Why Venezuela Likely Doesn't Have a $60 Billion Bitcoin Stash

In Venezuela, there are two exchange rates right now. If you believe the government, the government today, I'm looking at the screen. The government right now says $1 is worth 321 bullyes. In the free market, i.e. peer-to-peer markets, a dollar is trading for 780 bull. That is a delta of 143% in value.

So, you tell me how you're going to choose to send money to your loved ones. We're extremely pro Bitcoin. We're extremely pro stable coin and I think that's the huge opportunity that we have because it's a combination of an elite that really believes on these things and the population who are using these things every single day. So I think that's why Venezuela everybody has to be extremely optimistic about it.

Hey everyone, welcome to Unchained, your no hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host Laura Shinn. Thanks for joining this livestream. Before we get started, a quick reminder. Nothing you hear on Unchained is investment advice. This show is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and my guest and I may hold assets discussed on the show. For more disclosures, visit unchainedcrypto.com.

Are you a builder who needs to add onchain trading to your product? The Uniswap trading API from Uniswap Labs offers plug-and-play access to some of the deepest liquidity in crypto. It's onchain execution at an enterprise level. More liquidity, less complexity. Visit hub.uniswap.org to learn more.

Looking to unlock your cryptos liquidity? Figure offers cryptobacked loans with an industry low 8.91% fixed rate. They're the only major provider with decentralized MPC custody and new liquidation protection. Take out a loan at figurearkets.co/chained.

Today's topic is Venezuela and Bitcoin. Here to discuss are Mauricio Debbark Toolo, co-founder and CSO Fletin, and Jorge Jerosati, president of the Economic Inclusion Group. Welcome, Mauricio and Jorge.

Thank you very much. Glad to be here. Yeah. Oh my gosh, we have so much to discuss. So ever since the US captured former Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, there's been a number of rumors swirling about whether or not the regime has tens of billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. Whether or not that's true, I know there's some dispute about that.

There's also this whole history of Bitcoin and crypto and stable coins in Venezuela, we can dive into. And there's a lot of avenues around how all of this news impacts Bitcoin and crypto generally. And also, you know, going the other direction, how Bitcoin and crypto affect kind of, you know, all this geopolitical tension.

So, let's start with these rumors about Venezuela's supposed $60 billion worth of Bitcoin. Mauricio, I know you're skeptical of these claims. So, why don't you go into why you don't believe that they have such a stash?

Yes. So, happy to go through that. I wrote a piece on this just because I feel pretty passionately. And I'll give you my thesis as well as my supporting facts or evidence.

So the claims or rumors alleged that Venezuela has amassed a $60 billion hoarde of Bitcoin and it lists three main sources for that Bitcoin. Number one is a gold swap allegedly conducted in 2018 by Mr. Alex Saab which has who has been a very important figure within the Malu and Chaveis regime.

This swap was allegedly done in 2018 and it was to the tune of $2.7 billion and Mr. Saab apparently was coordinating this this transaction. The funny thing is Mr. Saab has actually been was in US custody. He was jailed in the US from 2020 to 2023.

And if you follow the calculations, the rumors say he swapped $2.7 billion at anywhere between $3,000 and $10,000 worth of Bitcoin. By December 2023, Saab was released back to the regime by the Biden administration through a prisoner swap. And at the time of his release, the alleged Bitcoin he controlled depending on the price you've put at the conversion would have been anywhere between 10 billion to 20 billion.

So we are expected to believe that a person who controlled 20 billion approximately of assets was given back to an unfriendly regime through a prisoner swap. And at the time he was released, the Venezuelan central bank claimed to hold $9.9 billion in reserves. So this person allegedly controlled an equal or double amount of what the central bank would have controlled and we are expected to believe that he was released to the regime holding $20 billion dollars that would go right back into their hands.

I don't think that aligns with a public record and I have a very and also most importantly there is no onchain evidence for this transaction. So I will say that for that reason I don't believe the swap was real.

