Former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan: Bitcoin Is a ‘Political Revolution’

March 3, 2024 Bitcoin.com

How to become a ‘Blockchain Radical,’ according to podcaster Joshua Dávila

August 9, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Activism

Despite its libertarian reputation, author and podcaster Joshua Dávila, aka The Blockchain Socialist, believes crypto is for everyone — including the Left.

Crypto has been the subject of much criticism from those on the political Left, many of whom see cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) as being associated with libertarian or right-wing ideas. One common perception is that cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-based technologies, such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), exist for the primary purpose of concentrating wealth, scamming investors and otherwise replicating existing financial and power structures — just in a more unregulated manner.

On Episode 16 of The Agenda podcast, hosts Ray Salmond and Jonathan DeYoung chat with author and podcaster Joshua Dávila, host of The Blockchain Socialist podcast and author of the new book Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It. Dávila is critical of the capitalistic tendencies of much of the crypto space and offers up an alternative informed by his perspective as a self-described “socialism maxi.”

“Capitalism ruined crypto”

Dávila acknowledged that there is a fundamental capitalistic mentality within most of crypto, saying the space has been “heavily influenced by kind of, I would say, more right-leaning libertarian thought, which includes a lot of, let’s say, support for capitalistic structures, for free markets and for all these things.”

This is reflected at a core level within the consensus mechanisms of most blockchains, which tend to rely on profit-seeking and asset accumulation to incentivize validators, he argued. “If there was no reason to accumulate profits or wealth in our society, then blockchains would crumble because that’s the way that they’re designed.”

Dávila pointed to venture capitalists, in particular, as a negative influence on crypto. He believes that while there were a lot of interesting experiments in the early days of crypto, the influx of venture capital has brought with it the expectation of massive returns for investors, which just ends up replicating the traditional economic order.

“If there is no protection or some reason stopping them from coming in, of course they’re going to come in, and they’re going to ruin things because that’s like the modus operandi of what they do.”

What’s the alternative?

There are many applications for cryptocurrency and blockchain that don’t fall within the existing socio-economic order, argued Dávila, who pointed to alternative chains such as Cosmos as examples of the way that a blockchain’s design can influence its social implications.

He gave the example of a 2022 incident on Juno, a part of the Cosmos network, in which the community voted to “expropriate” $35 million worth of airdropped JUNO tokens from a wallet that had allegedly managed to receive more tokens than it was supposed to. “They have very clear on-chain governance directly for the chain itself that had obvious sociopolitical consequences,” he said. “They would not have been able to do that if this was Bitcoin.”

For Dávila, that is a good thing: “Ultimately, we are the creators of our destiny, so we should embrace that fact and implement that in technological code the best we can.”

As for his broader dreams for the crypto and tech landscape, Dávila said he would love to see “the creation of applications that allow for collective ownership of digital infrastructure.”

“They [Web3 founders] need to create something that is different, that specifically gets at the root of the problem, which I think is how we own things and how we govern those things, and recognizing that our resources should be shared in common rather than completely privatized by whatever next billionaire comes up with another Big Tech company.”

To hear more from Dávila’s conversation with The Agenda, listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!

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This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin evangelist Joe Hall tells The Agenda why he thinks BTC will conquer the world

June 7, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Community

Bitcoin has a marketing problem, but journalist and BTC evangelist Joe Hall is doing his best to fix it.

“Bitcoin has such a marketing problem.”

At least, that’s what came to mind for Bitcoin (BTC) advocate and Cointelegraph reporter Joe Hall when he was asked about the weaknesses and strengths of the popular cryptocurrency.

While not labeling himself a “Bitcoin maximalist,” Hall believes that most people — including crypto OGs — are shockingly unaware of what Bitcoin can do; and for this reason, he questions the necessity and future of most altcoin projects.

“They’re doing it with imperfect solutions that in the long term will rug-pull them or close enough to that. Because, let’s be honest, all of these crypto projects eventually collapse into Bitcoin, or they eventually collapse full stop. I mean, we saw enough of that last year. And, you know, in 10, 15, 20, maybe 40 years’ time, will Bitcoin still be running? 1,000%. Will Ethereum still be running? Question marks. And will the other 20-ish thousand crypto projects still be going strong? I’m pretty confident they won’t be.”

