

Mike Peterson:

I think too, a lot of times we're blind to in our own environment, because even a lot of Americans, I think, would be surprised to see what other countries say about traveling to America and all the warnings that they issue for that. Oh,

Lina:

yeah, yeah. I get that. I started to I was talking about how, when that happened, I was talking about on my social media, and I got comments about how El Salvador is now safer to travel than Germany in the eyes of the US. I got a lot of comments, also from people from the US who said, yeah, it's even safer than insert city in the US, which, if you then asked the Germans, it'd be like, Yeah, of course, because Germany is way safer than your US city. So, you know, I mean, there's perception and there's reality, and sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't, but you cannot deny that anywhere you go in El Salvador, it is incredibly safe. Now,

Mike Peterson:

yeah, what are the some of the differences you've seen in the last year, as far as development or things that are happening and then going beyond that, now that you're operating your business out of El Salvador, what are you seeing in the business environment?

Lina:

I one thing that I noticed straight away when I brought my company here is that there are new laws all the time, and it's not in the way that I was used to before working in other countries where New York new laws usually meant more bureaucracy. You could tell here you have a country that right now they are geared towards economic reformation, like economic growth and whatnot. Everything they do is to remove bureaucracy, so there would be new laws and then our our accountants, our consultants, would come and say, you know, you can do this thing now, which makes this easier, and be like, why? Yeah, they just passed this law in February, or whatever. And I love that, and that's one of the reasons why I that's one of the factors I mentioned, right? What makes a Bitcoin country? Bitcoin country, it's very easy to get set up here, and you receive a lot of help, and the government makes it as easy as they can for you on certain levels, there's trouble on other levels, which has to be, there's always

Mike Peterson:

going to be some bureaucracy, and business involves paperwork and report, you know, things that the legal requirements. But you know, as somebody who has never worked a real job in my life, I've always had my own business, I definitely understand that. Like when somebody says there's a new law passed, you're not excited about it. You're like, Oh, crap. What are they going to make us do now? Because it's even in the US, like it just for the 30 years I was in business in the US, like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. It was never like, oh, we have easier Regulations now, and less burdens burdensome, and less things you have to file, less taxes you have to pay. And

Lina:

so, yeah, you know, I make plushies, right? So the EU recently passed new regulations that make it harder for my plushies to be certified, or rather, we have to recertify them and so on and so forth, change the labels. We had to put, like, make stickers and put them on the old labels. So that's what normally happens, and it's the opposite here. As I said, not everywhere. Their

Mike Peterson:

touches are pretty dangerous, so it's very important that we regulate them. Yes,

Lina:

yes, yes. I'm sorry, yeah, I brought one of them. I

Mike Peterson:

guess we should. We should have started off by saying who I am, yeah, saying who you are. I just assume most people know you, but there will be some people that are, you know, listening or watching this podcast for the first time. So why don't you just give a little brief background about yourself and in the company? Yeah,

Lina:

no problem. I'm Lena, and I make plushies and Bitcoin comics, among other things. So I brought my the little hodler is my bitcoin brand. Basically I brought him here when I moved here in 2023

Mike Peterson:

and that's the bukele edition there. That's the

Lina:

new Bucha edition, which has magnets so you can actually swap out the Bitcoin he's huddling for. I

Mike Peterson:

totally left my phone on.

Unknown:

Is that church bells.

Mike Peterson:

It's just the standard ring. I think that came on really, yeah, I

Lina:

miss it, like on the Nokia that the standard that we used to have. I forgot it anyway. He has magnets now. So, magnets, yeah, he has magnets on the she wanted, okay, so we have, like, pizzas. So on pizza day he can hodl a pizza, nice stuff, anyway. So the company that I came here with and still have, of course, and since we moved our operations here, a lot of things have happened. So we got loads of new projects, and one of them is that we are making school books for the Ministry of Education. You know, they have the Bitcoin diploma, which and other, like various other educational programs that you're also involved in, right? Like capital supporting and we were given permission to take care of the little kids. So we're making school books from age seven to 13, I think. So we're making six books, five, six books. Oh, my God, I'm getting confused with the numbers, but we already made two, so two of them are basically ready, and they're gonna be pilot. Bring