The second allegation is Venezuela sold oil for crypto and then Venezuela did sell oil for crypto. I'm not disputing whether Venezuela sold oil for crypto. What I find very hard to believe is that any of the crypto that was paid for that oil was rightfully returned back to Pereesa and then and furthermore sent back to the Venezuelan reserves for the Venezuelan people.

Is that national oil something something correct Venezuela Venezuelan oil company basically and so it is the state-owned oil company and to highlight why I don't believe any of these funds went back to the reserves I would like to highlight one case of extreme corruption out of many out of many but there's one particular case of extreme corruption linking the stateowned oil company Besa and the crypto regulators.

And this this scandal exploded on March 2023 and it revealed that corrupt officials in Venezuela had embezzled 17.6 billion dollars through fraudulent sales of oil to the oil to the stateowned oil company. And this led to the closure of this regulator and the prosecution of those involved.

And though those funds were related to oil sales between 2020 and 2023, so $17.6 billion were siphoned to the pockets of corrupt people in three years alone. And that was only one corruption scandal. There is Tabi's corruption scandal which actually was a higher amount than that also related to oil.

Still all I'm trying to say is I don't believe any meaningful proceeds from those oil sales were given back to PESA and PESA there. Furthermore, the PASA did not send any additional profits to the Venezuelan reserve. So I don't believe there's any meaningful bitcoin for that from that source.

And the third allegation is that Venezuelan the Venezuelan regime stole and operated mining equipment. I know they did so for a fact because some of that equipment was my family's. They stole our equipment and I also know they operated our equipment because of the condition the equipment was in when they gave it back to us 5 years later.

They gave us basically the aluminum casings. That was pretty much it. Now that said, the operation of that equipment was not done to the benefit of the Venezuelan government. It was done to the benefit of Maluto's private death squads.

And the reason for that is the the way Maluto would compensate his death squads off the books was that he would give them cart blanch to go steal, or take assets from other people. And so this is why I believe that there is also no meaningful Bitcoin in the name of the of the government or regime as a product of Bitcoin mining or using stolen Bitcoin mining.

Yeah, I mean all of those are really compelling arguments that you make there. So I would love to hear Jorge's opinion if he you know why do you think that this rumor then kind of has spread everywhere? I don't know if you saw like CNBC has been making a lot of it. They wrote kind of a long article. It quoted you know a number of different people who are involved in Bitcoin and crypto in Venezuela.

I'm just going to quote some of them. So, somebody named Gu Gomez, founder and CEO of Latin Americanbased Bitcoin firm Orange BTC said, "It's very fair to assume Venezuela had meaningful exposure to Bitcoin. Given that they were excluded from the global financial system, probably they had gold, Bitcoin, and some dollars under their mattress."

Andrew Fearman, head of national security intelligence at chain analysis also said that Allies of Maduro had flown to foreign local to exchange assets for more liquid funds. And he then quote he then was quoted saying if they're willing to send a guy on a private jet with a ton of gold on board it would make a lot of sense that they would also seek to utilize crypto assets for both store of wealth and also for crossber trade.

So I understand like the way they're framing it it's speculative but do do you just feel like even even the way they're framing this is implausible?

I mean in general I think for everybody everybody's imagination can become wild when they think about the potential of 60 billion dollar bitcoin and actually try to focus on the real tangible things that the bitcoin community and the investors in general can get from Venezuela which is way higher than any kind of confiscated amount of bitcoin that they may be in Venezuela.

Venezuela will become a huge opportunity for everybody who is involved in the crypto asset sector. The Venezuela financial system is totally destroyed in its total rebuilding and what better than to rebuild the Venezuelan economy through the power of crypto assets, Bitcoin, stable coins and I think that's where the real opportunity is when it comes to Bitcoin mining.

Something that I really believe is that the same way that all the confiscated and expropriated assets of regular Venezuelan or oil companies have to be returned to their owners. They also have to be compensation to all the bitcoin miners that lost everything in this years of socialism.

