FFS070 - Ariel Aguilar

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Introducing Ariel Aguilar

Ariel: have to put all the efforts in orange-pilling Milei all through these months They are going to be critical, they are going to be very painful months. They're going to try to destroy him. think that the left. they try to get him out of office, for him to resign, to point the finger that all the problems are his fault, When actually he's fixing things, right? He's making the problem go away. Argentina has a cancer right now it's only been growing and growing and growing and now it's the time to take it out.

To suffer the going through the medical procedure, but after that you're healed, you can start to recover.

Luke: Welcome back to the Freedom Footprint show with Knut Svanholm and me, Luke the Pseudo Finn, and today we're joined by Ariel Aguilar, a Bitcoin evangelist, goes by Bitcoin Evangelista on Twitter. And you might've seen him driving across Europe as one half of La Bitcoineta, yeah, this great big Bitcoin van.

There's viral picture of Michael Saylor from BTC Prague sitting in the van. It's very cool. But anyway, he's, uh, he's here today to tell [00:01:00] us a bit about the economic situation in Argentina. And we're recording this just after the Javier Mil eiin the Argentinian presidential election. So it's a very topical episode today.

So Ariel, welcome to the Freedom Footprint show. Thanks for joining us.

Ariel: Well, thank you guys. It's pleasure to be here, Knut and Luke. So yeah, I'm in Buenos Aires right now. I have lived through the elections.

[00:01:22] The Victory of Javier Milei

Ariel: Milei has won the first libertarian president in history, all around the world actually. And ran with a libertarian anarcho capitalist campaign. of uh, reducing the size of the government, lowering taxes, well, actually like voucher systems for education and health care, so, so, so yeah, it's amazing, the rise of Millet, we're gonna be discussing this because I've known him for Since before he was famous, it's quite funny that 2014 or around that year, he became a libertarian.

Before that, he wasn't a libertarian. He was more like a monetarist from the Chicago school, right? [00:02:00] He discovered Rothbard and other Austrian economic authors. And ever since then, he's been doing, uh, proof of work, like constantly going to TV shows, universities, colleges, giving speeches, traveling all around Argentina, then to Latin America countries as well, and teaching people about Austrian economics, libertarianism, capitalism, so it's quite a character, I know you've seen videos of him, you really should go And it's also another amazing aspect of this is that he has run the cheapest political campaign in history.

He hasn't spent money on ads. The he had worked in government, he was minister of economics. And use a lot of state resources to put billboards all around to have the government employees uh, pushing the official candidate. And Milei only had like [00:03:00] an army of people on Twitter and social media, working for him for free, like, uh, pushing, making memes.

So, so it's funny that, uh, they say that kind of teenagers on Twitter. Political campaign and he won. So it's amazing. It's the most voted candidate in ARG history. He got around 56, no, 55.6%, 0.7%. So we can run it up for uh, 56% votes. No candidate in history has got, uh, so high.

Knut: Yeah, it's truly remarkable that a character like this can win an election anywhere, and it's absolutely fantastic. Now, he can certainly talk the talk. The question is, can he walk the walk? I mean, do you think that he will deliver on his promises, or is he just another politician? I have a hard time trusting politicians in general, but these...

This, this guy seems like the world's first anti politician politician.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Argentina's Economic Situation

Ariel: Right. Well, yeah. We'll have to see through the CEOs and months. Argentina is a quite difficult country. It's been conquered by unions, by businessmen that we like to call them like dinosaurs, right? Because they are entrenched with the politicians, they ask for regulations and for, for example, for many, many decades, the ethos or the culture in Argentina was to do a import substitution, like prohibiting the importation of goods.

building national products. So, for example, through the sixties, seventies, eighties, the same cars were being produced all throughout those decades. Like the same car that was sold in 1967 was manufactured in 1989. Right. and the economy in Argentina was quite closed. So up until this day. What they teach you in school and in college is that we have to live with what is ours.

We have to live with Argentine production [00:05:00] and we have to keep the foreign things away. So, so Argentina is quite isolated. It's a country where right now, You cannot do international wire transfers. I cannot go to a bank and say, Hey, I want to send 1, 000 to America or to Europe. You cannot do it. Right? You have to be an exporter.

