Global Financial Connectivity: The Role of Blockchain in Cross-Border Payments

Transcript

hello everyone joining the webinar of the crypto valy Association it's now 6:03 p.m. here in Switzerland and then uh in the respective time zone Brazil is around 100 p.m. and in the other countries even earlier so thanks everyone already for joining H my name is tilma go I'm based here in Switzerland just outside the crypto Valley I am based in the city of Zurich whereas Zo is about 20 minutes ride from from Zurich but in usually during the daytime I am based there at the crypto Val Association I chair the working group

education uh and we do all sorts of events in and around education this entitles webinars this entitles offline teaching sessions uh collaboration with other universities everything and in and around education our Flagship initiative is our research journal in where we annually Define a topic all focused on web 3 invite dedicated authors and and professionals and academics to provide a written piece of research to overcome several challenges we currently face in web 3 to give you

an introduction at 2022 our research theme was opportunities and challenges in the blockchain industry relatively General General topic to pick up the different authors then last year in 2023 due to the Meltdown of several crypto projects uh Luna FTX and others um we focus in particularly on risk management in web 3 covering everything from regular uh legal and as well it and other govern n uh topics we also launched in 2024 another uh research journal in where we focus on paying

crossborder payments in particular Latin America today's webinar some sort marks the start of this journey of 2024 focusing everything what has to do with uh payments especially in Latin America why Latin America so here in Switzerland blockchain technology and cryptocurrency by themsel are rather an investment product uh where you would appreciate um when the Mark goes up and and of course you know uh need to mitigate the risk when the market goes down however also through my life in Mexico uh I quickly

noticed that uh cryptocurrency and blockchain in let's say maybe second tier countries have a fundamental different role of infrastructure meaning payment gateways just because their banking system is in inefficient very costly and there's Al also often migrant workers going to other countries on the Latin American continent and send money home and those service provider they take a cut of fee a large fee when um those people sent money home today I'm very happy to to welcome a very strong panel from Mexico chile

Brazil Spain SL Portugal to talk about the different challenges um the the the panelist face with their own project um in the respective market so I think now this is for an introduction uh we have now the counter is still going up but I suggest we continue our webinar so um I start let's start with a little introduction round please tell where you're from talk a little bit about your project as as a short intro and then we move on as my parents educated me and and put quite some effort into this I learned ladies first so please Christina

if you could uh kick off the panel introduce yourself and tell a little bit about payments in Mexico thank you tilar good morning from Mexico everyone and thank you for that int introduction so my name is Christina Christina luno and I am a co-founder from a education multi-chain Hub called sonat and since 2021 I have been deeply involved in technology development and most important entrepreneurship so my focus is full full education and in that time since 2021 I have been

working with SE um a couple of uh blockchain protocols in terms of Education I have been a stakeholder education stakeholder for sui protocol here in latam with her with their first boot camp in Spanish to learn how to build H solutions for the region and I start also with near protocol in 2021 so in that time I discovered that I love um blockchain the what they what the technology offers for latam region in special because here in latam h we are living um a situation that people uh

users need and uh screams about how we can can solve so many problems in this region such as such as Mexico and Chile here P notes what I'm talking about so um right now in 2024 I'm a hub leader with claudo h from internet computer protocol in the same story we working on education so the people know the techn the technology and they can build these kind of solutions that that solve that problems that we liveing day by day here in in in latam especially here in Mexico

so well that's me Christina and a co-founder s so nice to meet you all and we I hope to learn from you guys too so thank you tilar and thank you everyone thanks Christina for for the kind introduction very unique position Mexico from the European perspective uh we don't know yet too much how blockchain develop itself uh looking forward to hear more throughout the panel as you already refer to to Patricio please partis go continue and and introduce yourself to to the guests hi all uh first I am Patricio salala I come from Chile I am a CBA member since

2021 I lived a little a couple of months there in Switzerland it was a great experience but now I am based in Chile I am in Bitcoin and in well in Bitcoin since 2020 since 2017 sorry and fulltime in crypto since 2019 so quite a bit actually for for the for the for the industry uh but and the project I am developing now is called cinka which is a network of crypto coffee vending machines we develop where you can pay with crypto and basically

you have a what we call Smart payments that is when you pay your coffee your cappuccino the payment is uh automatically distributed to the producer to the roster and to the machine operator so we have developed a a a business model where we collaborate with the producers in Costa Rica and now in Mexico we open our first coffee machine in Mexico last week so we developed it people loves it because uh we can onboard a lot of people by buying coffee and using it with three clicks or or few steps you