So I really think that that's the real opportunity that people have. Venezuela it's an energy hub. There is so many opportunities to do Bitcoin mining. We are a hydro. We can be a hydro power in the region beyond oil and any other of the incredible opportunities that we can have in Venezuela.

Okay, Marisia, what do you think?

Yeah, so I actually know Gee very well. Hi Ge. The guy who made the comment. And so, listen, I think the reason this is getting people to, you know, getting some people to kind of run with it is because there's an element of plausibility around the claim, right?

It's we're talking about a a country that manages a lot of oil flows. Historically has had a deep involvement with Bitcoin. We were among the first countries in Matam to adopt it. So there's always this when you when you mentioned anything related to Venezuela and Bitcoin immediately you think there's an element of possibility like there's a chance that this is real because of the ingredients that you're throwing into the mix right you're throwing a sanctioned government with a lot of oil and resources with a lot of you know shady speculative transactions and then you're saying well why wouldn't wouldn't it make sense for them to hold Bitcoin and crypto and again I am not standing here and telling you that Venezuela has zero Bitcoin zero hero crypto has never used it, has never touched it. They certainly have.

What I'm saying is that the regime has a record of extreme corruption and incompetence that would not have allowed any meaningful value around those transactions to occur to the reserves of the people. Let's remember that this is the same country that has hospitals in shambles that has no power throughout all the country. There's program blackouts around most of the country for four plus hours. The stateowned oil company went from 3.5 million barrels production a day in 99 to 800,000 today.

These people cannot operate. They have expropriated thousands of private businesses and bankrupted every single one of them. So you're telling I'm expected to believe that they ran the most sophisticated Bitcoin treasury operation on planet Earth for the benefit of their people? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Okay.

Yeah. I So there was one other I don't know if you saw this super viral post on X. So whoever wrote this did not like necessarily say their sources. They said things like intelligence reports indicate things like that. But I I did see also like another analysis of the actual charges or indictment and crypto is not mentioned at all in there.

Maybe it's just they didn't need to or or that it wasn't involved in you know whatever those charges were, but like yeah. So anyway, point is that this person tweeted that basically they were selling some of the oil for Tether and then because Tether has the ability to freeze funds converting that to Bitcoin. I don't know if you saw that and what your thoughts were about that.

I again I I'm not suggesting that these types of transactions didn't happen. What I'm suggesting is that they most likely that Bitcoin was most likely siphoned away by Jose Rodriguez and the corrupt members of Sunna who have been prosecuted and charged with stealing billions of dollars from the stateowned oil company.

So again these transactions likely exist. What does not exist is the acrual of that value to the Venezuelan central bank because what corruption does is that if if you start out with a million and you want to get it to the people and you have 10 hops, you start with a million and you get a dollar, right? And like that's likely what happened in this case. You sold a billion dollars worth of oil and $10 went to the Venezuelan reserves.

And so this this again is why I again I'm not disputing that there were Bitcoin transactions. I'm not disputing that they use Bitcoin and crypto. I am disputing that they did it for the benefit of the people and not themselves. Okay.

In the same way that they use a traditional banking system to do all the Oh, I think we're having tech issues with Yeah. Well, we'll solve the issues with Jorge's video and audio. So, one other thing that I saw was bitcoin treasuries.net, net, which is that website where, you know, everybody tracks all the the dats and everything. It says that Venezuela has 240 Bitcoin, making it the ninth largest Bitcoin holdings by a government entity.

It's lists December 31st, 2022 is the acquisition date. You know, I'm not sure where where they're getting their info. Me neither. I'm still waiting for data from the Venezuelan Central Bank. So I I would love to hear when they got this. And and I think you know you know God bless people that trust the information coming out of the Venezuelan central bank. I mean that takes a lot of courage I would say.

And so I I would just not take that for it's you know I I would put a a two 10 pounds of salt on that number. And and I would say again is it plausible that there is some Bitcoin in the reserves? Yes. Is it 60? Is it 60 billion? Laura is what I'm saying. It isn't. Like, could there be $10 million, $20 million worth of Bitcoin somewhere that they forgot to steal? Sure. Sure.

