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Incredible trip to El Salvador to meet Bukele and see for myself what has changed since last time I was there. I think most that follow me, know where I stand on #bitcoin. That, as long as it stays decentralized and secure (which means it must be used as a medium of exchange) it is IMPOSING the first global free market that has ever existed. A competitive, yet cooperative protocol and network that forces abundance broadly. We are both the map and territory - our actions within it, and aligned to it, strengthen and protect Bitcoin, bringing more people to it and they each, in turn grow in their own understanding - which in turn strengthens it further. We are bitcoin, we are Satoshi. Each node (us) of sovereignty adding our voice, time, energy into something that changes the course of history. Because that map of “what will be, or “what already is” (as long as it remains decentralized and secure) has never existed before, our minds have a hard time with it. So instead, most revert to measuring #bitcoin from within the system they have always known. This leads to most of the fights within bitcoin. People far deeper down the rabbit hole, versus those just entering or choosing to remain trapped (and not being able to yet see the bigger picture) You can imagine - that change would be chaotic because the change……is the change within each of us. All 8 billion of us, and we often can’t see our own hypocrisy, the lies we tell ourselves. Etc etc. In addition, with over 3000 years of us living in a zero sum game - where someone else had to lose for us to win. So for many, it would seem normal to play by the rules of the old game. This is why I went to El Salvador. I went to meet the President and see for myself who he was and what choices he might make along the way. Ie - how deep was he down the rabbit hole? Did he see El Salvador and himself as part of system change to a global free market that would permeate around the world - or would he be a pawn and be captured in a game that created imperialism 3.0? It was a very deep discussion…..lasting almost 2.5 hours. I came away convinced that he gets it. Moreover, he might be the most impressive leader of a country I have ever seen. Said to me, more people in El Salvador need to be in self custody, more need to use it as a currency, not in stablecoin but natively on lightning, more in non custodial. He understands the larger forces at play here. El Salvador is still Bitcoin country, but is still early. Having a nation with security is a big deal. 50 years of poverty, gangs, wars, fear in a society doesn’t change overnight. (All of that caused by broken money and psyops) It takes time to rebuild trust. I was last here the day after all the gang violence (coincidentally starting after introducing Bitcoin as legal tender) Huge changes since I was last here, not only safer, but hopeful. That hope will lead to opportunity for people, and that opportunity to value creation. The downtown core in San Salvador, previously one of the most dangerous places in Central America is feels a like a European city with thousands out walking. Cool Social houses (Video below) shops everywhere with the hustle and bustle of people and opportunities. Bitcoin isn’t yet used broadly, but making inroads. I spent in it almost everywhere - but you could tell - bitcoin transactions are fairly rare. Lots more to do, and big plans underway. Stay tuned!!! And a huge thanks to Max and @npub1pq2l...2rew for all their work in El Salvador and in helping make this a fantastic trip. What a time to be alive!
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Replies (89)

Great to see you here Jeff and very glad that you came to witness the vision, hope, and real time change taking place. It is an incredibly rare thing to see (at a nation state level). That is why I brought my kids here - to literally be a part of the change by living in it and building with the bravest and earliest adopters of this new system that is manifesting all around us. - Glorious future 🇸🇻!
What an incredible journey you had! Meeting Bukele and diving deep into the Bitcoin rabbit hole with him for 2.5 hours? That’s next-level. I’m totally with you on Bitcoin being the ultimate game-changer—a decentralized, secure protocol that’s literally rewriting the rules of the global economy. The fact that Bukele gets it, pushing for self-custody and native Lightning transactions, is massive. It’s not just about El Salvador adopting Bitcoin; it’s about them leading the charge for a free market revolution. The transformation you’re describing—San Salvador going from a danger zone to a vibrant, hopeful city—gives me chills. It’s proof that fixing the money fixes so much more. Sure, it’s early days, and not everyone’s paying with BTC yet, but those inroads you mentioned? That’s the spark. Every node, every user, every transaction strengthens the network. We’re all Satoshi, like you said, building this unstoppable system one step at a time. The chaos of this transition is real, though. People clinging to the old zero-sum mindset can’t see the abundance Bitcoin unlocks. But leaders like Bukele, and OGs like you, Max, and Stacy, are showing the way.