Mike Peterson:

any of them? Did you? Well,

Lina:

they're not printed, yeah, but so yes. So we're gonna pilot them in 50 schools, and they're gonna learn about not just Bitcoin, but money. So it was very important actually to us, that we start the kids off not with Bitcoin blockchain. And actually we are spending the first couple of years talking about things like, what is value, what are my needs, what are my wants? What is, what is the budget? Why should I spend less than I earn? Where does money come from? You know, bartering and commodities and paper money? Yeah, comes from China, for example. So we're doing a lot of that. It's very colorful. And, yeah, so we got that, that project after we came here, which is one of many things that happened where, which always leads me to tell people, if you come to El Salvador, you have room for growth. You have room for opportunities. You just have to take them. It's like a country for doers. I think because you are early to a lot of things, El Salvador is developing very fast. Things are moving forward very quickly. And you can, I hear some people say, like, oh, but this is missing and that is missing, and I don't have this and I don't have that. The other side of the coin is you could say, oh, I can do this and I can do that. I can take this opportunity and have that,

Mike Peterson:

like Bucha Kelly likes to say a lot of times, Oh, you mean you can just do things, yeah, I love that, yeah, because we live in a world now where it's everybody feels like, oh, you need permission. You need to jump through all these hoops before you do stuff. Where here I feel like, yes, there's regulations, yes, there's rules, but you can just go do it, and then if you need to adjust in order to comply with the things. You adjust as you go along, instead of in the EU or the US, you feel like, oh, I need to get all these permissions, all these things beforehand, or I'm going to get these big fines and I'm going to get thrown in jail.

Lina:

And it seems to be the disease of the empire and of any big empire, I think at some point you get complacent and you start you become very good at regulating daily life. You become very bad at actually growing which and actually handling crises, for example, which we saw when they had the flood in Spain, where you have little regulations for everything. But then there was a flood, and the authorities were helpless. They didn't know how to handle it anymore. So in El Salvador, you Yeah, you can do things, and you need to do things. So if you don't do anything, of course, you'll be left behind, yeah, but if you do things, you can do just about anything. And that's also part of the reason. Why not? Part of the reason, but it's the Bitcoin law itself was also a part of that sentiment. And again, it's one of the factors that makes it work so well as as Bitcoin country. But yeah, so as for changes that I've seen just I mean. Visual changes are insane. I always say this every couple months I go, I went. We went to a chunko the other day. They built a little village there, and a bunch of new cafes and restaurants

Mike Peterson:

pop up. Yeah, I haven't been there recently. Yeah, you should

Lina:

it looks different again, new hotel in the downtown as well. We actually, we went for the first time in a couple weeks, and there was a bunch of new stuff there. And then we went again yesterday, and that was just, there was like a week or two in between the last time we went, and there was a new Wendy's on the corner. So it's just, you can see visually the country change. I couldn't

Mike Peterson:

believe I I had not been downtown. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I had not been there until this last year. We went to one of the, I think it was the Kuba plus graduation that they had at the National Palace. And I just have in my mind that downtown is a horrible place. You don't want to go like it. There was nothing really to go down there for before, unless you were trying to go to a, you know, a little stall, a little shop, industrial area. And but now it's amazing. I mean, it really is like, wow, yeah,

Lina:

yeah, you can just do things, yeah,

Mike Peterson:

which is shocking, because I think too for me, because I've been here for 20 years, like nothing ever got done, and there was always excuses for why things couldn't get done. And so now, when I see things like change like that, it's wow, like, what if? Why did we waste, you know, the last 16

Lina:

years? Why didn't get done before? What changed? Yeah, so

Mike Peterson:

it's been pretty remarkable, and we're seeing, you know, a bunch of companies move in. We, we did a show a couple weeks ago, with, with Wiz from from him pool, and they're moving from Japan. And you know, you see people, it's not just people coming from the US and Canada. You got people coming from all over the world that are that are moving here. And I'll be curious to see how, and I don't know if you've delved into this at all now, with, with your company, and how it impacts where your stuff is actually produced. But I know El Salvador has, you know, a free trade agreement with the US as part of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. It's between this, I think, I think most of Central America and the US. I'm not sure which countries are included, but historically, like even here, it's cheaper to buy us vehicles than Japanese vehicles or European vehicles, because they can import them duty free. And it's it's been vice versa and in the US. So I'm curious to see, as this tariff battle kind of plays out, what type of advantage it will be for countries that are for companies that are located here in El Salvador. Have you? Have you started to think about that at all? I don't know how the tariff thing is going to affect your business or that.