can have an stable coin stable coin account in usdc whatever you want USC Bitcoin and we are developing it so I am glad to be here talking about a crossborder payments because we are doing this actually to our producers H coffee Growers from Costa Rica now Mexico and so glad to be here and and thank you for for the opportunity fantastic I quickly looked at your project um happy to double tap on this later throughout the webinar it it represents a very good use case I

think also for the audience to to to to understand I can see that the participants is still increasing so welcome everybody who joined a little bit later to this webinar we are just in the introduction round so so so much about let's say the Spanish speaking part of let M now I like to give the floor to Christen rera who's actually from Brazil please tell us more on introduce yourself Christian thanks a lot tumar it's a pleasure to be here at this webinar uh with all these participants so nice uh so I I'm the founder of sou payments uh we are working in uh crossb payment through Latin America and uh we have

companies in Brazil Mexico now and uh our idea is make life easier for entrepreneurs like Patricio so I like a lot his use case about blockchain technology this is what we are looking for uh in our company help this kind of enterpreneurs uh to make their life easier right so we we have Su payments in Switzerland um uh specialized in this payment intermediation between Fiat and crypto and crypto and Fiat and uh our main goal is of course uh make crossb transactions easier when it comes to Latin America to Brazil Mexico chile

Peru all the countries that uh have some kind of difficult connection between Banks uh sometimes a little bit complicated and uh blockchain Technologies make life easier right so I think uh we can cut a lot of intermediaries in this case so only with this kind of Technologies possible to to do this kind of crossborder transaction ction between these countries and uh our group now uh we have the company in Switzerland we also have a uh another company in Brazil licensed IP to to help uh this kind of collection between Fiat and crypto in Mexico now we are

expanding to here so I think there is a lot of opportunities in this uh segment we can talk and discuss a lot in this panel about it but very nice be to be here nice to meet you all thanks thanks Christian sounds like very available experience in the different countries uh you you are currently facing happy to hear but a little bit later and then last but not least we got Fernando here H also Spanish speaking in this case but from the European continent still please Fernando if you could introduce yourself to the crowd sure thanks dmer and hi everybody um I'm Fernando Spanish living in Lisbon currently uh almost 20 years in the

payments industry the last 12 years very much involved in Latin America I had a chance to work with Chis in previous projects in one of the first crossb Payment Solutions and the last three years I've I've been focusing on on Consulting with my own company latan digital Bridge which strives to to help International companies to better understand the Latin American ecosystem in payments uh also i' I've been building a payment orchestration system for almost a year now hopefully launching very soon and I also have a Blog about payments in Spanish called pagos in YouTube it's just very new we started two months ago but very much uh always around payments a lot with Fiat but more recently also uh

touching crypto touching especially usdt since usdt came into the equation it started to uh bring real cases and more attraction in the market especially for countries that have difficulties accessing major currencies um we see in Latin America for example Venezuela or Argentina where adoption is is flying because it's really solving a problem because people cannot trade using their currency outside of their countries many applications my first contact with the crypto blockchain world was precisely in Brazil where bit pay made one of the first events there and explained really what what Bitcoin was and and what blockchain was and and that is very very fundamental aspect some of the

colleagues mentioned this education is absolutely a must for the general population to better understand the usage of of of blockchain my first transaction was with with Christian as well and it was a very interesting experience for me um it's very different first first transaction that you do with a cryptocurrency you never forget for a old guy like me I guess so I'm very very happy to be here with uh so many people are much more knowledgeable than me about about this topic and and think than you for for having me absolutely Fernando also we happy to have you after you know 20 years of experience I think this this speaks for itself um many things we can learn uh also from you in this case so I think for the audience

now it's it's clear that we have quite a rich panel everybody coming from a different region mainly from the Latin American continent so where I believe every country also has their own kind of level of uh development on blockchain techn techology maybe we can start with with Chris if you could explain us a little bit more what do you think is the current state of blockchain and crypto in Brazil like do people know use it how is it going um then maybe show what are what are challenges you see in the Brazilian market and maybe opportunities where you see this is really a good use

case blockchain can technology can bring to the region of Brazil okay of course thanks tumer um I think thanks for the question I think uh what we can talk about Brazil uh is the improving is the Improvement of the financial system right so the Brazilian Central Bank recently launched a product called it pigs it's a instant payment method from Brazil and this got a massive use usage in Brazil right so uh before it uh we are using a lot of cash we're using a product called boletto uh and uh the penetration of

these products for was huge but not prepared for uh connection with blockchain right because with blockchain we need like 247 transactions we want to be this to do it in real time so we try to develop some products before pics you know to to to speed up this kind of transactions in Brazil but I think this Advent of picks make Brazil a very uh uh strong uh country when it comes to blockchain and uh uh crypto usage because make things simpler uh and easy uh for for people to to understand how it works okay so I want to transfer

