YouSaid · the spoken record

Mike Peterson

lines on the record: 60
first: 2022-06-08
most recent: 2022-06-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Water's 85 degrees. Even if you're a disaster, you'll have fun and enjoy it. So that's what's so great about surfing in El Salvador.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we're really more active on Twitter than anything else. I mean, the webpage is more of a landing page. We're trying to be better about it, but Twitter is where we are up to date on everything. And then it's also too when people want to donate, we can, if we have our budget met for that month, we can push them directly to some of these other. And so Twitter is really the best place to follow us.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can't think of anything else in the world that's had this like millionfold ripple effect impact. And it's so fitting for Bitcoin. I mean, it's so Satoshi-esque. It's just right in the line with all that that somebody that doesn't want any credit doesn't even want to be known who they are kind of spurred this whole thing.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, just through cryptic text messages. I've never met the donor. I don't even know if it's a man or a woman. But I have had some email messages back and forth. And yeah, obviously they're thrilled about what's happening.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The original donor to publish that in the next couple months here because I think people will realize this was a very stupid idea from a naive individual who thought they could do this and it worked. So if I can do it, if our small team of most of the people had never even left the village of El Zante and they were able to drive this worldwide phenomenon, then anybody can do this. You just got to step out of your comfort zone. you know, do the work.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we've been there in NLV for about 10 years, but this project was only rolled out in 2019. Oh, my God. It's really been shocking how quickly it has rolled out. And it's funny, I actually went back and I had written a white paper of sorts to present to the original donor that funded these things. And I laid out this very aggressive timeline of all these things that were going to happen. And I'm shocked like all those things actually happened as I described them and even faster. And so it's...”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That will be on our BitcoinBeach.com website. We're in the planning process right now. We'll actually have a landing page and links for them to. Donate to all of those organizations directly. We feel it's always better for them to go directly if they feel comfortable. Some people would rather turn it over to us and sense that we have a better idea of who needs it most. But I like the direct contact I like for people to feel like they're giving directly. Then they can go to South Africa and help do the English classes and participate in these things directly. But within the next month, that will be up on our Bitcoin Beach website.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They'll actually be able to get more bang for the sat right now than we will because we're set for the month. And so We're really trying to be open-handed about it and make sure we're spreading these resources to all of these projects.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we do have a kind of an umbrella nonprofit in the US. It's more focused on what our initial work, which was supporting different churches and working with different missionaries. That's kind of what this spun out of. And so we still have that available for people that want a tax write-off that want to give to the local programs, you know, specifically the Bitcoin programs. And we'll keep it in Bitcoin if that's generally what we try to do. But a lot of people in the Bitcoin space will just want to give directly and so we'll send them a QR code or a lot of times we'll actually encourage them, hey, we have enough right now for this month. Send it to the project in South Africa because they're being held back by lack of resources.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ton of traction they've onboarded, I think like 100 stores. They have a couple thousand people using Bitcoin. The initiative is called Motive. And I'm surprised at the limited press coverage it's gotten because they've actually, I think, are doing more than we're even doing in El Salvador. So there's a project in Brazil. There's a Bitcoin beach spinoff in Guatemala. There's Bitcoin Jungle in Costa Rica. And so in true Bitcoin fashion, it's decentralized. We're not like some head organization that people run through. They're doing their own thing and we're behind the scenes helping support them and kind of push. And when we have extra resources, we push them their way.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“to get the momentum that we were able to get. So right now, that's kind of where I'm focusing on my efforts. There's a very exciting project in South Africa and Muslim Bay called Bitcoin Akasi. And so many parallels to the Bitcoin Beach story. It's also a surf town. They actually had an existing surf-focused nonprofit that they integrated Bitcoin in with. They're seeing, I think they have a half dozen stores now that are onboarded. They're rolling out educational initiatives. They've actually started a lifeguard initiative like we did where they're paying the lifeguards in Bitcoin. And so for me, there's no bigger joy than seeing this come out of El Zante, come out of El Salvador, this lighten this hope and go into a place like South Africa. There's another initiative in Guatemala, Bitcoin Lake, that's kind of a similar thing. A big initiative in Peru that actually has a”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's super replicable. I mean, I'm nobody. I'm not a tech person. I'm not some high-powered executive. I was just somebody stupid enough to believe that this could be done and that people would want to spend Bitcoin on their daily coffee. And so if I can do it, literally anybody can do it. And right now, we are really focused on kind of making Bitcoin Beach a worldwide initiative and supporting, there's a number of other great projects, a lot of them run by people, much more talented than myself that just haven't had the media exposure and maybe the financial”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do think the bond issue, which has been tied to that, I think that is a whole nother story. I think that is actually going to revolutionize the world financial system. If this goes off as I expect it will, I mean, I think that will be what drives a lot of countries to adopt Bitcoin because it could be done in a way that for the early, you know, obviously it's not going to be sustainable for everybody. You'll get to the point where the early gains will already be had. But I think for the early adopters that are doing this, while Bitcoin still has a long way to run, I think they're going to actually be able to pay off their national debt while borrowing money. I think it's going to be, I mean, mind-blowing.