Hall proved his point by asking co-hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond to open up their Bitcoin Lightning wallets to accept the equivalent of $5 in satoshis. And after DeYoung downloaded the wallet and received the payment, both co-hosts were astonished at the speed of the transaction.

On Episode 13 of The Agenda podcast, Salmond and DeYoung spoke with Hall about his views on Bitcoin adoption and its “marketing problem,” his ultimate vision of how Bitcoin could eventually conquer the financial world, and how his experience as a Bitcoin evangelist has connected him with people all around the world.

It’s more than just money

Hall believes that Bitcoin is more than just money: It’s a revolution, a lifestyle, a binder of people and a builder of community.

Hall said:

“Bitcoin, to me, in my own words: It’s an expression of how we approach the world, I guess. I mean, it’s had an impact on me, in terms of my approach to people, to different cultures and in the way in which I interact with people — despite the fact that it is just a bunch of code on a screen. And because it’s rewired the way in which I look at the world and consider things, it’s taught me to be more skeptical and to not take things at face value. But it’s also delivered a lot of hope and a lot of sort of meaning to my existence that perhaps wasn’t there previously.”

Hall has elected to only live off Bitcoin for day-to-day expenses, excluding when he has to pay European Union taxes. As to why he is such a strong believer in the digital currency, Hall shared, “We can’t live in a world that is governed by growth at all costs when we have one finite, very precious planet.”

“Bitcoin, for me, it appeals to me because of the way that it flips that all on its head. You know, we have a deflationary currency, there’s only going to be 21 million, and we can rebuild our economic system off that in a way that raises all boats, not just the elite few. And it tackles things like the wealth gap and wealth inequality. It tackles things like the environment and the way in which, you know, Bitcoin mining could be this transition to using more and more renewable energies.”

To hear more from Hall’s conversation with The Agenda — including Hall’s future vision for Bitcoin and his fascination with the Lightning Network — listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!

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The Bitcoin transition: How hodlers can become changemakers and drive adoption

April 28, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Community

“When you think about Bitcoin, it’s potentially the largest country or one of the largest countries today. But it’s digital and it’s spread out everywhere,” Jeff Booth told Cointelegraph.

If Bitcoin (BTC) were a country, it might be one of the biggest in the world. That’s according to Jeff Booth, general partner at Bitcoin venture fund Ego Death Capital and author of The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future. Cointelegraph spoke to Booth to better understand and visualize the Bitcoin movement’s state in 2023.

Booth sat down to enjoy a pint and a chat about Bitcoin in Bedford, a small suburban town that has attracted Bitcoin advocates and key opinion leaders from all over the world. Booth commented on the emergence and resilience of the Bitcoin community and how people can get involved personally in the decade ahead.

*Jeff Booth (right) speaks to Cointelegraph’s Joe Hall*

Booth suggested that the Bitcoin community could usher in a fundamental change to the world if its members dedicated more of their time to the cause. He said that change could be spurred “if all of those people just said, I’m moving and spending more of my time in this to massively step-change the adoption rate.”

The Bitcoin hodlers — those that hold onto their Bitcoin in the hopes of the currency reaching mass adoption — are the backbone of Bitcoin. However, if more of those people could actively use their Bitcoin, the movement could pick up steam and reach its goal faster, Booth argues:

“It would be staggering if the people that were just holding as a hedge decided, I’m going to advance, I’m going to spend more time in the world I want to see and move their time and attention there. The world would move there. I saw it in myself.”

From simple steps like asking if merchants accept Bitcoin to businesses choosing to accept Bitcoin as a preferred means of exchange, there are certain moves that people can make to further the cause. In-person Bitcoin meetups also contribute. Booth commented on the impact of the Bitcoin-themed Real Bedford football team as a way to introduce Bitcoin to a wider audience:

“He’s [Peter McCormack] using this vehicle to advance a whole bunch of other stuff, which is really cool.“

Peter McCormack told Cointelegraph in a separate interview that the Bitcoin movement in 2023 covers far more than the currency: “It’s Nostr, it’s Bitcoin, it’s mainstream media lies, it is poor governance and regulation.” Nostr is a decentralized protocol championed by Bitcoin advocates. Nostr applications like Damus seek to compete with Twitter and other popular social media platforms.