money to Fernando for example I can do it in real time I just uh uh uh read uh uh announcement from the Brazilian Central Bank two days ago they announced that that they did more than 200 million transactions in a unique day so we can see how this is improving a lot and uh when it comes to cross border of course uh today uh we we need to have like companies you know in the middle of uh this transaction between the end user and the company that is acquiring the product outside of Brazil right so we are seeing a lot of Demand on it and uh in uh we believe that uh this kind of uh

technolog you together with blockchain can improve this connection between the merchant and the end user in those countries especially in Brazil right so this is how we see uh the future we think uh there is an opportunity there for for this connection to be easy between the merchant and uh the consumer in this region absolutely thanks Chris and I think maybe maybe jumping on here from the European perspective I unfortunately can't see where where the guests are coming from but if we assume crypto value Association is a SP organization with the international footprint there will probably many Europeans being here and just to put things into perspective

Europe um as as a whole has approximately 4 450 million citizens right so just the Brazilian country the largest in the lam leam continent has more than 300 million citizens and the the the adoption of p pig payment I think is now almost 40% of all online payments are covered by pics right so we talk about three billion unique transactions per month and I also read the the update from pigs that they had this daily record of 200 million transaction per day if we just consider Switzerland having around 9 million citizen this is Tiny so explaining those

volumes and and the user number sometimes here it it is a bit difficult for for Europeans to grasp just because on our continent the countries are smaller then same question opportunities challenges uh maybe also the state of blockchain Technology how does it look like in ch patrio okay well in Chile we are a a a smaller country than Brazil and I I would say that the this the the banking system here is like most more developed developed than the than

the than the other countries in the region this is at least my perspective so the people uh so the people has access to to this quenta rout that is like a a bank account provided by the not by the central bank but for a bank that is like owned by the state okay ER but so so we are the community in crypto here is little but there are some interesting things happening here we have a a the fintech law that regulated everything uh regarding to the digital

assets uh here in Chile so this is an advancement in this regard ER from my side what I see is that uh it is to use the the the current The Current financial system the traditional Financial system is very expensive it's very slow and in other countries if you want to to to do economic transactions with people in other countries it's like a nightmare we experimented it with this when we were developing the the coffee machine we wanted to transfer the dollars to pay

them to pay directly to the producers and it was almost impossible because they don't have H dollar denominated accounts in the middle of uh a volcano in Costa Rica or in the middle of uh amazonas in Brazil you know so the approach we we took was okay we will teach you how to accept crypto payments you with you can easily accept usdc or Bitcoin or whatever you want to receive in crypto uh and we can and we build this POS actually that is integrated to the

machine and works with uh almost any bending machine in in with a for instance in a g gas station you can pay with crypto with a work machine or if you want to buy a a a Coke or Pepsi one I don't know if I can say the the the brands but you can pay with crypto if you put our machine so the the concept here is that for cross border payments the system is expensive is slow and there ER is a lot of people who cannot participate in the global economy for

instance in coffee but you have a lot of examples in Latin America ER where you need an intermediary to participate in this global economy so uh I think blockchain and most important crypto with with all its censorship resistance properties and decentralization can make can improve this accessibility and can make much more people ER or to to participate in the in the in the global economy for instance in the

coffee value chain or in other Industries too so that's my my take at least from Chile and from my experience in in latam okay makees sense to me I all said so I I used to live in in in Mexico in guara in 2009 and back then we still had everything with cash right over the years I always come back right visit friends and and family and and and it becomes more more digital but I always remember it was just a pain to into the interbanking transfer um and then of course other challenges which come with with the regulatory framework which is currently

implemented but then like Fernando you said you're relatively new into to blockchain and crypto by itself but uh you have substantial experience in the payment uh uh in industry itself in in Latin America um do do you see the the same issues like inter country transfers on the Latin American country interbanking transfers what what what what current or or problems did you see in in let's say the the payments industry in in Latin America yes um the answer is yes to everything um so when we first started trying to create the rails for crossborder payments is because the the

traditional rails were not working working for international companies a company need to register there and have an entity and have a lawyer have an accountant and it was very expensive very slow and then some smart people like Chris started trying to figure out how to to make that happen and make it possible for international companies to accept payments when Patricio said that it's very difficult for for someone in a remote location to receive dollars uh it's also difficult if you have an accounting dollars because you still rely on an intermediary and you don't know where the money is we see this I am seeing this as of today where we are having issues to pay providers in in Mexico from Brazil because we have to use intermediaries