Did they accumulate 60 billion to the benefit of the people? Absolutely not. Okay. So, now, Mauricio, I know that this goes to your personal story. But Bitcoin mining also has like a pretty interesting history in Venezuela. You know, I think it started with grassroots interests and then there's this whole confiscation by the government. So, tell us tell us about, you know, how it was that Bitcoin mining initially got taken up by everyday people in Venezuela.

Definitely. So, I'll tell you, you know, the story of my family, which closely tracks the story of others, around how we got to it. So the way we got into Bitcoin mining was as many people know the the real wave of of despair and hyperinflation in Venezuela were triggered by the 2013 election which was the first time the the Chavista regime through Maduro basically openly stole the elections in the sense that nobody believed the results.

They denied to do a recount. We went out to protest to demand a recount. They shot at us. I was in the protest. I saw people die. It was incredibly traumatic and it was a basically a clear signal to the Venezuelan people and the opposition that there would be no democracy and that is what led to the despair and the despair and the and the migration was in fact what led to the hyperinflation because everybody were was fire selling their assets to get out of the country in 2014.

So this this starts in 2014 continues into 2016. My family at this point was already encouraging all of us to leave. My parents, my parents who were still there were encouraging all of us to leave. But my youngest brother had just graduated university and he didn't want to leave. And he wanted to start a business in Venezuela. My father adamantly did not want him to do so.

But he was a he was rebellious. He had values. He wanted to stay. And he pitched my dad on this idea with with very serious tone and said, "I'm going to do this whether you like it or not. I'm leaving the house as an ultimatum." And it the idea was buying Bitcoin mining equipment.

My brother found out that he could mine Bitcoin through a friend of his, Venezuelan guy who was going to university in Houston. And his friends in college in Houston were mining Bitcoin, but he he couldn't mine Bitcoin because the cost of energy was too high. But because he was Venezuelan and he knew energy was subsidized, he called my brother and said, "Mario, let's buy some Bitcoin miners together. Help me run them and we're going to make a lot of money." And that's how my brother finds out.

And so my brother then gets this idea to buy the Bitcoin mining equipment. At the end, actually, funny enough, the the Houston guy at the end didn't actually go through with the equipment. It ended up being just my brother buying the equipment. But my brother buys the equipment and starts mining.

And it was a huge risk to do so because there were so many unknowns. None of us had ever heard of Bitmain or Bitcoin or AS6 or wallets. Like this was all very new, but the the minor gave you a sense of tangible physical good and it it it made you it sort of created this it was like a stepping stone to actually owning something digital, right?

Like many people like my father my father was very comfortable with buying a computer because he was very used to hardware and electrical upgrades and he could feel it and touch it and he felt like it was less risky to buy this physical thing than this digital thing. And so Bitcoin mining starts and my brother starts mining in in 2015, starts doing very well and making very good money at a time where no one else was making money at a time when everybody was fireelling their assets and leaving.

And so naturally when my brother is going around asking people, hey, are you leaving? Are you are you going to are you going to vacate any industrial space? I'm looking to rent. My brother was the only guy renting. So, of course, everybody wanted to know what he was up to. And my brother would say, "I'm mining Bitcoin."

And we were we were so happy that we had found Bitcoin. We were secretive. If you came to us and you said, "Why are you so happy we found Bitcoin? Let me show you. Like, here, come to the facility. Like, look at this. It's freedom. Like, look at freedom. Do you want to feel it? You want to touch it? It sounds like this. Like that. That sound, that's freedom, right?"

And people their eyes lit up and they would come and they would be like, "How do I buy it? How do I set up? how fast can they come? And so now this is AS6. AS6 are loud. They take a lot of power. But what what the the the sort of silent helper or the silent blessing was GPU mining because GPUs you could connect any legacy device, you can connect them to Nice. Nice hash would turn them into Bitcoin for you."

And so many people started seeing an opportunity to boot up old computers, uh, you know, fix rigs, take the graphics cards out of three, five old computers, put together the rig and and and basically get start making money. Why this was so profitable in Venezuela is because energy and electricity was heavily subsidized. And so people were making money hand over fist, freedom money, nonetheless, money that they couldn't seize, money that you could take anywhere with you. this it was revolutionary and so this was I call it the the golden age of Venezuelan independent mining.

This went from 2015 to 2017, but it all came to an end in December 2017 because that moment was when Bitcoin rallied to 20K and the world now that the eyes of the world were on Bitcoin. And it just so happened to coincide with a very tough time for Mudo because he was sanctioned. He was having a hard time with oil sales. He couldn't raise money through bonds and he was desperately trying to raise some external money because everything he was printing kept blown back into his face through hyperinflation.

So he decides that he's going to try to get his hands on other people's bitcoins abroad and he wants to take the possession and steal the miners that are in the country. But well anyway that leads to the pro and the eventual witch hunt that occurred from the Mad regime which we were victims of. But I'm I'll pause and and you know see where you want to take it.

Yeah. So hopefully now Jorge's video and microphone are working. So we will we will go back to some of the questions that he was in the middle of responding. I I think the first one maybe was the one about the comments on CNBC. Is that the one where you were originally talking about, you know, where where people were speculating that they probably had exposure to Bitcoin? um you know because they have been sanctioned and and things like that. Is that where we were?

Can you hear me correctly now? By the way, all Yes, we can. Yes. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Yes. Okay. Yes. Coming back to to my original comment is that first Moraicio is right about everything he said about this sizable gigantic Bitcoin that Venezuela could have. And I think your question was why people are caught up with this story is of course people's imagination blows off when they think about the possibility of having all this Bitcoin out there.

And but what I told the people that were writing this story Elizabeth who was writing this story at CNBC is that the real possibility in Venezuela is that Venezuela will become an economy based in to a large extent on the power of crypto assets. it will just naturally happen. The financial system in Venezuela is totally destroyed. People don't have financial inclusion instruments. People right now are using a stable coins in everyday transactions to save money to get money to send money anywhere to buy stuff.

So naturally people we can build our entire financial system on top of new layers of technology on what is actually working more efficiently and faster. So that's the first opportunity that I believe the cryp crypto assets community need to be thinking about is not about this maybe lost 60 billion bitcoin or whatever but about this gigantic opportunity of rebuilding a nation on top of your technology. So that's point number one.

Point number two, and by the way, it's not only because I want it, it's because people will demand it. Mauricio was just talking about freedom money. This is something that right now is in the veins of all Venezuelans. We want freedom. And we really understand that you need to have something that nobody can take away from you, that no government can take away from you. Doesn't matter if it's the socialist back in the day or right now or if it's an eventual government.

And I think it's very healthy to have a society in which people have a healthy skepticism for power. And I think that right now these instruments like Bitcoin give people the ability to protect themsel from bad politicians. So point number one. Point number two, I really believe that Venezuela can become again a hub for Bitcoin mining.

It can become once again a a country with plenty of energy. It will not be subsidized energy like before, but it will anyways be way more very competitive energy cost compared to other countries. And Venezuela is very abundant when it come to many sources of energy. So I really think that that's what the crypto community have to be enthusiastic about and that we have an entire society that the only positive thing that we have is that we can rebuild it as we please and I think that we can build it on top of the crypto assets sector.

And now when you talk about the energy portion, so Mauricio was just talking about how you know electricity was subsidized for people. Is there some kind of natural source like you know hydroelectric hydroelect electric energy or something like that that makes energy production in Venezuela extremely inexpensive?

