SDE ep 45: Cuba Uses Bitcoin as a Lifeline

In episode forty-five of Separating Money and State, we spoke with Javier Forte, co-founder of Cuba Bitcoin, who explains how the first educational community dedicated exclusively to Bitcoin on the island was born and why that community had to build its own tools.

The starting point was not an ideological conviction but a lack: Cubans do not have access to international financial services --- Forte got his first Visa card at 28, when he left the country --- and the platforms that did operate were expelling Cuban users or blocking their funds. The result is that the Cuban ecosystem was pushed towards the no KYC model not by cypherpunk doctrine, but because no system that required identity would accept them. Amid these difficulties, the no KYC exchange Cuba lnp2pBot thrived, and from that exchange community, Cuba Bitcoin was born in December 2022.

Key points:

• The first internet signal in Cuba dates back to 1996, but public access was not liberated until 2015-2016, with wifi zones in parks.
• An hour of internet in a wifi park cost 25 Cuban pesos, equivalent to one dollar at that time.
• There was SNET, a community network with metropolitan reach in Havana, connected by cables and antennas, with its own content servers. It was dismantled.
• The package: weekly distribution of content via hard drives that traveled from Havana to the provinces and were copied onto flash drives. It still exists, in different versions.
• The crypto dollar is quoted in Cuba between 30% and 45% above the physical dollar, due to lower supply and higher utility.
• Bank withdrawal limits hover around 5,000 pesos daily, less than eight dollars at the informal exchange rate, when there is electricity and cash available.
• The mass-use banks in Cuba are Banco Metropolitano, BANDEC, and BPA; their cards do not operate outside the country.
• Power outages of more than 20 hours daily are now occurring across the entire island, not just in eastern and central provinces.
• Cuba Bitcoin operates: its own Lightning node, an instance of LNbits, an instance of BTCPay Server, the wallet La Chispa, a mint of Cashu at mint.cubabitcoin.org, the wallet El Cajú, and the node of Mostro Kmbalache.
• Forte presented a proposal for the implementation of the Nutshell protocol of Cashu to enable denomination in dollars in addition to satoshis, which was approved. This allowed Cuban users to operate with stablesats without a VPN.
• Geyser Fund rejected fundraising campaigns from Cuba Bitcoin due to U.S. sanctions on Cuba.
• In the Isle of Youth, the number of businesses listed on BTCMap increased from zero to six. The local community is La Isla BTC, led by Yuri. There is also Bitcoin Yayabo in Sancti Spíritus, managed by Bitalion.
• Four editions of the program My First Bitcoin were held in Cuba; the fourth was online and from it emerged La Isla BTC.
• Cuba Bitcoin has no budget or sponsor; it is sustained by the work of its co-founders and donations.
• Forte claims that the Cuban government uses bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in its own transactions.
• Regarding the recent regulation that allows companies to charge in digital assets, Forte argues that it forces operations through custodial platforms and limits rather than incentivizes.