“Someone needs to be the keeper and reiterator of the vision. There’s a ton of work to do. When you have to walk a thousand miles and have only taken the first step, it feels like a long way. It really helps if there is someone saying, ‘We are one step closer, and the goal is not a mirage.'” -Steve Jobs
Stacy Herbert shared the quote above with me at the beginning of our interview. She was beaming both with pride and determination.
Herbert has a clear mission. Her mission began when Max Keiser and she discovered Bitcoin in 2010. They were among the first to speak out about it. Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s President, is part of this mission, along with the El Salvador bureaucracy as well the citizens. “Bitcoin country” Bitcoin is a popular currency.
In many ways, since the Bitcoin Office’s founding in December of 2022, it has been a success. The country has accumulated 5,836 Bitcoin. The country has educated over 80,000 civil servants about Bitcoin and its importance. Through programs such as Mi Primer Bitcoin The following are some examples of how to get started: CUBO+. And attracted entrepreneurs, investors And other bright minds into the country.
Herbert may be proud of her accomplishments but she is not content to sit back and relax, as she still believes El Salvador has many more good days ahead. Herbert believes that the adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador is the first step towards a new age, which will benefit Salvadorans as well as attract world-class talent to El Salvador. She has faced many obstacles since she first arrived in El Salvador three years back. Given that she is still committed to making this new El Salvador a reality, she will continue to work hard.
Getting Started in El Salvador
Herbert met Keiser near the end of 2021 at the height of bitcoin’s bull market. In 2022 though, the euphoria turned to despair as bitcoins’ price plummeted in response to a wider crypto meltdown.
“When we first arrived three years ago, bitcoin hit $69,000 and then it proceeded to tumble down to something like $16,000,” Herbert tells Bitcoin Magazine.
Herbert and Keiser had to explain to Salvadorans why the collapse of crypto-companies did not mean Bitcoin was dead.
“FTX collapsed, BlockFi collapsed, and Celsius collapsed,” Explain Herbert. “When they saw all those collapses, they thought that it was the same thing as Bitcoin — all these scams, all these frauds.”
Herbert reminded himself of the need to steer El Salvador away from crypto and towards bitcoin at the time.
“There were two paths: You could be crypto country or you could be Bitcoin country,” Herbert said.
“With crypto country, you’re competing with Vegas; you’re competing with Macau. The house always wins in those situations. And that’s the same thing if you have a crypto economy. You have some wealthy guys who run the house. The pre-mines, the chip owners, the chip dispensers, they always win,” She added that she did not want El Salvador to be exploited for the crypto-industry.
“Or you could go down the route of what Switzerland was to gold, or New York became to US Treasuries. You could build capital markets. You could build an economy. You could build a Singapore 2.0, an Alexandria 2.0, a Florence 2.0. We pushed for this vision.”
Renaissance 2.0
According to the vision Herbert, President Bukele, and Keiser (a senior adviser of Bukele) share, El Salvador has just begun the journey of bringing about one of the most prosperous eras in human history.
El Salvador has adopted the most difficult money known to mankind, similar to the Renaissance that occurred just 500 years earlier in the area of northern Italy.
“Florence first didn’t just didn’t have DaVinci and Michelangelo and Botticelli and all of the architects, the discoverers, the explorers, the astronomers, and then find perfect money,” Explain Herbert.
“They found the perfect money of the time — the Florin — and that led to a positive feedback loop of ever more wealth concentrating in Florence versus the other city states of what is now Italy and other regions across Europe,” She added that many great businesspeople, artists and thinkers had flocked there after Florence became a major commercial hub.
“We think that same sort of process could happen in El Salvador.”
Bukele: A Vision to Be Adopted
Herbert said repeatedly during our discussion that El Salvador’s change could not have occurred without Bukele. approval rating amongst Salvadorans is still above 90%He is one of the world’s most popular Presidents.
She claims that the ONBTC’s biggest challenge is to get the rest of Canada to understand and accept his vision.
“You can’t just have President Bukele [believing in Bitcoin],” Explain Herbert.