Lina:

I mean, I have, in terms of business stuff, I have very few touching points with the US.

Mike Peterson:

You don't ship a lot of units to the US. Well, we

Lina:

offer shipping to the US is very expensive because we ship from Germany. Yeah, I have several times considered, I'm still, I mean, dreaming of moving all the operations, the production and everything. It's still early days. There are things that have to be done. But definitely, if I could, I would 100% even just for the even, just for the feeling, like, I like to see how things progress here, and I like to see how new opportunities are are opened up. So there, there, there, there's a ways to go.

Mike Peterson:

It takes time for supply chains to move. And, you know, especially, we have something that works, and, to find new solutions, but, but I have a feeling that that this kind of shake up that we're seeing coming from the US is is probably going to have a positive impact, I think, on El Salvador overall, because historically, El Salvador lost a lot of manufacturing jobs and other things To to China, and so I'll be curious to see, you know what, what type of impact that has is as the US kind of focuses more on things in Latin America. Yeah,

Lina:

I think El Salvador generally is doing quite well in the current situation. Now, I don't know what the US is up to, right, but I would think that the US is looking to bring manufacturing to the area, and they might look to near shore. A bunch of things. Salvador is one of the best friends of the US right now. So a lot of these things make a lot of sense. And also

Mike Peterson:

the easy shipping to the US from here, relatively short distance.

Lina:

Yeah, even that. And then, even with respect to China, Salvador has, I mean, El Salvador's relationship with China Aspire. China gifted the library. China gifted a lot of things, like $500 million worth of things. So Salvador was always very El Salvador Bucha was always very intent on not burning any bridges. Is, yeah, and I think we're going to see that become very valuable, probably very soon, definitely.

Mike Peterson:

What would you say to business owners that are looking to move to El Salvador? I mean, what's kind of been the biggest benefits that you've seen?

Lina:

It depends on your business. I guess right, as with everything, my biggest benefit has always been the the tendency to skip bureaucracy. It makes a huge difference. A lot of things are easier here and getting easier, and because the country is looking to bring in investments, bringing business, bring in people who have ideas. They try to make it easier for you. So you will find, if you you have to make an effort as everywhere, but you'll find ways to get set up very easily. I think, compared to other countries that I've done that even just things like my residence. It's much, much easier here, much less hoops to jump through.

Mike Peterson:

And we were talking before, you've lived a number of different places. Yes, I know you're originally from Germany, but you've, you've lived in a number of different places. So you've, you've had a lot of experience, and most of them were fairly developed countries. It sounded like that you were living in, but you've, you've seen the it's much easier to get things done here then, yeah,

Lina:

I have, like, a stack of residence cards, yeah, yeah, no. And I'm from the Empire of bureaucracy. As you said, I come from Germany, so I've seen the worst, and Salvador is by far among the very best with regards to that. No Salvador understands what businesses need so and even then, if you, if you're a bitcoiner, you want to go somewhere that maybe your your capital gains are in tax, your Bitcoin gains are in tax, your Bitcoin transactions are in taxable events, right? These are all things that are not you should not take them for granted. Right. Now, in Germany, there is discussion, I'm not sure if it's going to go through, but there is this looming threat of stricter regulation, also stricter Bitcoin capital gains tax regulation, which wouldn't be surprising if it happened, because that's Germany. So in El Salvador, you don't have it, and you can sort of be sure that it's not going to happen. So do you have these assurances here that you just don't have elsewhere? And as I said, you have opportunity. You have, like, an open field, a lot of things that you can do, I think, for a business owner, that's like, that's the dream. You probably

Mike Peterson:

wouldn't have had an opportunity to do educational Bitcoin books for the government of Germany, huh? I

Lina:

would still be writing emails to the Secretary of the assistant of some authority in some subsection of some Bureau, yeah.

