A year ago, our team sat down with Paolo Ardoino, CTO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, to talk about the price of bitcoin and the events that, for many, triggered the long winter of cryptocurrencies: the collapse of FTX and the fall of the main companies in the world. space.
Now, we sit down with Ardoino once again to talk about the underlying reasons driving bitcoin‘s current price rally, Bitfinex’s partnership with El Salvador, its long-term ambition, andtechnology/stablecoin-tether-appoints-chief-technology-officer-ardoino-ceo-2023-10-13/” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”> his new position as CEO at Tether, the company behind the USDT stablecoin.
Ardoino draws a parallel between bitcoin adoption and the legacy financial market, saying that adoption happens “slowly,” but much more so in the traditional system. Furthermore, he claims not to feel bothered by his new role in order to focus more on work. This is what he told us:
Q: What does your new role mean for you personally and for Bitfinex as a company? Will there be any changes for users?
Paolo: There is no change. I mean, I think on the Bitfinex side, again, my role didn’t change, so things are progressing at the same pace, with the same attention to our user base. The same enthusiasm for bitcoin adoption and building bitcoin infrastructure. Therefore, there is absolutely no lateral change. And also, on the other hand, I have been involved in strategic decisions for the last few years. I’ve always been excited about not only doing development but also working on the strategy and business side. So, no changes there either (…) Given the fact that I’ve been leading the strategy anyway, it made sense to simply adjust the title on the Tether side as well.
For me. I mean, I’m the same guy who keeps working, keeps coding, keeps doing the things he likes all day (…) So I like to think that for me nothing changes. I’m not the type of person who goes around with fanfare about title changes. I just like to work. I like both companies I work for. My passion is my work; It’s my hobby.
Q: Having completed two years since the bitcoin Law made btc legal tender in El Salvador, do you think it has significantly impacted the population? Are more people using bitcoin now compared to 2021?
Paolo: That’s a good question. So first of all, I always carefully explain that while we all want change, quick change can never be quick. Historically, people are naturally resistant to change. So I think it’s important for people to keep that in mind because. I lived part of my time in Switzerland and I was talking to some banks and local administrations in Switzerland and they confirmed that even credit and debit cards took 15 years to be widely used because the first time people had debit and credit cards in their pockets, and we’re talking about Switzerland, which is basically the country of finance and banking, yet adoption was so low because people didn’t trust that piece of plastic that they had in their pockets. So with bitcoin it’s the same, right?
It is then about gaining trust over time. I don’t think Bitcoiners need to ram bitcoin down people’s throats. I think Bitcoiners should be patient and explain things in a way that is easy to understand. Sometimes we bitcoiners are too difficult to understand or follow simply because we like to use big words and complex explanations, but that’s not what we should do. We should create an education that is good for a kindergarten teacher or a taxi driver or a school bus driver who sells groceries. It takes time to understand true adoption, to get this kind of feedback, and to adapt educational processes for it. So I’m sure bitcoin adoption will come. There are many new companies that I am meeting with, that are moving here in El Salvador to help with the process, to provide more infrastructure, to invest in education. So it’s just a process that takes time and sometimes the mainstream media tries to demonize the work and the pace and the speed at which things move here. But, once again, they always forget that in traditional finance things always go even slower than this. So, I would say that bitcoin adoption in Salvador is a success and will be even more so in the coming years.
Q: Could you share details about Bitfinex’s partnership with El Salvador? What initiatives are you currently working on and what projects do you hope to develop in the coming years?
Paolo: We partner with two educational projects. One is called Torogoz Dev, which focuses on leveraging the experience of developers here to educate and teach other developers. And so to create a community of developers who understand bitcoin very well, the importance of that is that we want El Salvador to be able to increase its internal knowledge and its internal infrastructure and its software development base. It’s fine to start it with people who come from that side, but it is increasingly important to have knowledge and a solid base of developers working from within. And also My First bitcoin is another partnership that we achieved for a location that is more suitable for the general public.
Then we got a securities license, so our goal there is to make sure that El Salvador becomes the central financial center of Central and South America. And I think it has every chance of achieving it because the local administration, the president and the government have a lot of vision for the future. They seem to think that things are going in the right direction to bring companies or have companies that can leverage values here in El Salvador to raise capital for their companies, for their companies. And it’s pretty unique because imagine America, if you’re a small business that’s $500,000 to $10 million in market capitalization, it’s almost impossible to get a loan or raise capital publicly because then you’d have to go to a bank. . But banks are extremely expensive and will charge huge fees and cost you too much in lawyers. So people don’t do that, small businesses don’t do that, but Bitfinex Securities aims to create more democratic access for companies that want to raise capital through securities.
Q: Looking at current bitcoin market activity, there is a widespread belief that the possible approval of a bitcoin spot ETF has fueled the rally. What is your perspective on this? Do you perceive a change in market dynamics?
Paolo: I think since 2022, after FTX, bitcoin has been extremely oversold. So I think it’s slowly but steadily recovered over the last few months. We don’t see much bitcoin (supply) on the sell side right now. Institutions are hoarding bitcoin left and right. That is also one of the reasons, in my opinion, why the price is going up. And even with the bitcoin ETF even further away, you can easily argue that that will drive bitcoin adoption. So I think it is normal to see the price move also considering next year’s halving.
I think people started to realize that there is a big difference between bitcoin and everything else, any other token. So people look for something that may not work 100 times in a few days like some random tokens, but it’s a certainty, right? It’s something that is stable, has a strong user base, has strong fundamentals and that can’t be said for all the other tokens. That’s why we’re seeing this growing enthusiasm around bitcoin.
At the time of writing, bitcoin is trading at $36,400 after cooling off during the day. The cryptocurrency hit a yearly high of $38,000.
Cover image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview
