16/2/2025
Crédito: @IOHK_Charles
Crédito: @IOHK_Charles
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00:00So, it was a very frustrating experience in Argentina.
00:07So when I flew down there, we went there multiple times and we engaged with a variety of different people
00:13and filed all the presidential protocols and these types of things.
00:17And we kept trying to get a one-on-one meeting with Malay because we had heard that
00:22the government was basically open for business, meaning that there was a great opportunity
00:26for getting, basically, blockchain infrastructure into Argentina.
00:31Now, Minguin Sir, the other guy in the picture, he's a very good businessman.
00:34He's very sharp. He's very smart.
00:36So he held a large avalanche conference down there, and I went and visited him.
00:41We had all the pleasantries and everything.
00:43And he was thinking the same thing I'm thinking.
00:45He's like, oh, Argentina's open for business, you say.
00:47This is a growing, growing place.
00:50So they filed all the paperwork as well.
00:53And the organizers of that tech forum, they said, look, the president's going to come and speak.
00:58You guys can sit down. We're going to have a great conversation with him.
01:02I said, oh, this is going to be exciting.
01:04It went from, hey, we're going to have a conversation to, well,
01:07it's going to be a roundtable of industry insiders like yourself with the president.
01:12And then when we showed up there, waited all day for it, it turned into, oh, well,
01:16actually, it's going to be a handshake and a photograph that people take.
01:22OK, that's a little bit of a bait and switch.
01:25But we said, you know, we're talking to all of his other people.
01:28We talked to various ministers and these other people.
01:30And really, Federico Schwarzenegger was the real big guy that we wanted to talk to,
01:35because he was the ministry of deregulation.
01:37And we wanted to understand what, if any, opportunity there was for public-private partnerships,
01:42because I view Argentina as a labor market.
01:45We're building Lace Wallet down there.
01:47We're creating jobs.
01:48We signed an MOU with Globin.
01:49It's a 20,000 developer company.
01:51We don't actually need a single deal from the Argentine government.
01:54We were just curious what Malay wanted to do.
01:57So we had all these people that we'd encounter along the way, and they'd say,
02:00hey, you know, give us a little something-something.
02:04We can get you a meeting.
02:06Oh, yeah, magical things can happen.
02:09I said, well, that would be a violation of the FCPA.
02:12We can't do that.
02:13And then suddenly they stopped talking to us.
02:15So we were always curious, you know, what was going on there.
02:19And then, lo and behold, this whole thing happens.
02:22So a lot of people come to me and say, well, what's your take on all of it,
02:26since you're in the pictures and these things?
02:28Here's what I think happened.
02:30I think there's some people in that inner circle surrounding Malay himself
02:34who took advantage of his lack of knowledge of our industry,
02:39and what happened was Trump Coin and these other things,
02:42to convince him that it would be a good idea to launch some crypto infrastructure
02:47and be basically endorsing it.
02:49And they used the president of Argentina, basically, to make a lot of money.
02:54And they left him, basically, to clean up the mess after they ran away.
02:59And it's hard to say if it's people in his inner circle, per se,
03:03or people adjacent to the inner circle, per se.
03:06Welcome to Latin American politics.
03:08They get pretty dirty.
03:09And you have to have ironclad principles when you walk with these things.
03:14In every single country I've tried to do business in,
03:17Latin America, South America,
03:19I've had at least one person in the private sector, in the government,
03:23say to come here and do business, you have to bribe a person.
03:26And we immediately shut them down.
03:28We say, no way, no how, because that's just not who we are.
03:32And sometimes it costs political relationships,
03:35and you don't get any penetration.
03:37But more often than not, it leads to more good than bad,
03:41because usually what you're witnessing right now is the end result
03:45of what happens when people take the easy path instead of the hard path.
03:50The frustrating thing for me is that all Malay had to do
03:58is just let the blockchain industry come, work with him,
04:02and the entire country could be revolutionized and transformed.
04:06Blockchain-based voting systems, blockchain-based budget system,
04:10blockchain-based supply chain, blockchain identity,
04:13all kinds of really cool, amazing things.
04:16And now the Peronistas are going to come in,
04:18they're going to take advantage of this entire situation,
04:21and they are going to basically undo any chance of the public sector
04:27meaningfully adopting cryptocurrencies,
04:30because everything will get associated with Libra in Argentina.
04:35We already presumed there was no path forward to work with the Malay government
04:41because of the deregulation nature.
04:43There was no stability or certainty there.
04:45While I was there, the government got rid of the AFD,
04:49which is their tax service.
04:51It would be like Trump getting rid of the IRS.
04:53So what good is an Argentine government contract or relationship
04:59when the very ministry that you're signing documents with
05:02could be out of business in six months' time?
05:06In fact, to give you guys an example,
05:08we were working very closely with their minister of foreign affairs,
05:12or whatever the office is called,
05:14on getting visas for the Africa delegates for the Constitutional Convention.
05:18We were talking to the minister herself, and she took us very seriously.
05:22In fact, when they had the issue with the embassy in Venezuela,
05:29and there was an attack on the Argentine embassy there,
05:32she still took the meeting with us.
05:34This is how seriously they took us.
05:36And she was working very diligently to get visas for people.
05:38She got fired.
05:40So unfortunately, that meant that the African delegates couldn't get visas,
05:44and we had to do the split convention with Kenya.
05:46It gives you a sense of how shaky things were there.
05:49That said, overwhelming crypto adoption,
05:53$100 billion worth of cryptocurrencies and a $700 billion GDP.