Yes, exactly. as I I'm sure Mauricio was speaking to like we have huge amount of hydro in Venezuela and we have basically a lot of sources of of energy and Venezuela can really become an energy hub for many ways. I also think that it's very important that we are also responsible in the sense that all the people that lost their mining capacity and their mining facility and all the people that were expropriated in Venezuela in mining but also in oil in regular businesses in in land in their farms. all these assets has to be given again to them and there has to be some sort of reparation because these people really are the ones who can then take these assets and rebuild their country again.

So what people will find in Venezuela is an environment in which what we want as Venezuelans, Mauricio, myself is bring your investment, bring your business. Of course, we need a political transition to make that happen. But I really think that that's why this is such a big opportunity. Okay.

So and then we so we we kind of jumped back to some of the earlier questions. Then we move forward to it's sort of the story of everyday people mining Bitcoin and I think that takes us to about 2018 which is when the reg regime confiscated Bitcoin mining equipment and surprise surprise that happened to be the same time when they introduced the pro which was their failed cryptocurrency. So maybe just talk a little bit about what happened in that year of 2018 like on both sides like you know what do you think like Micio seemed to be hinting that because he Maduro was facing financial pressure that he suddenly realized oh this this is a potential way for us to you know evade um the you know the these financial challenges but yeah talk a little bit about those two things in 2018

Yes. Yes. I will let Mauricio speak about the specifics of of Bitcoin mining and what happened during that year. And I want to give a context to the audience about where Maduro was that year. Venezuela was entering into a hyperinflation period that year. That means that the inflation rate was over 1,000%. That was the hyperinflation means.

In 2017, Venezuela start facing sanctions. 2016 even before the sanctions Venezuela's access to the financial system to international markets was basically caught because the interest rates were extremely high with 30 40% interest rates and Venezuela was declining economically since 2013. So 2018 can be seen as a country as a state desperate for resources. Baricio why don't you pick up?

Sure. Yeah. No. So I think HR had did a good job sort of setting the stage for what was happening in 2018 and and the corner that the regime was put in or or was in and you know I I have based on my experience and and you know again I have a thesis it's a bit of a spicy thesis but it is I believe I I will show you the evidence and you can make your decision.

So in 20 Christmas 2017 rolls around and this is right around the time where Maduro is back against the wall and Christmas is always a tough time because Maduro and Chavez had accustomed people to get free things in Christmas like he they would come in with these crazy gifts every Christmas right and I don't know exactly when I think the Last Caso was one of these big Christmas piñata events which I think was 2016 or 2017 but basically there were these events around Christmas where Mudo would raid the private inventory of a business like Bakdaka, an electronic store or I forget the name of the shoe company. H if you remember the shoe company that they raided the other Christmas the name slips but every Christmas people were used to um you know sometimes they would bring pork legs and and you know they the most random like special food box for Christmas like the most random gifts, right?

But people expected gifts and Moodle had nothing for when Christmas 2017 rolled around. And right around that time he was starred for cash and he was seeing these crypto assets flying and everyone minting these coins out of thin air and and making millions of dollars. So he gets I presume he gets briefed and is told Mr. Muno, there's a lot of mining equipment in the country because we have the import records to see them coming in.

And also this this whole wave of of uh ICO crypto crap tokens that are being minted, you guys, we can mint our own and we can link it to this idea that it's linked to our oil reserves and we'll put some BS thing on the paper and people, you know, look at look, they're buying all this other stuff. And so he comes up with these two great ideas around Christmas 2017. He creates a minor registry through Sunni where miners were invited kindly to register and Asuna is the crypto regulator in Venezuela. Correct.

And then he says, you know, alongside we're going to make Venezuela the crypto country. So we have we're going to have this regulator, we're going to have this minor registry and we're going to have our own cryptocurrency, the pro. And to celebrate this, I'm going to do an educational tour around the country to teach everybody about crypto. And these these road shows start in December and they have stops in different major cities.

And it was supposed to be about the pro. But if you go back and look at the videos, I would look at the I I would watch the press conferences. If you watch the press conference, the videos, these shows were actually exhibitions, exhibition halls for Bitcoin miners. So providing hardware. So you would go into these uh education sessions and they would tell you this is a Bitcoin ASIC. This is what it sounds like. This is how much money it makes. This is how you could find them through their heat print. This is how you could find them when you listen to them. This is how you can identify them by looking at electricity loads.