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do know for the volcanoes, you know, obviously they're locating right at the source. They can kind of be behind the meter. They don't have the transmission costs. I'm not an expert in the hydro steam power. I don't know if they can really be competitive. I would guess it's going to be more of a niche thing, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong on that.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Volcano bonds, I mean, the volcano, yeah, the volcano bonds and the Bitcoin city aspect, I think, is a brilliant marketing campaign. I love the narrative. I love the thought of being able to mine with, you know, energy that doesn't produce any emissions. I have my skepticisms. I have my doubts on whether the combination of the warm weather in El Salvador and then the current cost of electricity. I don't know if it's ever going to become like a mining epicenter. I know for myself right now I pay about 30 cents a kilowatt. electricity in my home, which is about what I pay in my hometown of San Diego. And so neither of those, you know, obviously those rates are not going to entice minors.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said, Hey, our whole team is coming next week. We're moving forward on El Salvador. This is going to be our focus to build this community. And right now, this is a $100 million project that they're looking to do, which in a country like El Salvador, where the total economy in a year is about $30 billion. I mean, $100 million is significant. And that's one little part, just one little of these hundreds and hundreds of big projects that are moving forward that are benefiting, bringing jobs, benefiting the economy, and really driving El Salvador forward.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they had a couple projects in Nicaragua and Honduras, and they were denominated in Bitcoin. And so I went and talked to them. Actually, the president of the company was there. So I came back to have a meeting with him and explained about the Bitcoin Beach project and that we had this vision to do a Bitcoin only housing development. And would they be interested in coming and looking and maybe partnering with that or trying to do something? And he said, you know, I'll be honest, it sounds exciting, but El Salvador, it's maybe on our 10-year roadmap, but it's just not a place where we see a lot of demand right now, and it's probably not something we'd be interested in. But here, here's my number. Let's keep in touch. If I can help in any way, let me know. And later that afternoon, the video came on and Buke Kelly made the announcement that El Salvador was adopting Bitcoin. The next day, I got a call from this industry.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To follow up on that, that kind of shows how much investment is coming into El Salvador because of this law. It was actually a little over a year ago at the, or I guess it was about a year ago at the Bitcoin conference in Miami before the law was announced. There was a developer, real estate developer in the commercial hall.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're gonna do a pretty substantial project there in El Zante in the hills, amazing ocean views, anywhere from 200,000 to a million dollar homes in the community. And it's going to be Bitcoin only. I mean, the payments are all in Bitcoin. EHOAs will be in Bitcoin. This is going to be a gathering place for Bitcoiners who want to live their life in Bitcoin.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even these people making $300 to $400 a month, they'll be able to afford to own their own home, to be able to pay it off over a 15-year period with an interest-free loan. Then those funds that are repaid will go to fund the next housing project. And so we're super excited about it. Actually, Coinbase donated $2.5 million to fund this program. I know Coinbase sometimes gets knocked on within the Bitcoin space, but our hats are off to them for kind of stepping up and really putting their money where their mouth is to support this project. And we're super excited about that. The other project that we're doing is going to be more focused on the expat Bitcoin community, people that are looking for second homes, looking for a plan B, or just want to get out of the US or Canada or Australia, which I get inundated with DMs from people.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Found sometimes just servicing the loans can cost 40% of the loan payments that are coming in because on bank accounts, they have to go out and collect in person. It's very labor intensive. And so this is going to allow them to be much more efficient and it's going to allow the individuals buying the homes to have a record of all the payments they've made. They can pay from sitting on their couch. And it'll also obviously increase demand for Bitcoin in the local community. So we're super excited about that.