And right now the situation is so bad that even exporters or people that were doing importation, sorry, imports, the government told them, Hey, we don't have the dollars for you to wire abroad. Get financing outside or make your supplier finance you for six months or nine months. That we're going to pay you in the future and right now the central bank is 25 billion in debt because of that, of payments that need to go to China, to the United States or Europe, and the central bank does not have that money.

It's broke. It's a net negative. It's when you take all the [00:06:00] liabilities, the situation is quite dire. And fortunately, we hope that Milei will tell the Argentine people the situation when he goes into power. He's going to become president officially on December 10th. So we are only like 20 days away from that.

transition has to go very fast, but the next few months are going to be quite painful, I say, and going to your question, Knut, about if he's going to deliver or not. One of the things that's going on is that Milei doesn't have a structure behind him, like to support him and all the people that are needed to fill all the roles in even didn't have like a political party. He didn't even have. The structure that you need to oversee the elections in Argentina, we do elections with ballots and on each table that needs to be like the president of the voting table, plus overseers from each political party. And there are like 100, 000 tables where you people go to vote.

[00:07:00] So you need 100, 000 people to go and take care of your boats, right? Because otherwise they make fraud and they steal the boats. So when he got into the Valotage, which is the rerun of election, you have to choose between the first and the second melee, it was second place. a previous president from 1950, no, sorry, 2015 to 2019, offered melee, uh, to help like, uh, becoming his like godfather and granting him the, all the overseers from his political party.

And the woman that was third in, in the elections, uh, Malay had totally bashed her, right? Malay had accused her. of being a terrorist in the 70s, of putting bombs in kindergartens, right, because terrorists used to do that in Argentina back in the 70s. And even though Milei was, I mean, so strong against her, she chose [00:08:00] to help him anyways.

And so she went publicly and declared to please, we have to support Millet, not the, Massa, which was in number one position in the first election. And so all the support from the previous president, from this woman, Patricia, And for many sectors, it got him to where he is now. Otherwise, this election, they would have stolen all the votes.

and yeah, we will have more, uh, we call it Kirchnerismo. Kirchnerism is the, the, the ruling class that has been ruling Argentina for the last almost 20 years. And Argentina was going to continue on its decline. Right now, the average salary of an Argentine is like 200 a month. the situation is very tense.

You can see it on people's faces. they are not able to afford rent. they are not able to afford food. they're not even able then to have any savings left after paying for rent and food, right? [00:09:00] So, so, and, and all and the expectations or what Argentine have been living through the past million months is that every month that comes is worse than the previous month.

So, it's quite I mean, for a European or an American, I believe, it's quite difficult to imagine how it is life when you, for the last 20 years, every year is worse than the previous year. I believe that it's not life or life shouldn't be like that.

Knut: Well, unfortunately, most people are about to find out in the West, I guess. as we see more and more currencies hyperinflating, I mean, inflation is just a slow-mo version of hyperinflation. I mean, all the fiat currencies are on the same path and it's horrible. And you see these mainstream media outlets here, people calling, him far right extremist, that's, like everywhere, and they're calling him a mini Trump, they're calling him, an anti-abortionist [00:10:00] They're calling him a climate denier, all of these things, and none of them seem, to focus on what's actually the pain in Argentina, which is the inflating currency, hyperinflating currency. Like these people are, are, this is not a game. they're, losing their livelihoods fast. and as you say, every month is worse So, so, but you know, mainstream media gets it wrong always, but in this case, it's just, borderlining vulgar to see them, call him, call him names No wonder he gets 56 percent because people are very tired of the, socialism, I guess, in the country.

[00:10:38] History of Inflation in Argentina

Ariel: Of course, I mean, the young people that were born in the year 2000, 2003, they haven't experienced anything but inflation all throughout their lives. Argentina only had a like price stability from the year 92 till the end of 2001. there was like a sort of like a tether, like AUS CT that the government did.

It was called convertibility, and [00:11:00] what it meant was that in order to print a peso, the government had to have savings of $1, either in dollars or bonds of the United States in the Central bank. Right. And that allowed the government to print one peso. I should have one of those bills here. I like to always carry all bills of Argentina in my pocket because we've destroyed five different currencies so far.

when we did this one, which is peso convertible, it says it there? Convertible. This was the only time that we had stability in Argentina. In total, we've taken out 13 zeros out of all the five different currencies. The history is a monetary disaster. I mean, the first time we killed a currency was in 1970. And we took out two zeros out of that, and it became this one, which is called Peso ley This one lasted 13 years until 1983, and we took out four zeros out of this one. So there were bills of one million [00:12:00] pesos with this guy, and we took out four zeros, so 10, 000 of these became 1 peso argentino. An Argentine peso, and this one we destroyed in two years, from 83 to 85.