and the payments get declined For No Good Reason um so that is that is the perfect example it's not just people who don't have access to the banking system but even those having access to the banking system the banking system is inefficient is slow is expensive it does not work that is one of the pillars why pxs had such an adop because it was designed to solve the problems of the banking system in Brazil and that is why the Solutions in blockchain will also succeed if they solve this problem because it's a problem that exists not it's not only people who don't have access to to banking we're talking about companies lawyers payment companies whose DNA is to move money so there's a huge pain there to be solved and I I do believe that blockchain has a lot uh to

to to prove but it's also very difficult to explain to those recipients hey open an account in a exchange use usdt it's such a different concept for them that they are afraid they don't trust the system but yet they trust the Banky system which has proved us again and again and again that it's not reliable so so there is there is a barrier there a cultural barrier there on the traditional perception of security and and safety with banks which is okay it's great but if it doesn't work what do I do with the security and the trust you are not helping me and I don't know where my money is I I lived in Ireland I had to send money to Spain sometimes the the money was missing for two weeks and it's like okay what do I do nobody knows

my bank doesn't know the inter it's like with blockchain you have the ability to know every Everything what's happening in real time so so absolutely 100% there's a massive opportunity in remittance there's a massive opportunity in B2B payments and the market is heavily underserved still even for those have access and and of course those that that don't have access have an additional value there yeah interestingly I just had lunch with the industry partner today and um they had a client based in Surinam northern southern the northern part of the southern part of of of Latin America and he received the the the message protocol

where the money actually went to and I think there were five banks in between until the money eventually ared in Switzerland and it still got blocked so this is I absolutely agree especially um cross border payments internationally um there we have great Solutions so then again education is is is is something um I saw that that that Claudia is joining just before we give you the floor uh Christina how does it look like in terms of crypto adoption in in Mexico and and how do you see um the the issues or or the problems can be solved maybe using stable coins yeah thank you tilar well the way

that I see the adoption of blockchain Technologies for crossb payments has experienced a significant growth growth pardon I'm sorry in the recent years however we still face significant challenge in terms of Education I think H education is one of the main um supports that can we have for this adoption Mass adoption for the blockchain technology the lack of knowledge and understanding about blockchain and is its practical application it one it's one of the main obst obstacles we face in the region it's crucial to invest in education that's why here clao and I we always

have been working on this and to to um give more and more education in blockchain technology from so many uh ecosystems so they will be uh more solutions to this problem and it's important to know that education in blockchain should not only focus on technical aspects but also on legal and reg regulatory aspects as you mentioned tilm Mar regulatory Frameworks in Latin America can very can vary significantly from one country and another when Chile for example Mexico Honduras and El Salvador and something incredible that

is currently happening it's happening in Salvador in Honduras as I say early where I was in the last month uh I think in March yes is um and we were able to make the first transaction and payment with blockchain and cryptocurrency there in Honduras we in the ICP h Mexico build a solution and a the app so we can make payments in crypto in a local H small restaurant in Honduras and with this example we can see how blockchain adoption for payments

is increasingly being achieved so I think this is so important that people um know and um know about these technology so we can growth as a region here in latan so thank you that's my fantastic my you you you mentioned a very good point uh there there's still another question um to to come it's on on regulation H but more to this later uh now I would like to quickly Loop cloudo onto the stage please quickly introduce you um your experience in the space and then the same for you opportunities and

challenges you see in this specific region where where you're based hi Cloud you hello everybody apologies just zo doing its thing uh so my name is claudo I'm co-founder of metapo uh we're a liquid staking multi-chain liquid staking platform uh we support Aurora uh ethereum near Solana uh soon internet computer protocol Q Network as well uh we've been building for the last uh four years uh our team is based out of Argentina and in Mexico um but we operate globally and also the last um 10 months I've been working with the uh ICP Hub community in latam basically helping onboard new new

um leaders and Builders throughout the region and more importantly helping adoption of the different digital assets in several regions in the space and this um and so really happy to be here part of the crypto valy Association for more than two years now so going going into three so happy about that um and so definitely for me one of the most important things is how do we solve real world Pro problems right one of the biggest problems in our region is um there's no savings right uh in Western cultures saving is part of the process I think that's when you're like 15 13 you get your uh savings account right uh

when you're young uh for those for those of us that have the privilege to have some extra income yes I did get my bank account when I was like 11 or 12 but definitely that's the uh leaser part of the the whole region and the reason why people don't save in Latin America is because they don't trust Banks right and everybody's been in Latin America has been for the Lesser or or better part of it being um at least heard the stories of a bank run right and for example my dad went to two two bank runs in Mexico right so um and we are we always have lived in the border between the US and Mexico mainly uh Mexicali Tijuana then