“You need at least a portion of his 80,000 civil servants to understand what he is actually trying to achieve. Remember, as the keeper of the vision, we have to pull everybody along to understand President Bukele’s vision for El Salvador,” She also added.
Herbert is trying to bring the entire country up to speed by hiring well-known Bitcoin personalities to teach and train Salvadoran Bitcoin Developers as well members of El Salvador’s government.
In March 2022, before the ONBTC had been officially created, Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song came to El Salvador to show developers how they could work with Bitcoin Core.
“Jimmy Song taught his Bitcoin course to seven Salvadorans,” Herbert was recalled. “One of them was a guy named Mario Flamenco, who ended up becoming my assistant, my number two at the Bitcoin office.”
Giacomo Zucco was also brought on to teach not just developers but to also provide three days of Bitcoin training to El Salvador’s civil servants. Herbert explained the goal of this educational effort is not to just provide El Salvadorian bureaucrats a technical background in Bitcoin but rather to help them reshape a new mindset.
“They’re the people that interact with the population,” Herbert, civil servants in El Salvador “so, they need to understand why they are Bitcoin country in terms of the mindset.”
Herbert emphasized the importance of mindset in our conversation. She said the ONBTC is not just about helping people learn about Bitcoin but also about emotionally and mentally preparing them for success.
“In order to be extraordinary, [you have to have] people in the government and in the population who are ready to be extraordinary,” “She said”
“We’re training a population to have the mindset to be Florence 2.0, to be Singapore 2.0 — to be something extraordinary,” She also added.
“You need everybody to be on the same page in terms of just how important they are. What we’re doing here is extraordinary. What President Bukele has delivered to the country is quite extraordinary.”
Passport programs
Bukele, through the ONBTC program, prepares Salvadorans to achieve greatness, and through El Salvador’s passport program, he looks for those with a proven track record in achieving greatness.
Bukele has announced that El Salvador is to issue its own currency in April 2024. 5,000 passports Scientists, doctors and philosophers are all included.
We're offering 5,000 free passports (equivalent to $5 billion in our passport program) to highly skilled scientists, engineers, doctors, artists, and philosophers from abroad.
This represents less than 0.1% of our population, so granting them full citizen status, including…
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 6, 2024
Bukele tweeted that these passports were worth $5 billion. El Salvador is now issuing passports to people who have made a deposit. $1 million investment You can pay for your purchases in USDT or BTC.
Herbert says that while the program was intended to bring in top talents from other countries, it had a positive effect on the Salvadoran psychology.
“What we did with the million dollar price tag worked,” Herbert said.
“If you go back, Salvadoran people started saying, ‘My God, some people were paying $10,000 to coyotes to take them over the border in the US, and my passport is worth $1 million.’ Even if a thousand Salvadorans think that, it changes the mindset enough that it’s a critical seed of change,” She added.
What Next for Bitcoin Office?
Herbert stated that ONBTC will be making some major announcements in three to four weeks. But for now, ONBTC is focusing on the unveiling of the first Bitcoin banks. She believes that this will help El Salvador develop capital markets.
“Bitcoin banks will come here, and we’ll start seriously building the capital markets that are needed — like we’ve laid the foundation for greatness over the past 21 months,” Herbert said.
Herbert is confident about the future of El Salvador. The ONBTC has laid the foundation for revitalizing the country.
“We have the education, we have the mindset, we have the rebrand — the greatest rebrand in history — as I call it for El Salvador, and we have an increasing amount of popularity for President Bukele, because he keeps winning,” “She said” “We’ve walked a thousand miles in the last 21 months, and we now have another thousand-mile journey to start.”
Note from the Editor: Normally, our Founders Series profiles founders of startup companies. This week, however, we profiled a leader of a government agency who has been in charge of that institution since its conception.
“This article is not financial advice.”
“Always do your own research before making any type of investment.”
“ItsDailyCrypto is not responsible for any activities you perform outside ItsDailyCrypto.”
Source: bitcoinmagazine.com