So the whole country had to change currencies for only two years of life. And then, when I was born, they launched this one, which was called the Austral and at the beginning it was worth more than 1. Dollar So, 83 cents of this got you 1. dollar And seven years later, you needed 10, 000 Australs to get the same dollar.

And when that exchange rate got to 10, 000 to 1, that's when they launched the convertible. The tenor, right? This one suddenly exploded at the end of 2001. Right now, I think I have one of these here. Let me see. 1 1 dollar is 1, 000, right? And the highest denomination bill currently, I don't have it here, is 2, 000. Pesos [00:13:00] So the biggest that you can pay is 2. dollars That's it, right? So people have to carry A stash of cash in order to pay things with cash. It's a disaster. The government does not want to recognize inflation, and that's the reason why they don't print 10, 000 pesos, 20, 000, 50, 000 pesos notes. which would be required to make easier payments, right?

And now we are in a position where we could take out three more zeros. So we can take this, uh, a thousand, take out three zeros, become the new one. But Milei is running on a campaign of dollarization. He believes that in order for, to prevent future governments returning to this money printing and debasement of the currency.

He, he believes that we have proven ourselves to be unsuitable to have our own currency. it's only, a money theft machine, the central bank of Argentina. It's funny that when you enter the door of the central bank, there used to be, A big phrase on the top of the central bank [00:14:00] that said that this institution is here to protect the savings of the Argentine people.

And all it has done throughout the years since 1935 was to destroy value, to create poverty, and to distribute the wealth from the poor to the people at the top,

[00:14:20] Javier Milei's Proposed Policies

Ariel: right? So Milei wants to end that. He pushes for dollarization. So some Bitcoiners will say, Oh, he's a shit coiner. Right? But the thing is, in a certain way, Argentinians have a lot of savings in dollars.

There are some calculations that estimate that Argentina is the third largest holder of cash US dollars in the world. So there's like United States. I don't remember who was number second, if it was Mexico or if it was Russia, I don't know which country it was. But Argentina comes in third in cash holdings, and people are holding that in the mattress, under the mattress, all in the black, right?

Non declared dollars. It should be a [00:15:00] number upwards of 200 billion in cash hidden. So on one side, Milei is counting on that money coming out and going into the economy. And on the other side, he's also pushing for monetary freedom. And that is where Bitcoin comes in Because he has given talks to businessmen, and he has said, I do not care what currency you use, you can make contracts if you want, in soybeans, if you want you can do it in barrels of oil, if you want you can do it in BTUs of energy, like if you want to settle the prices in BTUs of energy, do that.

So I believe Bitcoin is gonna fall in that. And he's, well, there are many talks going on around in Twitter you can watch where he explains why Bitcoin and he defines it as a private money. And, uh, in my particular case, I have a history of, well, meeting Malay quite early on, eh, I have conversations with him on, on Facebook, right?

Where at [00:16:00] the beginning he wasn't known. Like back in 2014, we, we became Facebook friends. And at that time I realized he was going to become somebody, right? He was starting to be an interesting guy. So I had a Bitcoin talk I did in October 2014. It's still on YouTube if you want to go watch it. has like 25, 000 views or so.

And I sent him the link. To the talk and I said, Hey, Javier, you, you need to learn about this, right? And, and he replied, oh, that's great. Please send me the PowerPoint presentation to my email. Right? I want to learn more about it. And Melay back then, he was a chief economist of a private corporation, that handles the Argentine airports, the uh, uh, uh, TV channel, one of the main TV channels of Argentina, right?

That all this corporation is called Corporation America. Is run by an Armenian guy, Ian, and well, mil was one of his, uh, top economist advisors. And right at [00:17:00] that moment, Milei told me, uh, my boss wants to invest, right? And he told me 800 m and I said 800 MM is for millions, right? And I thought this guy was crazy because back then the Bitcoin price was, I don't know, 300, 400 per Bitcoin.