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we have two very different and very exciting housing projects that we're working on. One is a social initiative that we're doing an affordable housing. We want to make sure that with all the development that's happening in El Salvador, specifically El Zante, that the locals participate, that they're not pushed out to the margins. And so we have combined forces with new story. It's a very innovative housing-focused nonprofit. And we're going to do, it's going to be between three to five hundred homes in El Zante that will be Bitcoin-only mortgages. So now the mortgages won't be denominated in Bitcoin. We wouldn't want to saddle anybody with that. They'll be denominated in dollars, but they'll make their monthly payments in Bitcoin. And that's going to allow new story to significantly reduce the cost of servicing loans to low income individuals. In the past, they've”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“the talent for the jobs that were flowing into El Salvador. To be quite honest, that is one of the bottlenecks right now is there's so many countries that want to be attached to the name of El Salvador, to the phenomenon that's happening here. But they're having trouble staffing up quick enough because there's so much demand for these more highly talented programmers and people in the space. And so El Salvador is trying to ramp up their education. There's a number of nonprofits that are stepping in that are doing different courses to develop this workforce that these companies are demanding.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So the only engagement I've had with the president was on a Twitter spaces that was actually the night of the law being signed. And so that was the only direct engagement. We've had a lot of engagement with Minister Tourism, the Minister of Economy, and more recently the Minister of Education. We're working with the education ministry to roll out a country-wide program of Bitcoin education starting from seventh grade on. So they want to do financial education primarily focused on Bitcoin across all the public schools. And we're working with my first Bitcoin, which is another nonprofit here doing Bitcoin education, to develop this curriculum. There will really be the first in the world. I mean, really the first, most countries don't do any financial education in the public schools. So not only are they doing financial education, they're doing Bitcoin-focused financial education. And that's what we need to develop.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Recognition that the president has is phenomenal. And so I think that's going to be a driving factor along with the other things of them realizing, hey, I can put my name in the history books. I can go down as one of the first adopters that brought my country out of this kind of decades of financial repression.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so we're seeing this kind of constant inflow of inquiries of people wanting to have that advantage they see El Salvador having. And I think another place where the game theory comes into effect is just understanding what drives politicians. Politicians love to see their name in the news. They love to see to be in the headlines. They love, especially if it's the big papers, the Wall Street Journals, the 60 Minutes, the CBS, the Fox News, those things. And so they're realizing, wow, just by adopting Bitcoin, El Salvador has really catapulted itself into a country that everybody knows about. I would say Naive Bukelly is one of the most recognizable presidents outside of the US and some of the maybe the big five to have a small country like that to have the name.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think we're seeing more and more interest, even this past week after all the central bankers left, there was another delegation from Senegal that was there actually researching the surf industry in El Salvador because they have surf in Senegal and they want to kind of replicate El Salvador's success. And they were just fascinated by the actual potential of Bitcoin tourism and the boom that El Salvador is seeing from that. And so they came and spent the day. They want to there was a mayor from a small island off of the capital of Senegal that he wants to kind of roll out a similar thing.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, and I think during that transition period, that's why it's so important to have like the ability within the Chivo wallet that they can hold it in dollars or strike. We're actually getting ready to roll that. Option out within the Bitcoin Beach wallet. And so we see that as a bridge when people first get into it, they'll choose to hold mostly dollars. But over time, we see them gradually put more and more in Bitcoin until they become like me where they just want to hold everything in Bitcoin. And so I think, and I think this is. Actually, the most opportune time and kind of a down cycle for people to be learning those lessons, to be getting their feet wet, getting burnt a few times, and understanding that so that when we come into the next bull market, like they're going to be primed and ready to go.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so for a lot of these central bankers, some of them will go back and they'll start pushing, hey, we can drive our country in this direction. We can be number three or number four. We can make history. We can invite investment. There's others that aren't going to take that initiative, but when somebody else in their country starts driving it, they'll be less likely to want to try to stop it because they'll be less afraid of it. They'll understand it. They'll see the potential of it. And so I think we're going to see this play out in these 44 countries and very different ways. But I guarantee that several of them within the next five years will have adopted Bitcoin.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Part of why I think lightning is such a game changer when you have to wait for a confirmation and you're showing somebody that, it kind of feels a little wonky. But when they see that, you know, they hear that immediate ping on their end that they received it. I haven't not met a single person that I've onboarded and had to a lightning transaction that still thought, nah, this Bitcoin thing's not going to go anywhere. I mean, literally once they do a transaction, they're hooked.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It used to be everybody there was planning to try to sneak into the US or a lot of them were joining the gang. Now they feel like, hey, there's all these expats wanting to come to Elzante. There's all these business opportunities here. I'm super fortunate to be Salvadoran to have a Salvadoran passport. I live in the country that these other people are, you know, wanting to spend potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to acquire this passport. I already have it. I'm going to take advantage of it and build a business here. And so we're seeing the vast majority of locals kind of since that opportunity and want to make sure that they defer gratification, that they put the hard work in now so that it can benefit long run from that.