Mike Peterson:

I mean, that's just pretty amazing that you you have this opportunity, and that you're going to be impacting the lives of 1000s, probably 10s of, if not hundreds of 1000s of of students in El Salvador through through the educational books. And so I'm curious as to what, what you really hope to achieve by by releasing these books. So

Lina:

I my so with the books themselves, my main objective was financial education, because we don't have that. Actually, very few countries do that at all. I didn't get that. Yeah. So they always say, Oh, the German education system is so great. And yeah, of course they do. They do good things, but we also stuck in the past quite badly so, and we didn't get financial education at all, which should be like on the top of your priority, on for your priorities in the US, you also don't get financial education. So in El Salvador, you get it. You get it from a young age. And that's not about making money or whatever. No, it's about being smart, understanding how your money works, and then making educated decisions based on that. The earlier you start that, the better. I've been told that, Oh, it's too early. Seven years is too early to start about, to talk about finances, but that misses the point. We're not telling them how to run a stock portfolio or something? No, no, we're telling them the value of things, telling them that there are different kinds of values. And we're teaching to teaching awareness of money and of you know how the best way to to use it, and the best way to to set yourself up. And I would I and I'm confident, and I would like to see that sort of settle into the minds of the kids, so that as they get older and they start earning money, they are. Actually know how to use their money, because it's very prevalent in the world today to have credit card debt, to have all kinds of debt, and it's actually normalized. It's actually basically some

Mike Peterson:

people are even thinking about it, or even really understanding how it happened. It's just the gravitational pull, yeah,

Lina:

and the general opinion tends to be because that's what happens when you normalize something is, oh, I have this and this much debt, but I'm not too bad, because I know this other guy who has even more debt, and that's just not that's not the way. So we have objective problems with obviously, inflation, and I don't I'm preaching to the choir. If I tell this to a bitcoiner that the younger generations can't afford houses and can't afford their rent sometimes, yeah, but there is this other problem too, and there's financial literacy, and Salvador will most likely be at the forefront here.

Mike Peterson:

So what, what age or grade level are you guys rolling out this program. And then is it? Is it a pilot at first? Are you guys rolling it out through a certain region, or what's what's looking to happen with that? So

Lina:

we're doing grades two to six, okay? And then after six, the Bitcoin diploma will take over, okay? So,

Mike Peterson:

so they're gonna have something every year from two to six, uh

Lina:

huh. So, yes, so every grade has a new book, basically, that is amazing. So we take them through the journey, basically from the basics all the way to, oh, we do obviously talk about Bitcoin and how's the money working El Salvador and whatnot. But yeah. So we pilot the program at 50 schools. We have the first two books ready now, so grades two and three will have 50 schools test the books and learn. And of course, we have our event where we have, like, my brand is a very physical brand, so it really lends itself to something like that. And yeah. Then we go from there, and we map it out, we roll it out, and the goal is, of course, to have it country wide. Amazing, yeah. Then they say, El Salvador is no longer Bitcoin country.

Mike Peterson:

Nope. It's only being taught in the public schools.

Lina:

Yeah, show me one other country that does that.

Mike Peterson:

No, that's, that's what I always tell people, you got to come down here and spend some time. And it's, it's interesting, though, even with that you have, you can have two different people, and they have very different opinion, even experiencing the same thing we had. I don't know if you know who trace Mayers is, he was like, an OG person the Bitcoin space. He was here this past week, and so I was just curious from his perspective, and he was like, Oh my gosh. Just amazing that, like, there's nowhere else in the world where you see anything like this happening and but then you talk to somebody else, and they're like, Oh no, but this place down there is not accepting bitcoin, or, you know, like, Yeah, but the place next door is, and where else in the world can you live on only Bitcoin if you want to. It's,

Lina:

I think it's a interesting case study of human psychology, actually, and of how sometimes we're conditioned to find a hair in the soup and to find the negatives. And that's, I think, in a big in big part, that is what happened with the IMF deal. Because also, as I said earlier, if you compare El Salvador now to El Salvador before the IMF deal, which is what people take issue with and why they start criticizing, and were even like, oh, no, do we have to find Bitcoin country elsewhere. Has this experiment failed? They start sounding like the legacy media. But if you look at a Salvador on the ground, actually, nothing has changed. Actually nothing has changed. It's it's

Mike Peterson:

gotten better. There's more and more places accepting bitcoin, the tools to accept that are getting better. Like, that's that's why I'm always a little flabbergasted. Like, yeah, I mean, if you expected it to be this utopia overnight, maybe for some people, that's what they expected in this IMF thing kind of prick this like bubble expectation that they had, but we're seeing just steady progress on all fronts, not just Bitcoin, but including Bitcoin.