It would have meant like a purchase of like 2 million Bitcoins or 3 million Bitcoins. An impossible purchase to make, right? It would have changed the whole history of the Bitcoin praxe action. And so I never follow up on that. I thought this guy is crazy. Some people watch him and say, this guy's crazy, right?

And so I thought the same. I mean, I left the conversation there. I didn't follow up or kept a, I never sent him the PPT, right? The presentation. and during the years. I met him many times in conferences, and I've tried to orange-pill him, right? I've tried to, gauge his knowledge of Bitcoin, because he doesn't run deep.

He won't know what a hash [00:18:00] function is and how the self adjusting mechanism for the difficulty of Bitcoin, right? All of that, I don't believe he knows that. So he does not know why Bitcoin is better to other cryptocurrencies. That's my main worry. And when you try to go deep with him on these topics, after two minutes, he will say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bitcoin is private money. And I am all in for private money. That's like all I need to know. Right? And he goes off to something else. So, I believe his take on the subject is that he wants to give monetary freedom, and so if we want to use Bitcoin or crypto for him, I guess it's the same. So I believe there's still a lot of work to be done to show him why Bitcoin is superior, right?

Why Bitcoin is better. And so that, yeah, he doesn't squander it, or there's also like a... A dark side or a dark aspect [00:19:00] to him, I would say that because some Bitcoiners have pointed this out in the past, he has gotten money from shitcoins or perhaps even Ponzi schemes, right? To promote, like to make a photo and a greeting, right?

meeting the Coinex team. It's a sad thing. Yeah, you can look this up. And after a few months, CoinEx explodes, um, to let us, I don't know, a pump and dump or disappears. And all the people are, uh, yeah, lose all their savings in that. And theMilei t tries to, well, detach himself from that, right? In public. But it's a sad thing to, to watch.

And I hope that it does not repeat. so, so yeah, I mean, the future for Argentina, I believe it's the best option possible. What happened? Melee winning. Otherwise, Argentina would have continued on this path of, going downhill and the salaries even going lower, [00:20:00] like from 200 to a hundred. To 50. And then you become Venezuela and then you become Cuba, right?

So right now, this process of dollarization, he's trying to push a, we will have to see how it unfolds. And also if he gets support from, from, I know the United States, so if he gets support from the IMF, because depending on how much, many dollars he can get from this, Financial institutions is how much suffering the Argentines are going to go through in the next few months.

It's not going to be the same if he gets 10 billion or if he gets 100 billion. Because that, at one moment, the government is going to have to say, okay, this is the exchange rate. When they did this in the year 92, and the exchange rate got up to 10, 000 to 1, so right now we are in 1, 000 to 1, so we don't know if this exchange rate is going to be 2, 000 pesos to 1, 5, 000 or 10, 000, 10, 000 pesos to 1, [00:21:00] 000, so That is going to mean a very large devaluation, a very large impoverishment, and a lot of pain, but the thing is, I also believe that that is necessary.

It's a painful process where you get rid of the problem of inflation, you pay all the debts, everything gets settled. Then you can restart. So perhaps salaries do go to $50 per month for the average worker, but after that it's all upside, it's all uphill, it's all okay. Then you go from 50 to 75, then you go from to se from 75 to 100 to 200.

And eventually we can become a normal country again, where salaries used to be a thousand dollars in 2017. Uh, and it's going to be a, a quite interesting experience. Similar to perhaps what El Salvador is living through, that the country starts to grow again.

Knut: All right. Uh, yeah, this is so interesting. I have so many questions and so many things on my mind now, [00:22:00] but like, let's get, let's get back to the orange pilling of melee a bit later, but there's a couple of things I know that, uh, from the immediate criticisms I see on Twitter of melee and from other sources as well.

Like, uh, One thing is that he's on the IMF's, uh, uh, web page.

Ariel: Or I think it's the World Economic Forum.

Knut: No, no, not the IMF, the, the WEF, sorry for that. Uh, and there's, there's another thing he's, he's want, he wants to, to stop cooperating with, China and Brazil, right? He wants to, to, to end all that and leave, leave the BRICS thing. And he's pro U, very pro US, obviously, because he wants the dollar rise and pro and Israel, which he gets a lot of flack for as well.

What are your comments on that?