and everybody who's everybody that lives in the Border has a savings account in US Dollars that is one of the benef benefits of living in a Border Town but that is something that is not for everybody right and so we have means to hedge against inflation and more importantly if you are a small small mediumsized company it is very difficult for you to transact in dollars right even you have like a a Shopify account uh and it is very difficult or or or for God's sake uh PayPal payments in PayPal right it's just uh it's just a pain and so yes uh

like um Fernando and Christian and Patricio stated right crossb payments is part of the problem but for me specifically uh on on where I where I'm trying to make an impact is can we build an an alternative savings account for everyday people right and more importantly that they are able to be the owners of that value because once you put your Fiat money in a bank I'm sorry to tell you this right and and for those that are working trafi or traditional Finance I'm not throwing you under the bus I'm just stating the obvious right in the sense that you do not own that that value the value is owned by the bank the bank

gives you a service that yes if but in in maybe Western C cultures is a little bit different but in Mexico you're always open to that possibility that you might go to the ATM and you might not get your funds that is a reality right and so ownership of the value creation process in financial instruments is for the top 1% right and even the top 1% have gotten rugged by financial institutions one way or another and so what are we trying to build and solve here is one ownership right and this is where digital assets really shine because yes it comes with its challenges right you have to take into account that

there's nobody that you can call in the middle of the night if your account got hacked or if you for one reason or another set your private keys to somebody else or if metamask got logged in into a malicious account and then you get uh all your funds uh transferred to another account right so you have to be mindful that custody is an important aspect of digital assets but more importantly here's where education and here's where I think Crypt valy plays a role right we need to onboard folks into understanding what are the best practices right where do we see the next bounce of the ball in terms of yes crossb payments but then I'll go two steps back and say well how do you crew

value right and how do we solve it within uh automatic savings account if you don't if you do staking right XYZ right so this is I think where the conversation gets interested interesting sorry in just the last 12 hours for example binance announced USD USD sorry usdt paired with us uh or MXN T I don't know it's from te from tether right so stable coins are the killer app right um it solves a few of the problems it does bring in a few more other problems but I think it is right now a white canvas where a lot of actors can collaborate traditional Finance Banks startups

protocols all through what we're trying to Envision here non-custodial fullon ownership and transparency right which I think are the three pillars for what we're trying to build here clear um thanks for the Insight actually in the lectures I do so be besides my professional occupation I pursue PhD research which also entitles uh teaching and in in my my courses I I often refer to what I call the travel agency uh uh situation so when I was young and bought my first flight I would still go to a travel agency and then until now everybody more more or less probably

uses um the online booking platform right but the freedom of booking it yourself also comes with responsibilities right so if you screw up the dates or you book too fast then it's it's on you it comes with responsibility right so so um being being you know managing yourself also comes with responsibility which you can directly apply to to cryptocurrencies and managing your custody I I like one thing you said that you know different countries develop differently in in in terms of this technology but in particularly uh regulation and Switzerland uh positioned themselves at a very early stage I remember I

participated uh the financial Market authorities Round Table in Switz already 2017 to help the regulator to Define and understand the technology and they they did a beautiful job um it gives investors the confidence that there is a Regal framework whereas entrepreneurs can act in an environment to realize their their their blockchain Tech uh uh Solutions so here we have token classification a very robust uh environment um I would like to know from chrisan how does this look like in Brazil do you have any experience is the regulator up to speed or is it still a gray Zone and

and nobody really knows what what what's going on still a gray Zone there is a law coming ER now into discussion of course there is a lot of associations talking about regulation crypto regulation uh it pass laow now that uh uh at least uh say that crypto Curren are a kind of investment right so um it's not complete but it's growing right it's growing in Brazil and uh you know one of the I am Brazilian and one of the reasons that uh I I came to Switzerland to open this new ventory is exactly this

right is this kind of uh uh regulation that uh you have in place that make life of the entrepreneurs easy right uh all the companies that I did before here in Brazil were always working this gray Zone uh when I start B compra for example crossborder transactions was very difficult both comp today is known as P seura International and uh was not very clear in terms of Regulation right and now when it comes to blockchain um we we with so payments in Switzerland um we managed to get this uh SRO license and I think I think this is

helping a lot the business uh and uh helping us to to to to build something on the problems that we are facing right like clao said uh there is a lot of uh issues that we we need to to to to solve to make uh this kind of Technology easy for everybody to use right it's not today is very complicated of course there is education but also in our hands here develop products to make this thing easier for the end user and this this is what we're focused here so we're trying to to build technolog that bring this Fiat word that you know is the traditional banking