Booth shared that there are more and more ways to use and engage with Bitcoin since his “initiation” into Bitcoin, sometimes referred to as taking the “orange pill.” The Canadian observes that the payments network; the Lightning Network, and Fedimint; a solution for shared custody, present more ways for Bitcoin enthusiasts to get stuck in. Moreover, a lot of engagement and interaction with these Bitcoin subsets takes place online:

“It’s amazing how many friends that I’ve actually never met, and I consider them close friends that over time you develop these relationships, these online relationships that you’ve never met.”

Booth added, “There is something about meeting in person and spending that time going deeper doing this, and there’s something about that that I don’t think can be replaced online.” Initiatives like McCormack’s in Bedford help bridge that gap and encourage Bitcoiners to engage with the local community.

Plus, given that Bitcoiners are currently distributed across the globe, with communities popping up in Senegal, Guatemala and Vietnam, Booth sees potential for local network effects to develop.

“How many Bitcoiners are actually just holding it and are waiting?” he asked.

If the hodlers and those “holding it [Bitcoin] as a hedge” decided to spend more time in the world they want to see, and move both their time and attention there, then, as Booth concludes: “The world would move there.“

This interview is part of an upcoming documentary about Bitcoin in Bedford shown on Cointelegraph’s YouTube channel. Subscribe here.

Cointelegraph Magazine: Bitcoin in Senegal: Why is this African country using BTC?

Why anonymity is key to self-autonomy — And how crypto helps freedom movements win

April 26, 2023 Coin Telegraph

anarchism

The Agenda podcast chats with DarkFi to explore how Rojava is experimenting with cryptocurrency and why encryption and anonymous spaces are critical for building self-autonomy.

In the mid-2010s, the Islamic State was rapidly advancing through Iraq and Syria, conquering territory and terrifying residents. However, one group of Kurds in Northern Syria representing the de facto autonomous Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, in an area known as Rojava, successfully fought back the Islamic State and captured the attention of the world.

Many people from around the world went to Rojava to fight, but one lesser-known story made ripples in the crypto world: Some volunteers traveled there to help build blockchain and technological literacy and experiment with the potential of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) to serve as a tool for revolutionary change. After all, Rojava promotes decentralization, autonomy and self-empowerment — sound familiar?

On Episode 10 of The Agenda, hosts Ray Salmond and Jonathan DeYoung were joined by Rachel Rose-O’Leary and Kato, who discussed their work volunteering in Rojava and how those experiences inspired and relate to their current work developing DarkFi, an anonymous blockchain protocol.

Rojava’s blockchain and crypto experiment

O’Leary traveled to Rojava in late 2018 after feeling disillusioned with the crypto space and how far it had seemingly strayed from its early cypherpunk roots. “I was convinced at that time that Rojava was a place where the ideals of crypto were being fielded and tested,” she said. O’Leary was inspired by Amir Taaki, an early Bitcoin pioneer who himself traveled to the region to volunteer.

Meanwhile, Kato first discovered crypto while already in Rojava. “I basically got interested in crypto and in privacy technologies because of the actual need of the people,” he shared. “I saw the actual use cases, and a lot of people at that time already around the world started using crypto for practical means, like for sending money around.”

“If you don’t have a working banking system or you don’t have access, which is true for most of the world, it’s much more efficient. And also especially if you’re facing persecution and political oppression. And often, it’s actually the only way that you have.”

O’Leary spent much of her time “volunteering very much with building educational infrastructure, especially in terms of technology” — including introducing people to crypto and blockchain. “It’s a very interesting environment for crypto because of the fact that there are no banks,” she shared. “Also, there is no state. So, cryptocurrency is a really interesting like financial paradigm for that kind of a context.”

When asked about whether crypto education is continuing in Rojava in 2023, Kato responded, “There are technical academies and education centers in Rojava, and even new ones have been opened over the last years.” However, the work remains difficult, as “the war is a huge pressure, not just on technical education but on all social fields.”