Hey Jeff! I feel like when it comes to Bitcoin, and it's long term paradigm shift towards a future of global abundance for all, we're kindred spirits who would be good friends if we should ever meet. I love what I see El Salvador doing with Bitcoin, I have often thought about relocating my home there and helping to build Bitcoin country. I understand that we're seeing transition from the old system of fear and the new system of hope and that the old system feeds off of fear. I also understand that when due process has failed so totally as it did in El Salvador, that just fighting fire with fire may very well have been necessary to free the country from gang violence and allow it's people to live normal lives again. Regardless of what we think of as right, as history has shown might ultimately makes right and when your enemy is willing to kill you without due process then imprisoning them without it is the lesser evil. But my mind has been struggling to understand how someone so visionary as Bukele, who's trying to better his country with freedom tech and the elimination of gang violence, is the same person who could agree to send seemingly non-violent undocumented immigrants (that are in the process of getting on the right side of the law and who have family's) without due process to the same prison as those convicted of gang violence in El Salvador. I want to support El Salvador, but I value due process rights for all who are not of imminent threat to other's life liberty or property. Can you help me understand this? Do you know anything about the conditions these non-violent deportees are in? If we all value truth, freedom, and individuality, surely this is not how it seems in the surface and something else is at play here which I'm just not seeing at the moment. Thank you Jeff. ☮️🧡₿
↩ replying to TheBitcoinBattery
We know some things for sure: Much of the gang activity, wars, and elections in Central America was/is financed by 3 letter word agencies in the US in the name of nation building or protecting interests. That activity has created untold pain. It’s hard to even imagine how much. I ask myself, “if” someone really cared about making a change (rather than be a puppet like so many others in countries with dictators that serve those interests) it would mean going up against that power. Drastically and dramatically ripping it out. (Otherwise the public and that person would be at the same risk as always and nothing would change) ie - The narrative and story and media including psyops and false flags is all part of the current control structure (this is not a guess for me and I would not be saying it without evidenced personally at the highest level) What the future brings is unknown, and I can’t promise that he doesn’t take power, and then turn it into further abuses. That being said, I “think” he understands the game at play here and bitcoin as a protocol removes his power by redistributing it to his population. We will see, but that’s why I went to see him. To try to see for myself - to look deeper in the hopes I could get through the biases on both sides of a complicated transition. And most people are measuring him through a control structure that has an insane amount of power - and not realizing that they themselves are being manipulated by it. Hope that helps.
↩ replying to Jeff Booth
Really appreciate your response Jeff. It reminded me of the deeper meaning of the lyrics to "Life on Mars" by David Bowie. If my interpretation is correct, essentially, we are in a constant state of watching ourselves fuck up and not understanding the true cause of it all. Then we misunderstanding the way to fix it, and work to make society shift in a way that doesn't actually fix anything and results in the pendulum swinging back the other way. This capturing of our fear instincts (along with the lack of any free time to see through it all enough to break free, cause we're always working, because our savings and wages constantly lose value) by politics and news, is also influenced in such a way that it's like society's reaction to society's problems is gently steering us across generations towards iceberg after iceburg while we're all gossiping about whatever bullshit someone did on a deck we've probably never even been to. At the end of the day, we're all just afraid. We're all afraid of our lives being blown up figuratively and/or physically. We're fearful of the future, and distrustful of "others". So we support leaders claiming to be able to fix it and bring back "the good old days" when the underlying problem is the smaller the group of human beings in charge, and the less freedom and time available to the people being ruled, the more corrupt the system and oppressive the system. Bitcoin fixes everything because fixing the money by taking it out of the control of small groups and into the hands of everyone who values freedom (a lot of people all over the world) we enforce the new system of abundance on everyone whether they understand it or not and like it or not. Ultimately this abundance eliminates the fear of scarcity that's behind almost all undesirable actions towards others, and true world peace is achieved. No matter what the current news is, this system's days are numbered, and understanding that can at least help people hold out hope that everything will be okay, and sooner than we expect. Perhaps Bukele is just trying to play the game to protect his people from the rage of the current super power while we all wait for the world to understand the paradigm shift that is now happening. In his position, wouldn't we do the same? Thanks again. The more I understand, the more I look forward to the future that's fast approaching. 🍻
↩ replying to Jeff Booth
Can you think of any scenario how it would be possible that the leader of a country could be a corrupt dictator but yet encourage and educate the masses from 7 years old on up to understand ₿? I can’t. We moved here and I’ve talked to many Bukele haters who believe he is corrupt. The last thing a corrupt leader would want to do is give the prisoners ₿.