system into this blockchain technology and uh for this we need we need to work together with very later but makes sense for me and U we need to have a clear like like how it works that need to be very clear for for the actors that are participating on it and this I can tell that Switzerland is very is very good very good for for what we are doing and I think we we we improve a lot of our Pro our product in the next years okay thanks so we can see there's a different development on on the regulation a lot of work has to be done I think and I hope with with our community we can also support the

regulator in one form or the other Patric you you you kind of touched already on the regulation do you want to flesh it out a little bit how it looks like in Chile well first this is not legal advice nothing I am not a low expert not a regulation regulation expert but what I what I can tell is that Chile made a fintech law okay and this treats ER digital Assets in this case cryptocurrencies as if they were ER assets okay in in the sense of taxes you

so if you have Bitcoin for instance you had to declare it as if you were if you own dollar dollars and you pay the taxes in the same way uh but we are in the period of implementation so the the the actual Norms are being discused and written and um and are are been written now uh what is some things I I I don't I like about this law is that they the law is designed to uh address the risk of

intermediation uh of custodians intermediaries and all of these things so all of these participant so if you build a a truly decentralized product where you don't make custody or you don't process transactions it uh you are like outside regulation which allows you to to innovate more regulation are almost always uh in detriment of truly Innovation that's my my opinion at least is for consolidating the

market ER but ER you have more certainty now for people who interact with decentralized with this centralized intermediaries ER exchanges uh ramp uh ramps on off ramps Etc so uh that's my my my impression what I don't like is that uh are other things that are not related with crypto that are that are related with privacy and with the the this with an amount you have to St to start being uh an intermediary which in my opinion

will be in detriment of the Innovation but uh leaving this aside is is good to know to have more uh Clarity at least in Chile ER and we are in the implementation process so so it is not uh until until as far as I know it is not enforceable jet but we are close to okay so makes sense no very valuable Insight also there much work to be done uh let's see how we can leverage this the Swiss C valy Association to educate um one of my

passion so did I understand correctly clao and Christina you both in Mexico is that correct yes then in that case maybe let's let's Christina what is your take on the regulation Environ regulatory environment in Mexico on blockchain well um I think I forgot to say it but I wanted to say it right now I'm also an active member from CBA to the beginning of 2024 so I'm glad I'm glad to to say it and be here with all of you but in terms of regulations I think we have so much work to do but um um as I mentioned earlier um I am a

co-founder of sonat that is a multi-chain educational H and we are committed to finding an innovation or in see in innovative solutions for the challenge that we Face here in Latin America so in concrete example of this case um one of the success H or use case that we have is the students from Technological University from lakako Waka here in Mexico Mexico who wants to sales um handicraft I think it says in English uh textiles and everything products to customers globally in United States no so previously they fac

difficulties with the high cost and slowness to crossb payments using traditional methods such as all of us mentioned in this um position so by adopting a blockchain h base solution for the international payments they reduce cost and speed up the process of receiving payments for um so many parts of the world but I think the main um focus on this scenario it will be the education education to to people and understand the difficulties that they have so as claudo mentioned

earlier so I think this is the most important thing to understand what it means to adopt this kind of technology that here in Latin America and especially in Mexico and other regions in sou of south of Latin America is something new and a little bit difficult for people to adopt so I think this from my perspective it's one of the most go that I have to achieve here in Latin America that will be my contribution makes sense and since you guys both based in the same country I I I think cloud you probably sh share the same

opinion is there anything you can uh tell about the regulatory environment we know you new to web 3 or is this a little bit out out of out of scope um well here here in Portugal all I know is that as long as you hold the the crypto assets for longer than a year you exempt of taxes now the the the trick is how do you show this to the authorities it's it will be interesting to see the tax Declarations of people showing their wallet movements and the people work in the tax office to understand them but that's a different story uh in Spain they haveo they have a completely different approach where they tax crypto assets as as any other sort of income which is I think not not not

great I think it's it's a completely different story but hey it's uh our country needs to raise funds as as soon as possible um in terms of of the development of of the regulation there's not much more but there are very interesting movements here in Europe with the implementation of this transfers with the new payment service directive that is coming into place which uh will also come with the digital Euro which there are still discussions whether that is going to use blockchain or not and how the governments are going to incentivize people to use use it um because you know there's there's not it's not very clear why why would I use a digital asset that is created to counter cryptocurrency which uh it's uh

