The president-elect of Colombia is Pro-Bitcoin
This is an opinion editor of João, founder of Boletim Bitcoin, a Brazilian website focused on Bitcoin, and contributor to Bitcoin Magazine.
This story was originally published in Portuguese by Boletim Bitcoin.
In the past, Gustavo Petro, on the left, his wife Veronica Alcocer, back center, and his running mate Francia Marquez, celebrate in front of the supporters after winning a running presidential election in Bogota, Colombia on June 19, 2022. (Photo / Fernando Vergara — AP)
Who is Gustavo Petro?
Gustavo Petro is a Colombian economist who served as a guerrilla and most recently a senator from Colombia, and was elected president of the Latin American country with 50.49% of the vote against 47.25% in favor of Rodolfo Hernández, a famous businessman. as «Colombian Donald Trump».
Petro served as a guerrilla in the Movimento 19 de Abril (M-19) group, which later became the M-19 Democratic Alliance, where he was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies and began his political career.
After the election, Gustavo Petro stated that he intends to “develop capitalism in Colombia”. According to the president, it is necessary “to overcome feudalism in Colombia, to overcome the hereditary mentality associated with this world of serfs.”
Rival candidate Rodolfo Hernández acknowledged the election result.
Petro became known for helping to sign Colombian government agreements with the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and similar groups in 2016, as well as condemning corruption scandals.
Gustavo Petro and Bitcoin
On more than one occasion, Gustavo Petro has stated that bitcoin is a superior cash technology and that Colombia should direct its energy surplus to extract the cryptocurrency in strategic regions, as a way to curb the trade in illegal drugs.
In 2017, Petro stated:
“Bitcoin removes the issuing power of states and the settlement of currency from the banks. It is a community currency that is based on the trust of those who trade with it, since it is based on a blockchain, trust is measured and grows, hence the strength.
Regarding bitcoin mining, Petro said:
“Cryptocurrencies need clean energy, and we can do what El Salvador did, which is export clean energy. We can do it with the wind from La Guajira, with the waterfalls, without making reservoirs, from the western mountain range to the Pacific or the ocean.
“And we can transform the Wayú communities, the coal workers in the Cesar region, the black communities on the Colombian Pacific coast into owners of these new forms of energy, linked to cryptocurrency processing, and then we will have a different world.”
In a chirping in october 2021, petro even suggested that the country should be a reference in the production of bitcoin and not cocaine.
Interestingly, Petro is mentioned by local media as the first left-wing president elected in the country, who has been ruled in recent years by suspected center-right parties. This fact is in some ways in contrast to the origins and the libertarian ideas that Bitcoin emerged from – influenced by a strong community of cryptographers, mathematicians and libertarians.
When asked about Bitcoin, Petro’s rival candidate stated that he is not aware of the topic, and talked about several regulations for the industry.
If Colombia integrates bitcoin under Gustavo Petro’s government, either through mining or by making the cryptocurrency a legal tender, it will be the third sovereign country in the world to follow this path, initiated by El Salvador and accompanied by the Central African Republic.
The importance of mining
Bitcoin mining is one of the most fundamental aspects of the operation of the protocol, and is responsible for an important part of the network’s security. Through mining and the Nakamoto Consensus rules, the network agrees on the final state of transactions.
In recent years, dozens of large institutional actors have begun to integrate mining as a way to make money from free and underutilized electricity, or energy sources that would otherwise have been wasted. This is the case for a number of large oil companies, such as ExxonMobil, which use flare gas – gas that will be burned into the atmosphere due to inherent problems in the sector – for bitcoin mining.
The government of El Salvador plans to use geothermal energy from its volcanoes to extract bitcoin, which will be significant for the industry. Colombia entering bitcoin mining will be exponentially larger than the Salvadoran experiment, as the country has a gross domestic product of $ 271 billion, about 10 times that of El Salvador.
Colombia is ranked 11th in the global ranking of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption in the 2021 Chainalysis report, behind Venezuela and Argentina in the region.
This is a guest post by João. Expressed opinions are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