Ariel: Well, on one side, he says that he doesn't want to deal with communist countries, right? He's on the pro liberty side. But at the same [00:23:00] time, he also says that That's at the government level, but he will never interfere with private individuals trying to do commerce with anybody, right? So if a private individual or company wants to do commerce with China, he has no problem with it, right?

But yeah, so his answer is at the state level.

Knut: Well, that's great. In that case, there's no embargo or anything like that. It's just basically just wants to reduce the, the size of government. And that's always good. I mean, The saddest part about this sad, sad story about the five different currencies all going to shit is that the dollar itself is suffering from the same disease.

Ariel: Yes, that's what we Bitcoiners say, but it's hard to, I mean, you have to understand what Argentines are going through, right? And so when you're the inflation, the official inflation this year is about 147 percent or so, but in some instances it might be 200 or 300 percent and the bond bubble that is, uh, it's like a ticking bomb that this government [00:24:00] is leaving me late.

It has like four times the size of the monetary base in circulation. So if Milei solved that, for sure you have like a fourfold devaluation, right? You go to 25 percent and you need to go to at least 4, 000 pesos to a dollar to solve that bond bubble. And those bonds are bonds that the government has created to suck up all the liquidity of the pesos in the market so that those pesos do not go towards purchasing dollars.

And those bonds back up all the peso deposits in banks. So the banks are like forced to buy these bonds from the government, right? That's the backing of the, all the bank accounts. So they have to solve that. They, they, they don't need to, um, you have to prevent the default and explosion of that bond bubble.

Otherwise, yeah, all the bank accounts go [00:25:00] belly up as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't believe there's any other outcome or possibility that is not printing the money and devaluation, right? So it's going to be, like I said before, quite painful.

So even though the dollar might have a 10 percent inflation, Or perhaps even more, 15, who knows. The governments always lie with inflation numbers. When you come from 150%, 15 seems like like a oasis, right? It's

Knut: I walk in the park.

Ariel: Exactly, exactly. So what you have in a year, Argentines have in a month.

[00:25:36] Orange Pilling Milei

Knut: So back, back to orange pilling melee. I, I know. So you, you weren't, were you friends with a guy? Like how close were you with this guy in, back in 2014,

Ariel: Well, not personal friends. No. I do know people that, yes, they are more friends with him or are working close to him. So that's a good ex A weird experience to have right now. So many liberals and [00:26:00] libertarians in Argentina now are friends with all the guys in power or the people that are going to be in power.

So it's a, an interesting, interesting experience. Um, now we also feel like we have a responsibility to help this new administration because if Milei fails, And there are lots of forces trying to formulate to fail, they will say, oh, it was the classical liberal ideas that brought us this hyperinflation, or that brought us this hyperdevaluation of the currency, and yeah, they will point the finger at him, and they will try to do something about it.

All in the power to, for him not to succeed, right? So, on the libertarian side, we have to support him. We

Knut: but you tried to orange pill him pretty hard. And back in 2014,

Ariel: Yes, in 2016, 2017, even when he, I remember when he was recording a political spot for TV in the previous election, I was one of the extras [00:27:00] on the background, right? Uh, uh, uh, uh, and later approaching him, trying to talk to me about Bitcoin with him. And like I said, like after two minutes of talks, shuts down and he says, it's private money.

That's all I care about. Right? So I believe in his mind, Bitcoin is the same as Ethereum perhaps, or the same as any other.

Knut: okay. Okay, so, so he's taken, he's taken the black yellow pill and he's a true Rothbardian, but he's only taken half orange pill so far. Is that a good description? So, so then that begs the question, like, um, So how do we do this? How do we properly orange pill him going into the future? It's going to get harder and harder to reach.

Right. So, uh, um, I know that there's this LaBitcoinConf in Buenos Aires, uh, that I heard the one this year was less shit coiny than the previous one. Uh, was that your, uh, were you, to begin with, were you there and was that your experience too?

Ariel: Yes. I arrived, [00:28:00] uh, I was in Europe, uh, touring with La Bitcoineta. We can talk about that later, but, uh, I arrived one day before the conference. Uh, I was a speaker there and I actually, at one moment I suggested the organizers, we should invite Millet, right? he would bring a lot of people. The organizer didn't want like, uh, to get political on one side, right?