And most importantly, this is how much money they can make you. And by the way, if you find these anywhere, you can connect your wallet and you make money. And so this was a playbook for his cronies, death squads, if you want to call them that. Basically, he was saying, "Hey, death squads, I'm going to teach you where these things are, how to find them, and I'm going to give you cart launch to run them. Steal them, but go steal them and run them, and that's how you get paid. That's your Christmas bonus."

And so, not surprisingly, January 2018, my our family and other minor started reporting these strange visitors dressed up as municipality reps. At the beginning, it was just questions about electricity usage. Why has every other factory here closed down, but you guys are expanding? What are you making? Yeah. Why? Why everyone else on the block sold the house and left? All these houses are vacant. Why is your house drawing so much? How many people you got living here?

And so and then obviously once they found out because obviously through the answers and the electricity load that like literally weeks after they weren't knocked on the door. They were busting down your door with long guns and threatening you with throwing you in jail asking you for Bitcoin ransom and demanding your equipment. Uh for our families example they raided our facility. They demanded $25,000 in cash and the machines to not throw my brother in jail first over some madeup charges.

And and they continue to extort us. They stole our equipment. They continued to extort our friends and family for years on end. And and so that that was my example. So that that was the witch hunt. And that witch hunt, you know, took claimed quite a few other people. Um, so that that's my experience. Wow, that's just absolutely terrible and I'm so sorry that happened to your family.

So, we're going we're going to talk a little bit more about the lives of everyday Venezuelans under Maduro and you know how crypto also was um, you know, a part of of the solution for them or or what they turn to. But first, we're going to take a quick word from the sponsors who make the show possible.

Hey founders and developers, if you're looking to bring onchain trading to your product, wallet, or platform, check out the new Uniswap trading API from Uniswap Labs. It's your plug-and-play gateway to global onchain liquidity. No deep crypto experience required. And no need to manage complex integrations or ongoing maintenance. With the Uniswap trading API, you'll get enterprisegrade onchain execution, combining both onchain and off-chain sources for the most competitive prices. Simply put, more liquidity, less complexity. And this isn't just any API. It connects directly to the Uniswap protocol, which has securely processed over $3.3 trillion in total volume with zero hacks. So, stop worrying about liquidity infrastructure and focus on building your product. Get access to the same liquidity that powers billions and swaps through one powerful API. Visit hub.uniswap.org to learn more.

Today's episode is sponsored by Figure, which is transforming financial services using blockchain. They're the largest non-bank mortgage lender in the US with over 19 billion unlocked on their lending platform. Now they're offering industry low cryptobacked loans at 8.91% interest rates at 50% LTV for BTC, ETH, and SOL. They differentiate themselves by offering decentralized MPC custody, which protects your crypto ownership in a segregated wallet. They've also recently launched liquidation protection to protect you from liquidation during large price drops. Whether you're funding a major purchase, investing, or even buying more Bitcoin, Figure makes it transparent. Visit figurearkets.co/unchained to take advantage of their cryptobacked loans today.

Back to my conversation with Mauricio and Jorge. So, um you know, as Mauricio just explained, um you know, every day Venezuelans they were mining Bitcoin. Um I did also read during that time that people began turning to stable coins as well. So um yeah can you just talk a little bit about and and either one of you about you know other ways in which people were using crypto everyday people were using crypto in Venezuela.

Yes. Does that mean right now Venezuelans people use stable coins every day for transactions like Venezuelans right now because you cannot use bully bars right so you can use bully bars you cannot use your financial system rely on on a stable coins this has been people to survive after many years of hyperinfl we have had in Venezuela the highest inflation rate since 2013 of the world every single year in 2017 it became hyperinflation.

People did not know how to survive, how to receive remittances. 8 million