05:58One out of every $7 of value is in crypto there,
06:02which is extraordinary when you really think about it,
06:04and when you really see it.
06:06It's really magical that they've been able to achieve that.
06:09So our view is Argentina is a great private sector for RealFi.
06:14It's a great private sector for regional deals,
06:17as the foundation did in one of the regions.
06:20We talked to the mayor of Buenos Aires as well about his identity pilot.
06:23There's a lot of really cool things that are going on there.
06:26But the government's not really in a position to offer meaningful relationships
06:30or contracts because of the instability.
06:33We said, all right, well, we'll sit on it, wait on it.
06:35But it makes me a little bit sad to see this entire scandal come out,
06:39because at the end of the day,
06:41Malay is the first elected libertarian in the entire world.
06:44And I worked for Ron Paul back in 2007, 2008.
06:49And to see a libertarian become president of a country,
06:52it's something I never thought I'd see in my entire lifetime.
06:56And I repeatedly told the people around Malay's inner circle,
07:00from his sister Karina to others,
07:03you know, tell the president that everybody wants something from him.
07:07And I'm the only person in the entire country right now
07:10who doesn't want anything at all.
07:12I don't want any money. I don't want any pictures, any prestige.
07:15I just want him to do well and succeed.
07:18And I really hope that his agenda of reducing the size of the government of Argentina
07:24works out the best for everybody.
07:26I did a lot of interviews while I was there.
07:28They were all in Spanish, and those interviews reflected that character as well.
07:33And I am pretty sad that this is the outcome.
07:40And just one event is going to create a lot of political damage for him.
07:44His brand, his reputation, and for the libertarian brand in Argentina,
07:49and may even undo his presidency,
07:52depending upon how far the scandal goes and how much he actually knew.
07:56From what I know of the man, and from what I know of how he does business,
08:01I think he's an academic at heart,
08:04and I think that he has the best intentions
08:08and truly does believe the things that he says.
08:11I also believe that he is surrounded by Latin American politics,
08:17which are often serpentine, Byzantine, and extraordinarily treacherous.
08:23Everybody pretends to be your friend,
08:25and they have a dagger in their hand ready for your back.
08:28And every single person is trying to use what you are and what you have
08:33to their advantage to enhance their state in life,
08:36and you seldom get a true friendship.
08:39People only support you when you have power,
08:43and when you start faltering, they find a way to dogpile.
08:46So I guess this video is one of the few that will be made in his defense.
08:51I think Molay is a good person,
08:53and I think that he surrounded himself with some bad people,
08:57because he didn't have the proper political infrastructure to actually be the president,
09:01and he stumbled into the job, and he's learning how to do it.
09:05And unfortunately, when you don't have all the best people,
09:08they don't have your best interest at heart,
09:10and you end up getting wrapped up in things that you can't control or fully understand,
09:15and by the time you realize what's happened, the damage is already done.
09:19That's the consequence of being a head of state,
09:22and that's the consequence of basically doing things at this scale on the national stage.
09:29So I hope it all works out. I really do.
09:32And I'm sad that at the time we couldn't do more for him.
09:36You know, I wouldn't have launched a meme coin.
09:40We would have focused on something else, probably government spending, for God's sakes.
09:46Maybe it's all for the best, and we'll continue investing in Argentina and continue building.
09:51We're hiring seven people specifically for the Lace Wallet for the mobile client,
09:56and they're doing a great job down there.
09:58And we've got a nice office we're renting right next to Globent's tower.
10:02We're working closely with Globent on Midnight,
10:05and they're doing some great work there, and they're real excited about Cardano.
10:09It'd be fun to work with Mercado Libre and other brands down there.
10:13And a lot of my good friends are down there in Argentina.
10:15The whole Bitcoin DeFi play is actually being done there with BitVMX,
10:20and they've been working on Bitcoin for over 12 years.
10:23So the dog barks, but the caravan moves on.
10:27Sad day for Argentinian crypto,
10:30but at the end of the day, we'll survive and keep moving forward.
10:35And I hope this gives you a window into how we do politics.
10:40Slow and steady, and we stick with the principles and the morals,
10:44and sometimes it works out for us.
10:46Some days it's frustrating.
10:48Believe me, it's really frustrating to show up at a conference
10:51and think you're going to have a one-on-one with the president,
10:53and then it turns from a round table to a handshake and a photo.
10:59But you make the best out of it.
11:01We always figured we'd run into him at CPAC or somewhere else.
11:05And as I said, plenty of people in his government we talked to
11:08and continue to engage with, so we didn't really think of it as a bad thing,
11:13just a surprising one.
11:15This one was a bit surprising, though.
11:17I would have figured they would have had better judgment
11:20about who they chose to actually give that meeting to
11:23and talk to, associate with.
11:26And when you have poor judgment,
11:28those are the types of things that happen,
11:31and you have to just deal with them and move on.
11:34So if we can be of any use to any person there,
11:39and we have a presence there, more than happy to help clean up the mess,
11:45in any event, we do hope that libertarianism continues to grow and thrive.
11:49We do believe in the philosophy of deregulation,
11:53and we do think that one can continue the march,
11:58even if one stumbles from time to time.
12:01And I wish Malay well, and I hope for the best,
12:04and I hope that he continues being the leader of Argentina
12:07because he has a lot of very important work to do.
12:11And all leaders grow when they run into these problems,
12:14and I hope he survives them.
12:16Good night, everyone.