Lina:

Yeah, and I believe that a lot of it is ideological. So as Bitcoiners, our main enemy is the IMF. The IMF is evil, and we categorically rule out ever even talking to the IMF. So Bitcoiners thought that when the Bitcoin law kicked off here, that, you know, oh, Bucha is on our side, like he mocks the IMF as well, which he did, which he actually still does, just did it even after the deal. So when he took the deal, many Bitcoiners felt betrayed, I think, and that. That is at that points to this, this, this psychological shift where you start feeling entitled, where you feel like you you have a right to be upset about President's policy. But the President is not the president of the Bitcoiners, and we have to keep this in mind, he is the president of El Salvador, so the policy that He decrees, the things that he does, and that he's always done, and we can see this in his entire career he does for his people. And the same thing happened with the IMF deal, yeah, but I've I find it somewhat well, I find it interesting, because if we well, as an example, the the Bitcoin law before, when it was decreed, it was it made the use of Bitcoin mandatory. So it meant that any vendor, any cafe, any restaurant, any hotel, any stall here on the side of the road had to accept Bitcoin regardless of whether they wanted or not. That never became a scandal. Why? Because there was an understanding that that would never be enforced. There was an understanding that it would be stupid to enforce. It would be obviously very much against the ethos, and it would also not be in the best interest of the president, who quite obviously never had any intention of forcing people

Mike Peterson:

to know. And I think people ask like, Well, why even include it? I think it was included to say, like, Hey, we are serious about this. Like, Bitcoin is a currency here in El Salvador, we are adopting a Bitcoin standard exactly that was the reason of having it in there, yeah.

Lina:

So he was not going to decree some half baked law, and it did exactly what it was supposed to do. It had a massive publicity impact, and it cemented this Bitcoin country narrative. Now, they removed that part of the law. They made Bitcoin, the use of Bitcoin voluntary, which on the ground, changed nothing, because it was never enforced before and only changed on paper. It was a concession made to the IMF, which is largely symbolic. It's actually, I think it's very smart, because the IMF can use it for their narrative. And El Salvador gave something up without giving up anything, but suddenly it became a problem. And I think in that we can see how the brain works. And that's the reaction that I saw from many Bitcoiners, where they look at this change, this non issue, and made it a big issue, and said, Oh, it's no longer legal tender. Everything changed. Experiment failed. But then you look at El Salvador and actually, what, what did change? Nothing changed. Bitcoin wise, yes, there's a deal with the IMF, which means there are funds coming for the people, and that's about it. So where's the problem in reality? That's

Mike Peterson:

That's what I keep wondering. I keep asking. But that's why I wanted to have you down to talk about it. Because, you know, obviously you're living here in the country, you're running a business here. You moved here also because it was Bitcoin country, and you've chosen to stay here, and it sounds like have no intention of of leaving. And I think for you, like for me, El Salvador, seems like, just keep getting better.

Lina:

Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, if you ask me, I think that the the the opinion com, stems largely from this, from this that the moment that you deal with the IMF you're done for that's the very strong, very pervasive narrative in the Bitcoin space, not to mention that many countries have IMF deals. Argentina has an IMF deal. It was never an issue. It was an issue with El Salvador because of the change, which actually, how much did it change, right? But, and I think it will help to put this in perspective, and many people don't understand what happened in El Salvador after the Bitcoin law was kicked off. And I think you saw this very up close, right? But it was in 2021 it's almost been four years. I know it's actually crazy. When the whole thing went down, when the Bitcoin law was kicked off, they El Salvador was already negotiating with the IMF, right? And the IMF did not like that. So in response, the entire the IMF and all their friends and the entire financial system, as you said, El Salvador was threatened with being kicked out of the SWIFT system, which kind of paralyzes a nation for the time being. But. The entire financial system punished El Salvador for going that route. And basically, they tried to bankrupt the country. They tried to ostracize the nation and force Bucha like to come crawling back and say, Okay, no, no, fine, I'll do whatever. You know, take some predatory deals and kill my bitcoin law, just so that I don't default. Because you could see after in, like, basically straight after the law was decreed. So darn bonds went like, oh yeah. Like, nosedive. Really scary. Normally, like, a small country does not recover from that at that time, you would have thought had a Salvador caved, like, and, and Bitcoin went into a bear market too, yeah, like, they bought Bitcoin, and then it crashed, and then it was down for two years. That's why

Mike Peterson:

it was so impressive that they kept, yeah, kept doubling down, because most people would have backed off and made an excuse and retreated and got a different direction. But Bucha kept buying. He kept insisting that the country was not backing away from it.