uh principle is to be private and to be um um you know decentralized with an asset that's going to be non private and and centralized you know so it's going to be very interesting to to see why would I use something that goes against the principle of what this is created for I clearly it's a it's a fear movement on the on the on the European side due to the increase of use of of of crypto with especially stable coins and it's it's going to be very interesting how things develop in that in that respect here in this in this side of the world makes sense then just thanks for your Insight always good to still have

let's say you know the the the traditional Finance or the the the the payment traditional payment uh view because obviously uh everything what comes now on blockchain will probably change the regulatory environment how it is then maybe in in in time of the light uh cloudy just keep in mind um um we're slowly coming to an end of this webinar but clao and Patricio maybe clao first still on the regulatory item yeah I think here and and since our the medle team is divided between Argentina and Mexico uh we have well at least I have a lot of visibility there one important aspect even just staying

away from the controversy of melee and all that stuff right um the most one of the biggest things that they did is that it is now legally you can pay anyone in a digital asset in Argentina that's done so it is like a very very important step forward it hold up but just it is not legal tender right it you cannot go to a to a a place and and pay your your uh refreshing drink with crypto but you can pay for goods and services Services if it's under a contract um and I think that's a very important step right allowing people for them to decide how they want to get paid

or which asset they want to use to transact I think that's a step forward right and I think this is something that we're pushing a lot uh in the ICP hubs in latam is that we believe we are going to be a frontier Market which is on the border of crypto Mass adoption it's not going to happen in Western countries because crypto is not solving big issues there it is solving some crossb payments I agree billions of dollars trillions of dollars but Mass adoption is going to start in what we believe are Frontier markets and I think Argentina brail Brazil Mexico are going to be at the Forefront of that including regions in Southeast Asia right and so I think this is something that we need all of us need

to be aware of that we are making those initial steps uh and so I believe it's just uh like I said before just the white Camas right if you are interested in launching projects I would really definitely look into which uh countries you have more Affinity if you're for protal of course Brazil is the next neighbor there right for Spaniard companies of course Mexico Colombia that's a good in Argentina as well still faces a few problems but anyhow but I think the they're open to making the necessary steps that will allow masses of crypto adoption to happen at a local local and Regional level thanks for the insight about

Argentina we haven't covered this but you're the expert thanks for that then Patricio on the regular item yeah very short just supporting what Christina said about education uh I think this coffee vending machine that accept crypto is a good tool for onboarding people for educating them ER approaching them with a simple product that is coffee I I don't need to explain what is a coffee but if you pay with this digital currency or whatever and a coffee appears so you can make a lot of

uh you can create more elaborate Concepts from this starting point this is the the the first thing and the the other thing is that it is important to educate people in in having their own pneumonic phrase for instance so and this is something you can make with a lot of Education or in real life in the first time people will lose their first pneumonic and this is a tragedy but we saw it a lot but okay the risk is very low because you are just uh buying

a coffee you don't have a lot of money and when people lose their this uh their for the first time they realize how important is to have control of your own asset to have the responsibility so the machine and all this ER daily interactions makes you to feel how crypto is in the reality ER and how it works and and makes you a little bit uh more comfortable with this with this uh so so I think these coffee machines are very aligned with what Christina missions

Christina's mission is too and cloudia for sure yeah I think it represents a really good use case on on how on how power powerful the technology actually can can be in a real life uh use Case by buying buying coffee right so we we're slowly coming on to to to an end of this webinar uh but to summarize back so we had different countries we get Mexico we get chile we get over Brazil and Argentina we understood that the regulatory environment is still somewhat lacking but this doesn't harm the different startups and projects in the region to actually innovate and try to overcome and use blockchain as an

infrastructure a pay tool of payments to improve the the problems um the the different Regent currently face uh we understood the opportunities which are there in in the different market and each of the panelists has their own project and trying to enhance and spread the knowledge of blockchain Technology uh in in in in this in their region now before we end I prepared three Fireside question which I like to answer uh the the the panelist a real quick Fireside as it says quick question quick answer let me start Christina with the first question what is your favorite

blockchain or token oh my gosh it's a difficult question I have so many by the way well I'm going for the one that I have that I work right now so internet computer my favorite blockchain um and my favorite token it will be ICP as well so ICP it is Chris how about you Bitcoin of course just for fun yeah I am like can I change my answer I say Bitcoin too how about you blockchain or yeah so so definitely few things here yes uh uh