But at least he did invite a, like a deputy of Milei a woman, she won, so she, she's now, uh, is going to become a deputy. And this woman is, uh, she's proposed to become like the chancellor of foreign affairs. of Milei And that woman is a Bitcoiner She knows a lot about Bitcoin. She, she knows even more than Milei about Bitcoin.

Uh, so it's interesting to to know about her, Diana Mondino is her name. Uh, I'm not sure if there are videos about her on YouTube talking about Bitcoin. We should look that up. To see if there are subtitles in English for that. So yeah, our best chance [00:29:00] is going through her, right? to, to try to orange pill him.

And I also believe there's going to be interest by, well, the usual, orange-pillers right? Like, uh, JAN3 Samson Mow Prince Filip, and many other guys that will try.

Knut: Filip speaks perfect Spanish, so, and he's got the, gravitas that comes with his title.

So that, that will be a way in, it would be absolutely awesome. So, so let's make that happen. Uh, and if it's not Filip let, let it be someone else. Like all the Spanish speaking, Bitcoiners listening to this, uh, I should be one at this point, but I'm not. Unfortunately. should try to reach Milei somehow and, and properly orange-pill him because we need this guy on our side, I think.

And, uh, so, so, so is he, uh, how well does he know Bokele in El Salvador? Are they in touch? Like, have they met?

Ariel: Not personally, that I know of. There is a video of Milei talking good things about [00:30:00] Bukele, or using him as an example, when they told Millet, You're going to get in power and you don't have any deputies, senators, right? and belay answers. Do you know how many Bukele had when he started? Zero. So he sees himself as a Bukele in some sort of way.

Knut: Yeah, yeah, I saw that clip. I saw that clip.

Ariel: Yeah, and there's been, well, I've seen on Twitter that El Salvador is going to send over a... A group of people, I'm not sure if Bukele for himself will be on the inauguration day. I hope he comes. It will be quite interesting to see Bukele, Bolsonaro, that used to be president in Brazil, as well as many others.

So, yeah, I mean, have to put all the efforts in orange-pilling Milei all through these months They are going to be critical, they are going to be very painful months. They're going to try to destroy [00:31:00] him. think that the left. they try to get him out of office, for him to resign, to point the finger that all the problems are his fault, When actually he's fixing things, right? He's making the problem go away. Argentina has a cancer right now it's only been growing and growing and growing and now it's the time to take it out.

To suffer the going through the medical procedure, but after that you're healed, you can start to recover. I will put all my efforts in as well.

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[00:33:07] La Bitcoineta Bitcoin Van Project

Knut: Beautiful, beautiful story and beautiful puts, Ariel. So, from one thing to another, what can you tell us about this La Bitcoinista? No, La Bitcoinetta, sorry, sorry. The Bitcoin van, how is that project going and where is the van now and where is it going?

Ariel: Well, this, I'm going to show you a picture of what the band looks like, right? This is the European Bitcoin ETA. And it's a project to teach people about Bitcoin, orange pill people all throughout Europe. But actually the idea to do this came from Argentina. This is the first Bitcoin ETA that is still here in Argentina.

From 2018, right? We, we started this project and this one has traveled through Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina. And then when Bukele announced Bitcoin in El Salvador, [00:34:00] we did this one for El Salvador. This one is in El Zonte in Beacon

Knut: Yeah, I recognize

Ariel: You've been there? Yes. Yes.

Knut: No, I haven't been, but I've seen pictures of it in Ensente.

Ariel: Right. Um, last year, uh, this one was launched in, uh, in South Africa. Uh, it's at the Shuttle and Cruiser and our Bitcoinetta, we've been traveling through Europe from May 5th till October 27th. We've covered more than 20 countries. So we started in Spain, Gibraltar, Portugal. We went all the way. Well to bt deprived to Oslo for the Human Rights Foundation Conference all the way to Istanbul in Turkey, and then back, right?

Riga, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, uh, the UK for a month we did so, so in total we, we did more than 40,000 kilometers. That is like saying like 25,000 miles or so. we lead, uh, I don't have the number here, but I guess [00:35:00] 100 meetups, uh, many, many conferences. And so the, yeah, the idea is to spread the Bitcoin message.

We carry books, like many, we carry your, your books as well, uh, and other books, uh, hardware wallets, uh, yeah. We have a minor, an old, so, so, so yeah, the idea is to orange pill people to educate. And for next year, for 2024, we're considering like organizing, uh, small conferences all throughout Europe, because when we did the closing of the tour.