Lina:

And I think that he had two choices at this point. One was, as you said, cave given, and that would have put him in a very weak position, because it would have put him at the mercy of begging them for Yes, exactly. The other option was to double down. So the IMF, at the time said, Okay, if you want the deal, you have to pit you have to kill the Bitcoin law. Otherwise, like

Mike Peterson:

every aspect of it, they wanted them to totally reverse everything. Uh huh. So

Lina:

now, and I think it's pretty clear, if you follow, and I follow this a lot, but if you follow the work that he does, and if you follow his politics, and if you follow him that he's not the kind of like he's kind of notorious for not taking orders, for not working for anybody, but the only people that he answers to are his people. Yeah, so when he had the choice, give in or double down, double down. So IMF said, Kill the Bitcoin law. And he said, I'm going to start buying one bitcoin every day. So this, this entire struggle, this like, basically thread to Salvador's economy. It was sort of missed by the Bitcoin space. Oh, the Bitcoin space saw was, oh, the the prison of El Salvador is memeing against the IMF. And that's really funny. That's so cool. Look, we were right. Nation state adoption, wow. Everything easy. It was not easy at all.

Mike Peterson:

And they knew they were gonna have to do a deal, damn. I mean, they hired a former, I can't remember. He was a former head of the IMF. They brought him in to consult them as to, you know, as they waged this battle against the IMF, to come to deal, they knew that at some point they were going to have to structure something, but they wanted to do it on their terms when they were in the strongest position. And then I think that's what a lot of Bitcoiners don't understand. They're like, Well, why would when we're in this bull market and the US is adopting Bitcoin, all these things are going well, why? Why are you giving in? Then he's like, No. Then then I finally have leverage. Now I have the ability to dictate terms, and the IMF has to, like, conjure something that they can take away as a win and so, and he knows that, he knows he's got to give them a little bit so that they can come away and say, Oh, we got concessions from him, yeah. And he gave him something that had very little practical impact on the country. I think

Lina:

that the best deals that you make, you make them on the level playing field. So he leveled the playing field. So when people say, Why did you take the deal now that everything's going so well for you, I think is actually quite simple. So the IMF tried to crush El Salvador. I saw some, some some, some tweets around the time that the deal happened that said, you know, if El Salvador doesn't do what the now that they have to deal the IMF got them, and if they don't do what the IMF wants, then the IMF will punish El Salvador. That already happened. They already tried, yeah, and they failed, and El Salvador came back stronger. So now the power dynamics have shifted massively, and I think that probably the IMF needs to steal more than El Salvador needs it. So El Salvador had to live and progress even and actually wage a war on gangs in the meantime, for years without that, without that help. So they found their sources of income and their loans and their investments or anything, found it elsewhere. I don't think they depend on the IMF, but for the IMF, it would be a terrible precedent if a small country adopts a currency that the IMF can't control. Cool, and then actually thrives so much that they don't need to take the deal anymore. So the IMF went from kill the Bitcoin law or else to okay, we can make a deal, and you can keep your law, just make some changes, and then we still give you the money. Just take the deal. Yeah, I thought it was so obvious. But many people didn't, didn't see that part.

Mike Peterson:

Well, I think the IMF, too was in a hurry, because they saw that, you know, if Trump was was to win, that they would lose their leverage. And I don't think then they, even at that time, knew how strong of a Bitcoin president, like shift, you would see in the US, but I think they kind of felt the winds changing, and so they wanted to do a deal. And so I think bu Kelly took advantage of that, and yeah, got, got the deal. And the reality is El Salvador was in fairly dire financial straits. I mean, there for decades, they've been living beyond their means. You had presidents who have looted the country. You have all these things that have happened. And so, you know, but Kelly inherited that mess, and he had to put together a package that gives them a pathway forward. And so, you know, I know people feel like, oh, but once the IMF gets in, they're just gonna, like, try to take control of everything and then force them to take new loans. And like Bucha, does not want to get played, he sees this as something that's going to give him some breathing room to build out the economy so they don't need the IMF anymore.

Lina:

Uh huh, yeah, and it's still $3.4 billion so Salvador spent last year like $10 billion the money goes a long way. And why would you at this point, when you have put together a deal, an agreement that you can, that you can manage, where you're like, okay, I'm fine with this. It's not, I don't find it predatory, and I'm fine with the concessions. If you still reject it at that point, then you're making an ideological decision, not a rational one, and that wouldn't be smart as a head of state.