I think so for example my kid savings is r& bbtc right so it's it's I believe that blockchain tokens are tools right uh store of value uh in ckbc right so that's where my kit savings are uh we operate in different multi-chain we we be I believe it's going to be a multi-chain world so I think the narrative behind AI is going to be really important the next couple of of for the next this next cycle I believe like near protocol is one of really exciting St things there uh of course ICP with decentralized cloud storage as well they actually run ran an AI agent on top of a canister on a smart contract on ICP so that's that's a really good

one you would if you would need to decide for one which one is it ah decide for one so so definitely uh yeah so in this one I'll I'll put my hands in on the fire should not be considered Financial advice by the way so I'll do the I'll do the the ICP just because it has a broader use case uh and not just one or or just focusing on one so it just depends on what you want to solve uh but because it is a trick question right but uh there's already many good ones there many good ones uh uh many but this I'm not throwing anybody under the bus right and and and shout out to the to the Salan ecosystem as well for the great job

they've been doing trying to hold the line and for it to be usable uh the last couple of days uh how about you Fernando I'm out of my death here I have no opinion in this case to be honest that's very good stay neutral as the Swiss are so am I then second second firesight question until end of 2024 does Bitcoin go up and down Patricio five words there is no second best I have not a maxi at all up or down up Absolut absolutely up clao what about you up yes definitely

up Fernando well Christina um Christian yeah it's go goes up new form new form of investment safe so I I I think it's very good and then last question um maybe Christian you can just just WR continue what's your suggestion to anyone to start with with with cryptocurrency what would what would you say what's the best to to start I think the best to start is you know try it right I think uh we talk about it at sometimes is just you know open an account you know build your

wallet it's like I did with Fernando right so Fernando was always asking me how it works how I do it and I say buy your first Bitcoin man so look I give you I give you some Bitcoin go to The Exchange try there and then you see how technology Works how it can help help you on your day by day so I think you will start to see a little bit difference right but you need to try at open an account in some exchange transfer your Bitcoins or other Curren that or other uh assets that you buy there test it see how how this works and research take a look there in the exchange you can find a lot of

information so I think the the the best idea here is to try what do you think Christina is it attending one of your lectures or also just do it I love it I love it I I think just uh the same as Christian do your own research learn and most important make mistake because do mistake is going to make your world learn and I don't know um learn principally so I think you you agree just do it open an account and get it up and running I I as a Latin person you know I I feel always safer if I hear from a friend uh the best the best referral that we have is is is someone we trust H for me it was very easy to to

do it but I still I still have my Shivers whenever I log in my tras I put the wrong password I see the wallet empty as I said it's even for someone who's experienced with Finance it's very it's a very different world and it takes a lot of time to to put your brain into the right place because we are very used to the traditional Finance world and how things work so when you see you know that you can move funds from Spain to Mexico to Brazil in real time for a very little cost it really like okay what what the hell am I doing using Bank transfers clao what's your take Yeah my two cents on it is first um you don't have to do this alone right I

think this is the most important uh aspect of it um please do not trust every YouTube video you see uh don't do that um and just uh I I think crypto valy associations would be a good space right maybe a little bit too formal I what I'll say is go to any Meetup Bitcoin ethereum uh salana near ICP whatever whatever meet up and ask somebody and with through curiosity hey what is is this how can I get uh my first token here if it's a meme coin fine if it's cats dogs Birds uh whatever right I think the most important thing is for people to understand the power of being

the owner of that asset so we are building the necessary foundations to support Sovereign individuals uh I know that this might be a little bit off topic but I believe that people starting to understand why it is important for every one of us to own our data which is a little bit difficult in our own capital or our own source of value creation it is how we're going to be improving as a society as a whole and to start to evenly distribute the opportunities that we're building so first of all just uh get your feet wet in whatever shows your poison wisely and you Patricio last but not

least yeah learn by doing and using the the actual Tech ER don't spend a lot of money if you don't want to lose the money but uh you can learn by using it um you can learn with Christina with Claudia for instance and with other content creators too you can buy a coffee to learn too but U but the the main take is don't be afraid you won't lose a lot of money when you when you are starting just starting but you will feel uh the ownership you will feel the

responsibility and you will be more uh responsible not just in crypto but in your Digital Life as a whole you will care more about your ER passwords and you will have a a change of ADD in so uh that's that's the recommendation learn by using uh don't be afraid of uh doing errors don't do big errors with big money just but uh but there is nothing to be scared of I think two two important things maybe take $50 opening account exchange play around get to familiar with with some

Basics and just make sure you write down your password for that exchange and your email address if you keep that and then you're good to go and I think with 50 US dollars uh you can you can start a lot and it's a very good investment to understand how this new technology works that being said I would thank everybody who joined this webinar um I also want to thank all the L um representative being here on the panel Patricia cladio Fernando Christina and Christian CP Val Association go to our website to stay in touch with all the upcoming events we having and thanks so much for joining

and I see you all in the cloud bye-bye thank you bye bye byebye