We did it in Andorra because when back in May we cross, or June, we cross through Andorra, we met a Bitcoiner and that guy, he told us, oh yeah, he knew the president, right? Because Andorra is a small country, he knew the president and I thought, oh, this is a great orange pilling opportunity, right? So I asked him, what about we organize a conference?

And he went to the Association of Engineers and the Association of Economists, [00:36:00] and yeah, they got into the idea. They invited their database of engineers, database of economists, accountants, and so on. And they gave us a, uh, an auditorium and we held the first Bitcoin only conference of Andorra. Right? so, so it's nice to see La Bitcoineta organizing the first Bitcoin only conferences in each city.

Uh, where we've been through, uh, and, and in the end, uh, this, uh, Andorran guy could not confirm us like, yeah, the president's coming or people from the banking sector are coming. So, so I did not like push it further, but if he had confirmed, yes, the president's coming. Yeah. I would have told Samsung. I would have told Prince Philip, right?

Hey guys, you need to come or a sponsored event or something. Sure.

Knut: You need to tell me to, because I'll, uh, I'll hop in the car and drive up there. Like, of course.

Ariel: I should look the photo up, but for Andorra, which is a country of 60, 80, 000 people. [00:37:00] It was quite a nice event. I mean, we had like 25 people or 30 people come in. so yeah, that's the project.

[00:37:07] Wrapping Up

Ariel: You can follow me on Twitter. It's at Ariel Aguilar, the handle. And next year I will also be launching a book about Argentina and Bitcoin.

Knut: Fantastic. And yeah, you should also follow the Bitcoin Netta project. Atta EU is the European version, I guess, and I guess there's a similar, uh, handle for the other project.

Ariel: The, the, the other ones from Argentina. I think it's at Bitcoin or at Lata la Bitcoin. yeah, you should follow us there and you should come to Argentina and look,

Knut: I should definitely come to Argentina, so should you, Luke, and we should, yeah, we should do a South American tour one day.

Ariel: course we'll throw a, a barbecue. We'll throw a big barbecue when you come.

We have the best meat.

Knut: yes, the Argentinian kitchen is the best in the world. Like, I, there's an Argentinian steakhouse here [00:38:00] close to where I live, and it's my absolute favorite restaurant. There's nothing like a steak

Ariel: do you know how, how, how much does it cost? Like a kilo of sirloin or in Argentina?

Knut: Uh, less than here, I guess, and, uh, very

Ariel: It's like three, three or four dollars for a kilo right now.

Knut: oh, fantastic. We have to go, Luke.

Ariel: Yes, yes,

Luke: agree. Looking forward to it.

The show is also sponsored by Orange Pill App,

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Knut: before we let you go, Ariel, uh, is there anything you want to have on your mind, Luke? We

Luke: You know what? I think this has been a fantastic overview. So, uh, I'll just toss it back with, uh, do you think this is going to work? Are you optimistic that that Melee is going to succeed?

Ariel: Well, if he remains in power, they don't overthrow him. They don't make him suicide because in Argentina sometimes when people appear dead, eh, they have them dead, right? And if this influence from the previous president that has like a godfather him Let's not go too far, right, because this previous president might...

Put many people from the previous [00:41:00] administration in power, uh, I expect them not to stop things and not come with those k nation ideas that they have, right? So if he's able, yeah, to, to, to bring his idea of sports, uh, the next few years in Argentina are going to be great. I mean, they're going to be all upside.

So you foreigners, you can, you will be able to come here with a few hundred dollars or thousands of dollars and buy everything, right? on the cheap and ride all the upside wave. And it's going to be a very free country, like to do peer to peer transactions. Nobody messing with you, right? to be a free country.

So you're invited to come.

Knut: Absolutely awesome. And one thing we haven't mentioned, if there's one undeniable fact about Javier Mille, it's that he has the best haircut of any politician ever. Like that haircut is just

Ariel: Yeah, for sure. Rockstar.

Knut: Sideburns for the win. What do you [00:42:00] think about Melee's chances? What do you think about Melee's haircuts?

What do you think about all of this? Comment below and like, subscribe and brush your teeth, people. So, see you in the next one. Thank you very much, Arjo.

Ariel: See you. Bye.