Mike Peterson:

So yeah, no. 100% Well, we could, we could talk about this all day, but people probably don't want to, want to listen to us. So let's let people know. What, other than the book, what you guys have going on a little hodler, what things you're excited about with the company and where they can get their bu Kelly, little

Lina:

hodler. Oh, yes, so I mean, I still have my online shop. It's the little adler.com I actually restocked it with the new we had. Our flashes are upgraded, like we put magnets on them. We changed the designs. We have new ones, but I haven't gotten around to relaunching the story yet. So actually, our team, they pushing me to do it so you can actually buy the new plushies already. I just haven't said it yet, so you

Mike Peterson:

heard it here breaking

Lina:

so that is one thing. And then, of course, we have a project with with books, which they'll be open source, so you can also, once they're ready, you can download them, use them as you please. And we have an event on May the Fourth, on Star Wars Day at the be nice at the library for these, for the books. So it's gonna be an event for kids, but it'll be open. We'll have activities for them. Anybody can come, and you can bring your kids. So we'll have like, huge, oversized memory game. We'll have like, a canvas on the floor that they can paint. What else do we wear? Face painting. I haven't quite understood what is going to be painted on the faces. I'm picturing, like orange, like a huge

Mike Peterson:

or, like $1 Bitcoin be

Lina:

or maybe it'll just be Tigers or something. Or the kid will be like, I want to be Spider Man. They're probably not going to say no to that. So, yeah, we're doing that. It'll be open. Anybody can come. I think it's from 2pm till 4pm so that is perfect

Mike Peterson:

time, especially if there's people that are here in El Salvador who haven't gone to see the downtown. Oh, yeah. Definitely take advantage of this reason to go down. It's pretty remarkable. I mean, it's just beautiful. Now, yeah,

Lina:

it's free to go at the library is free. Obviously our event is also free. Everything's free.

Mike Peterson:

So they go to your online store, and then obviously your your Twitter handle. Oh,

Lina:

yeah, which is my German name? Yeah, it's Lina. Say, here, s, e, i, C, A, G, yeah, yeah.

Mike Peterson:

Make sure, make sure you're following Lena, because then you just have to. Remember her last name once, and once you're following her, it just pop up automatically. And you post a lot of your cartoons there on your Twitter account. Yeah,

Lina:

you also post a lot about El Salvador clever ones. Yeah, yeah. Lately, lately, we also go a lot and we film, like cafes, and think photos and stuff. We do that for the for the coffee project.

Mike Peterson:

Are you still, are you still working with a coffee project? Okay, yeah, well, well, you gotta, you gotta give us a little update on that.

Lina:

The coffee project still makes coffee. Yeah, no, so that's the President's personal coffee brand. Been a fire in a fire. Yeah, and he sells coffee from Santa Ana volcano.

Mike Peterson:

And you can, if you're coming to visit El Salvador in the airport there at the shop, you can get a free sample of it. They have a coffee there. And so you can try it before you buy it. Yes, it's

Lina:

open 24/7 and also, Is it open 24/7 24/7 724? Seven? Yeah. So if you land, or even if you fly at like, 6am you need a coffee, they give you one. Yeah,

Mike Peterson:

no, I've stopped. I've stopped and got my coffee there before. Did you buy? We did we actually bought. We bought something to take down to, we're going down to Suriname. And so we bought something to take down for the folks down there. Yeah,

Lina:

yeah, that's nice, yeah. And right now they have like a special spring drink or something. I don't know what it is, but has like an orange in it. Okay, yeah, so that's that, but, yeah. But the coffee ships actually exclusively to the US. So if you want to buy online, you can ship it to the US, I think Canada too, because we're on Amazon, and here in El Salvador, you can get it at the airport. And then I believe that the the Hyatt in San Salvador, they have the coffee as well, and they serve it okay, if you want, yeah, nice,

Mike Peterson:

nice. Yeah, all right. Well, it's a beautiful Saturday here at the beach, so I'll let you, let you get out there. So hot out there, but so nice. Yeah, you could be in Germany right now, yeah,

Lina:

then I'd be complaining about that. That's, that's human psychology, yeah.

Mike Peterson:

Well, I appreciate you coming. And again, it's always good, good to see you and get get some common sense updates about what is happening here in Bitcoin country,

Lina:

yes, which is still Bitcoin countries, come

Mike Peterson:

and see it. Come and visit. Judge for yourself. Thank you. Thank you. You.