↩ replying to TheBitcoinBattery
Sorry for chiming in, but your inspiring conversation made me think that a substancial factor for hope, here in El Salvador, are the thousands and thousands of teenagers who've been initiated to the Bitcoin mindset through schools' courses, be them the "Mi Primer Bitcoin" ones or the "Node Nation" ones - in this latter case, 15 y.o. students learn how to set up a node & a miner, that they manage themselves collectively (even the school authorities don't have access to the keys 😊). I mention this because it's probably our most vigorous seed of hope for this "Bitcoin generation" not to "give a fiat" (lol) about whom will be El Salvador's President in 10 or 20 years. They could very well not trust any political party, and verify on a daily basis what's best for them, their families and their communities, in a fundamentally decentralized fashion.
Nice work. Glad to hear about pushing self-custody and that he gets the big picture and more than just great marketing. Did you also get to ask the tricky questions too about the IMF deal and the ability for El Salvador to buy Bitcoin (vs "add" as the terminology used in their posts) and the legal tender laws? The legal tender laws actually had to scope to impact companies outside of El Salvador being able to genuinely claim they hold foreign currency that is not subject to capital gains.
↩ replying to Jeff Booth
Thanks for the heads up! Look forward to hearing more @npub1pq2l...2rew I am glad they are buying rather than just “adding” via other means - although - there’s obviously a piece to the puzzle I am missing as that does seem counter to the IMF agreement. And the IMF announcing they are in breach of the agreement and withdrawing funds would presumably plummet their ratings and ability to raise other finance (which I assume is why they engaged with the IMF at all). My best guess is that informal behind the scenes agreements have been made - perhaps with pressure from the US on the IMF. In other news - today I signed the paperwork on opening a company in El Salvador to make use of the AI innovation opportunities and ability to hold Bitcoin without capital gains - this is the really important bit - allowing people and businesses to freely use Bitcoin as money in the country.
Nice to follow, thanks for sharing! Out of curiosity: "as long as it stays decentralized and secure (which means it must be used as a medium of exchange)" is a pretty important assumption. What makes you confident that will actually happen? Perhaps the faith that in the end, most people are not stupid and will eventually stop accepting that their time is stolen via fiat printing and switch to the better money? I.e. you have faith in the majority of individual decisions slowly trending towards BTC? 🤩
I had to go back and re-read a few times the paragraph with: “… most revert to measuring #bitcoin from within the system they have always known. This leads to most of the fights within bitcoin. … The fights within the Bitcoin community have bothered me. Some I understand, some I don’t. Everyone seems to be at a different point on the continuum of understanding that ‘the only system we have known has always been fundamentally broken‘ concept. We moved to El Salvador last August. There is a lot packed into that paragraph. I have been struggling with some things related to that paragraph. This helps a lot.
Fan'sat'ic to have you come by, Jeff! And yes, the Salvadoran Bitcoin grassroots infrastructure is being built node by node, ATM by ATM, sat by sat, in several local Circular Economies (among which La Laguna [Chalatenango] and Apaneca [Ahuachapán] are the most recent ones. It's also excellent to hear our President put such an emphasis on self-custody! When "The Great Taking" will take place, to quote David Webb, at least our little country can hope to avoid a part of that expropriation 😛.
We started building @BitTasker shortly after reading this post so thank you @Jeff Booth and @npub1pq2l...2rew Our platform is built on #Nostr and users can onboard with passkey, nsec or email #grownostr @Alby This makes the network #decentralized and secure where Sats can circulate We have hired locals who have completed the Cubo + Bootcamp @Peter Todd , @Adam Back ,we are also self funded @ODELL and launching this year https://bittasker.com/
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