Privacy is paramount

Both Kato and O’Leary now work on DarkFi, an anonymous layer-1 blockchain protocol. For O’Leary, privacy is essential for the ability of communities to operate freely and autonomously, and the anonymity provided by encryption represents a 21st-century tool for people to express themselves fully:

“If people are under constant surveillance and monitoring by an enormous surveillance apparatus and a surveillance state, then they’re being prohibited from exercising [...] their moral and political society.”

When asked about the future of privacy and whether it’s possible to break free from the mass surveillance paradigm, Kato said that “we’re going to have that struggle for a long time, and for much longer than decades,” adding: “It’s maybe the most fundamental struggle of human society.”

But is there light at the end of the tunnel? Kato believes that through decentralized tools like blockchain, “we have this technology to be able to develop our own financial and economic systems that are actually democratically managed by the people who use them according to what they actually need.”

“There are moments in history where technology reconfigures the nature of power, and the printing press is a very common example,” added O’Leary. “I think we have a similar situation now happening in cryptocurrency, where it’s hard to see now because we’re just at the onset of it. But the basis of power is in the process of being reconfigured by virtue of these technologies.”

To hear more from Kato and O’Leary’s conversation with The Agenda — including their takes on venture capital funding, decentralized finance, and solarpunk vs. lunarpunk — listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!

Magazine: Bitcoin in Senegal: Why is this African country using BTC?

Crypto Hardware Wallet Maker Ledger Raises $100M Amid Growing Demand for Secure Storage Solutions

March 31, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Crypto will generate more wealth than the internet, says Morgan Creek Capital CEO

October 13, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Price

Hedge fund manager Mark Yusko believes cryptocurrencies will generate ‘untold wealth’ by powering the internet of value.

By laying the foundations of the internet of value, cryptocurrency and blockchain will generate more wealth than Web 1 and Web 2, said CEO of Morgan Creek Capital, Mark Yusko, in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph.

“We haven't even gotten to the parabolic growth part of Web 3, which is going to create untold wealth”,, stated Yusko.

In his career as a hedge fund manager, Yusko profited from investing in early internet technologies. He embraced cryptocurrency in 2017 after realizing their potential to power the internet of value: a new iteration of the internet that will allow users to exchange value directly bypassing financial intermediaries.

In comparison to the previous iterations of the internet, which revolutionized the spheres of commerce and media, the"trust net", as Yusko calls it, will generate an exponentially larger amount of wealth.

"Financial services is far bigger than information, and media, and commerce", he pointed out.

However, Yusko is convinced that before entering a phase of parabolic growth, the crypto industry will need to overcome the opposition of traditional financial actors and possibly face another major correction.

“The incumbents really don't want the disruptors to win, so they will fight really hard. They'll throw up regulatory barriers, they'll try to buy up the companies and shell of the technology", he said.

Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel and don’t forget to subscribe!

Bringing the crypto payments ecosystem around the world: Ray Youssef

July 25, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

“I was nearly killed by the police, who saw me wandering through the city thinking I’m a looter.” Ray Youssef discusses his close calls and crypto adoption.

Though he has had 11 business failures, today Ray Youssef is building Bitcoin-funded schools across Africa as executive director of the Built With Bitcoin Foundation and is helping millions of people buy and sell cryptocurrency as CEO of Paxful. However, Youssef also admits to looting hardware stores on behalf of a convent school after Hurricane Katrina and says he was nearly shot as a suspected CIA agent during the Egyptian Revolution.

He has just returned from El Salvador, where he spent time at Bitcoin Beach — where he says even children are using Bitcoin (BTC). Crypto payments services are important there because 70% of people in El Salvador have no bank account. For Youssef, peer-to-peer financial networks spell hope for the developing world.

All roads lead to Bitcoin

When Youssef first heard about Bitcoin in 2011, he quickly “dismissed it as nerd money.” He had more pressing things on his mind, as that year he left the relative comfort of New York to support the revolution in his native Egypt. There, he went to the core of the protests at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo and “nearly died on the first night of really crazy fighting” during which he was arrested by the military as a suspected CIA agent. “I could write a book on that one night alone,” he concluded with a laugh that exuded mystery.

He’s not the first crypto leader to throw themself into a revolution — like Griff Green, who once protected polling booths in Catalonia, or Amir Taaki, who went to fight with the Kurdish YPG. After he returned home to the United States, however, he began integrating his experiences of the revolution and questioning many things about society.