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just to circle back one thing I wanted to mention on the 44 central bankers that were there. It was interesting watching their reaction to being able to make these transactions and buy things with Bitcoin versus Americans. Americans are kind of used to being able to do those sorts of things. It seems like no big deal. I could do this with Venmo. For them, it was amazing that they could themselves do this without having to qualify for any account with an open protocol that could be easily transported to their own country. And so I think it was kind of a light bulb moment for them. And that goes to show how it's impacted the whole community in Elvante. Like this has made the people in Elvante feel a lot of them for the first time like they are not in some forgotten backwater, but they are actually leading the world forward.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thousand people, and I never met a billionaire before, and now it's a regular occurrence for them to come through town, to want to sit down, to want to understand what's going on, how they can help, how they can participate. And I think it just goes to show like this is the benefit that has come from the Bitcoin adoption. This is why it's going to be transformational to El Salvador because it's opening all these doors. It's opening an investment and it's bringing in good paying jobs. And that's when people focus on Bitcoin price. They're missing all that.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it just goes back to everything we've been talking about before, like the world's eyes are on El Salvador. All these companies and wealthy individuals who, quite frankly, couldn't have pointed out El Salvador on a map a couple years ago now feel they need to have an El Salvador strategy. They want to get boots on the ground, see what's happening here, see how they can actually help. They're not just looking what they can gain from it. They actually want to be part of this because they see this as being something transformational. They realize El Salvador is a small country. It's not going to maybe move the needle for them financially, but El Salvador is the first to adopt and it could move the needle as far as Bitcoin adoption. I mean, it already has moved the needle. And so I think they want to make sure that it works. And so, yeah, it's been a humbling experience. You know, we're in El Zante, this small, you know, beach town of three.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know any off the top of my head. I still think it's probably less than 5% of the remittance market is happening in Bitcoin. But the remittance market in El Salvador is billions of dollars. And so these incremental changes, it's something where it doesn't look like that much. And then a year from now, it's like, wait, how did we get here? We have half of these remittances coming over Bitcoin rails. We're saving the poorest of the poor literally hundreds of millions of dollars. And not just the money that the convenience. Now they can get it. Direct to their home. They can send it to the store and have a delivery boy come and deliver the food to them. have Amazon-like services that they would never be able to have if they had the way they could adopt credit cards or something like that because most of them would never qualify.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People are creatures of habit, especially when it comes to their money. So I'm actually shocked that we've seen the amount of adoption that we had because people don't like to change things if they're kind of working for them. But that's the thing. This was not working for so many people. And that's why we're seeing what I would say is fantastic adoption so early. And I would be very scared if I were Western Union or any of these companies that have made this their market. They're going to have to adapt or they're going to die.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“20% of businesses using Bitcoin, like, I don't know for sure that those are the accurate stats, but I'd be thrilled with those stats. I mean, that's huge to have 20% of businesses using Bitcoin. They'll say, oh, only 5% of the transactions are in Bitcoin. I mean, that's much bigger than credit cards were when they were first rolled out. I mean, this is happening at a speed that we have not seen anywhere in history.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had an increase in tourism over projections of like $700 million last year. Those are big numbers. Those move the needles. And we're just in the first inning of this. Companies are just figuring out how they can staff up. They're setting up their legal entities. They're trying to scale. This is something that is going to, we're going to see 20-fold this in a few years. And that's what people miss is We're still in the first year here. Like if you look at when Singapore made its kind of sprint to become what it has today, it was nowhere near as fast as this has happened in El Salvador. Like this is going to be look like whiplash speed when you're looking at it 10 years from now. We're right now people criticize, oh, it's so slow. I've seen tons of articles saying, oh, Only 20% of businesses are using Bitcoin.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely a lot of countries are watching El Salvador and they're watching how this plays out, specifically other Central American countries because it's right on their doorstep. You know, when people talk about, oh, those are small numbers, you have to keep in mind that the total GDP of El Salvador is only like $30 billion. So a $1.5 billion swing in private investment is huge.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's worth literally tens of millions of dollars in positive publicity to the country. And that was just one out of hundreds of news agencies that have done big features on El Salvador. And so that's what people are missing. They're focused on this $39 million in paper losses and not these billions and billions of dollars of value that's been literally created overnight in the brand of El Salvador.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Becoming the financial center of Latin America, they've, I mean, you couldn't pay, you could not pay a publicity agent a billion dollars and have that type of results. I mean, just one example, the 60 minutes episode that we did last month.