The energy in Nigeria will transform the world. The youth have already begun building a pan African financial settlement layer using #bitcoin and nothing can stop peer to peer. Africa is now leading the new world of finance and crypto adoption. Let us all show them love https://t.co/kTSFDdYwUl pic.twitter.com/uufSnLKUZz
— Ray “Adewale Uwaifo” Youssef (@raypaxful) June 12, 2021

One of the rabbit holes he descended was that of money. “I started asking questions about money: Where is it? Where does it come from?” he said. Soon, he “began to see history through a very different lens.” That’s when he returned to Bitcoin, where he felt he could find answers.

It seems that crypto attracts revolutionaries, perhaps backing the idea of a technological or financial revolution brought on by blockchain. As he arrived at Bitcoin Center NYC for his first meetup in 2013, he wondered about the other Bitcoiners: “What are they like? Are they on the same journey that I am on?”

Describing the event, he sounded not unlike a pilgrim recounting a tale of a faraway shrine where they’d hoped to find other seekers of truth. The first person he met, Artur Schaback — his soon-to-be business partner — was the only other tall guy in the meeting, “So we got along, and we really bonded over the belief that Bitcoin could help the little guy.” Soon, they started working on a Bitcoin retail solution, but it was no easy ride.

“We ran out of money — we had to choose between our startup or a place to live.”

The two adventurers “ended up homeless, surfing couches.” Youssef felt he had hit rock bottom, and he needed to ask for help — he was terrified of his mother finding out about his situation. He fasted for a month, and he prayed. “I had to be truly humbled and really begged God for help — I was broken, defeated, and I got a very special night — it was the Night of Power of Ramadan,” he recalled solemnly. Whatever he experienced then, for Youssef, it represented a turning point.

Youssef initially moved to the U.S. with his family from Egypt when he was 2, and by 8, he was already working odd jobs. He studied history at Baruch College in New York starting in 1996, but his real passion lay with computers. He got his first PC at 19 and “taught myself to code right away and started doing startups.” He worked as a senior software engineer at early smartphone company YadaYada first for two years before embarking on his entrepreneurial path. The first of these was related to coupons being distributed over text messages, but the idea failed to gain traction.

The young entrepreneur soon went on to have his first taste of success, however, as he pivoted to downloadable ringtones. His new company, called MatrixM, “went from like $0 to $1 million revenue in less than six months.”

“The biggest problem was primarily that the users who wanted ringtones were unbanked people — teenagers.”

Though he got off to a strong start, the next decade did not provide a comfortable ride. Youssef best describes this turbulent part of his life on LinkedIn, where he writes his title as “Entrepreneur” at “11 failed startups and many lessons learned.” The fact that he did not give up during that time speaks volumes. Though his initial success could be attributed to mere luck, it surely helped him to believe in himself despite years of failure. Whether he was a competent entrepreneur after his first success or not, he surely had put in the hard yards to become one after the 11th failure.

In his work at MatrixM, Youssef discovered that peer-to-peer infrastructure, then still in its infancy, was the key to getting access to ringtones and a broad audience — users could upload ringtones as well as download them. Today, Youssef explained, peer-to-peer platforms like Uber and Airbnb have “become part of our daily lives.” The same will soon happen with peer-to-peer finance. “Humanity has been waiting for this one for a long time,” he said. While developed countries can benefit, Youssef said that the need in emerging economies, like throughout much of Africa, is much greater.

He described the issues people face around transacting money as “mind-bending — even if they have a bank account and get a bank card, they can only spend $100 a month maximum with your Visa card.” This means that sending money in and out of Africa can quickly become a nightmare, as merchants cannot easily buy goods from China, for example. “They have to go through like three or four hops, turn their money into USD on the black market, and find a way to get that into a bank account that can actually wire the money because their personal accounts cannot,” he explained in an exasperated tone.

Paxful

Some time later in 2015, he was told of a method to profit by selling gift cards for BTC. Youssef was suspicious but decided to try it out of desperation. “I thought it was a scam, but it worked, so we scaled it up,” he recalled as if still surprised. With their system working, Youssef and Schaback decided to build a platform for trading cryptocurrency for gift cards, seeing it as “the best way to onboard the unbanked” into the world of cryptocurrency. After 72 hours of coding, Paxful was live.

Youssef recalls a time when he took a customer service call from a “desperate lady” needing to purchase $2.50 worth of BTC in order to pay for an online classified ad. Down to her last $13 and without a bank account, she had no idea how to buy Bitcoin, as no services were geared toward people like her. With her children crying in the background, Youssef guided her to go to a nearby drugstore and buy a $10 Walmart gift card.

“‘Okay, I’ll walk you through the whole process of turning a Walmart gift card into Bitcoin, and then actually sending the Bitcoin to that address.’ It was two hours — it was rough.”

The experience was formative, as it illustrated the real struggles of those without access to the traditional banking system who try to use modern internet-based services. “That’s why Paxful is on top — we are willing to do what others are not, we’re willing to go where others are not willing to go, like Nigeria,” Youssef explained, referring to the fact that small transactions carry little profit. He said that he feels a deep connection to Africa because of his roots. “This whole time, my dream was to help Africa,” he asserted.

Today, Paxful allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrency via hundreds of methods. It is profitable and boasts over 6 million users, supported by “almost 500 people in nine offices around the world.” Soon, he believes, the platform will go mainstream, especially in Nigeria — which is the company’s biggest market and Youssef’s part-time home. “They’re the ones who are going to pull the rest of Africa forward. Nigeria is the Lion of Africa,” Youssef said with pride, as if he were a Nigerian himself. Soon, Youssef believes, it will be the Silicon Valley of Africa.

Built with Bitcoin

The Built with Bitcoin Foundation, where Youssef serves as executive director, aims to build 100 schools around the world in support of local communities — an idea inspired by his experience after Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in August 2005. Youssef saw the devastation on the news and decided that “I’m going down there myself.”

On the ground, he found various charities to be of little help. “Finally, I managed to find these five Dominican nuns in the French Quarter. They had a school, and they wanted me to help rebuild and reopen the school.” Youssef went around the city to scavenge building materials and supplies, sometimes putting himself in great danger. At one point, he befriended a trucker, and “Me and him actually ended up looting a Lowes [hardware store] to get supplies to the school.”

“During this time I had a lot of adventures — one where I was nearly killed by the police, who saw me wandering through the city thinking I’m a looter.”

The opening of the school, Youssef believes, was key to helping the city reopen after the disaster, as the police and fire department “wouldn’t have come back if they couldn’t have put their children back to school.” Schools, he realized, are a pillar of community development and civilization. “That’s where I got the idea for Built with Bitcoin — a hundred schools in the next five years, and we’ve already built three of them,” he said. So far, the organization has completed three schools. In addition to schools, there is a focus on sustainable farming and the provision of wells in order to guarantee communities access to clean water.

Help us on our mission to build 100 schools across the globe by donating.

Last week we opened our newest school in Kenya, where local children now have easier access to an education, paving the way for a brighter future.

Link to donate in bio. pic.twitter.com/qMbZPgZl1z
— Built With Bitcoin Foundation (@builtwithbtc) June 29, 2021

According to the website, 92% of funds go directly into projects. One of the recent school projects in Rwanda was done in collaboration with a charity called Zam Zam Water. While the building of schools and wells certainly nourishes communities to grow, the idea that the proliferation of cryptocurrencies can help form more robust local and internationally connected economies is a much newer one. “I consider myself a Bitcoin optimist,” Youssef said.

El Bitcoin

When El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, recently announced that Bitcoin was an official currency for the nation, the international press was skeptical. Youssef was among the CEOs who flew to the country in the weeks following the announcement, no doubt in hopes of opening up a new major market for Paxful.

In his view, the new Bitcoin Law, which is seeing all citizens receive an airdrop of $30 in BTC, benefits the common people . Still, he noted that “The old aristocracy of El Salvador came out” to disparage him as a colonizer after he “took a photo-op at the airport with a bunch of police guards who are not working for me.”

Youssef is confident that this is just the beginning, as grassroots use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will “spread to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras as well, and eventually Mexico and all Central America — we’re seeing that very clearly.”

revolution