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think 15.9%. So they've seen this material increase in investment coming into the country. They're seeing numerous companies come in, set up legal entities, and we're just in the first innings. They're just trying to staff up now. I think there's probably been a couple thousand jobs created directly created in the Bitcoin sector that will translate into probably 100,000 jobs in two years from now. And this is in a country of six, seven million people. So this is very material. And even bigger than those things is how it's changed the whole narrative about El Salvador. It used to be I couldn't get people to come visit me in El Salvador. They're like, no, I'm going to get killed. All I've heard about El Salvador is gangs. They have the highest murder rate. They literally overnight changed the narrative from gangs and murder rate to Bitcoin adoption tech sex.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Any interest that they can earn at the bank? And so it's really making them optimists instead of pessimists. But what I kind of really want to focus on today with you is more on the macro level, because this is where I think people are really missing the picture, is how big of an impact this is having on El Salvador in the long term. People keep focusing on, well, El Salvador bought Bitcoin when it was higher than it is now. They have $30 million in paper losses. This has been a horrible failure and nobody should go down this route. Well, they're talking about this 30 million. They're not talking about the fact that last year they had 1.5 billion more in private investment than they've ever had in any year before. In fact, private investment was, I think, 18.4% of GDP last year. The previous high that it had ever been was”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I'll hit it from two directions. One is on more of the micro level with individuals. We see with them these people who have never considered what money is, who have never saved in their life, have never even thought why they should save. They're for the first time asking those questions, what gives this piece of paper value? How does that compare to Bitcoin? And they're starting to think about the Opportunity cost of spending versus savings because they're realizing, hey, if these projections were hearing are correct and this Bitcoin is worth 10x in a few years, I don't want to spend it now. I want to save it. And so it's really turning them from spenders into savers. So that's more on the micro level. It's also giving them the sense of hope that they can actually save and get ahead and not just keep falling behind because inflation is higher than any savings rate.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think for a lot of these countries, it doesn't even benefit them because then the US or the IMF can actually put more pressure on them and put more friction into the system than already exists. And it'll actually cause a drag on their economy.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the most interesting thing was for us to have a realization that the central bankers are just normal. Just people with the same insecurities, the same hesitations, the same lack of technological prowess. And so I think that's one thing that was very surprising was how much help the central bankers needed just to download an app where we have these 10-year-old kids in El Zante that could download 10 apps in the time it took them to set up one wallet. But I think that that was helpful for us to see as we realized that a lot of times it's not even something major. It's these little things, these little hurdles we have to help them get over. And that will turn them from being a skeptic to somebody that realizes, hey, this is the future. This is the way forward.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I think there's an assumption from a lot of these central banks hey, they want to keep us away from this, we need to figure this out.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because they're so upset about this, it's got their hackles up. And most of these countries have pretty mixed to negative history with the IMF.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have them set up wallets, have them be buying cokes and waters at the local stores, have them try to send money home to family members that are in their respective countries, have them set up even different wallets so they're seeing how you can go from one wallet to another because it's this open protocol and how that works so differently than PayPal and Venmo and those sorts of things. And so they really wanted us to be the experiential part of it. And of course, we jumped at the chance. We printed up a bunch of t-shirts and hats and swags so that central bankers across the world will be going in. The casual Fridays wearing their Bitcoin beach shirts. So it actually went way better than we were expecting. I mean, I thought there would be more resistance, but people were just fascinating. They were watching lightning transactions happen. So instantly, they were just shocked that, wait, that's it. It's already there. That's all.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And so it just so happened that they had already planned on having this meetup in El Salvador even before the Bitcoin law was rolled out Once it was canceled a couple times because of COVID, and then when they actually went ahead and decided to go forward with it, they really wanted to focus on the Bitcoin adoption because El Salvador was the first one to do that. Their whole objective for doing that was to increase financial inclusion. And so this was a chance for all these central bankers to better understand what was driving El Salvador to do this, what the results were, and how it might translate into their countries if they were to try to go down that same pathway. And so they reached out to us and asked, hey, can you guys come to the opening meetings of the opening sessions, do a presentation on the history of Bitcoin Beach, how the wallets are used, why this really increases financial inclusion, and then on the final day, can you host everybody? We want to bring them down to El Zante.”
2022-06-08 · We Study Billionaires · BTC081: Bitcoin Legal Tender & International Adoption w/ Mike Peterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT