In previous posts I have mentioned that despite the fact that in Cuba there is no official position regarding the acceptance or rejection of cryptocurrencies, in 2021 a resolution was published in which the use of digital assets was "regulated". Said document, which you can read in full here, recognized the existence of operations and transactions in the Internet space and due to the importance it has at an economic level intended to establish the voice of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) as the governing body of such operations.
A rather timid step that needed to be expanded and not simply the enunciation that the BCC would establish rules and would be in charge of granting licenses to service providers for operations related to these digital assets. But what does the BCC mean by the term digital assets? Well, "the digital representation of value that can be traded or transferred digitally and used for payments or investments", according to its second article. Basically, anything that can be bought and sold over the Internet is a digital asset.
If we take it to the known scenario of the Web3, that is where currencies like crypto and NFTs would come in. And certainly, in Cuba these terms were gaining momentum with the increase of Internet access via mobile data and Wifi parks. Little by little, the island became aware of Web 2.0 (Cubans became the fastest growing of new users on Facebook, for example) and this adoption of the Internet was led mainly by young people, who could access social networks and bring their circles of friends to these virtual spaces.
That is why a few tech-savvy people and geeks were the first to talk about cryptocurrencies and these kind of technologies in Cuba. Curiosity is very powerful and when they saw the opportunity to make money through any kind of platform, they began to create the bug of cryptos like Bitcoin and others that turned out to be scams and that is why it is not better to mention them. The truth is that, for many, cryptos in Cuba was a shock therapy from which not a few gathered bitter experiences.
That is why I also expected the Resolution to propose strategies related to education in these Web 3 terms, because if they refer to digital assets, users should be digitally literate in good practices so as not to fall into scams or common mistakes when surfing the Internet. On the contrary, what the BCC did and so expressed in its Decree was that:
Natural persons assume the risks and liabilities that in the civil and criminal order derive from operating with virtual assets and virtual asset service providers that operate outside the Banking and Financial System, even though transactions with virtual assets between such persons are not prohibited.
On the other hand, the opinion handled by the BCC as a central State agency on cryptocurrencies is based on skepticism and short-sightedness, as they are unaware of the fundamentals of Bitcoin and the solutions it can bring to the national Economy as a store of value. They are quite catastrophic in expressing that the use of digital assets only brings harm:
Their management implies risks for monetary policy and financial stability, due to the high volatility that characterizes them and being carried out in data networks in cyberspace, usually decentralized, with no issuance control, regulation, official supervision, sanctioning regime, nor support from monetary authorities, which also implies dangers of their being used to finance criminal activities, given the excessive anonymity of the users registered in such networks and of the transactions that derive from their use.
However, in my opinion, such unintelligent positioning was a first step to test the ground and the state of public opinion. Undoubtedly, the news was received with great enthusiasm at the time because the government was talking about cryptos, but a little more than two years have passed and there have been no new pronouncements on the subject. There have been newspaper articles and interviews with BCC officials, as well as specialists in Economics recommending to study the issue of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, but there is no dissemination of the analyses they make (if they do) nor a renewed official position since the last Decree of 2021.
The crypto-loving communities in Cuba have reached such a degree of maturity and self-identification that they have sought physical spaces to meet and share views. This is how events like the BitcoinAsere, the largest crypto gathering of 2022 and where I fortunately attended and heard for the first time about the Hive ecosystem, happened. Also, recently there was an IRL meeting with the Telegram community CubaBitcoin, a group focused only on the cryptocurrency that started this digital revolution.
That is why I think it is necessary, given the new scenario that Cuba is going through, with an increasingly alarming inflation, to devise strategies to educate children, young people and adults from the ground up. Just as computer basics were taught in primary schools with programs such as Office, in the same way I think that contents could be dosed so that from an early age we learn to value issues such as Security, Decentralization, Digital Privacy, etc. These subjects are key for the men and women of the future.
Let麓s wrap it up this post here. Let me know, if you are Cuban, if you knew about this Decree Law and if you agree with me that it needs to be updated with more coordinated spectrums of action with the different communities that exist in Cuba studying about Web3. Up to now, this law neither paints nor gives color. I would love to read you in the comments and if you made it this far comment: onion. I麓ll be answering all the onions. See you in the next post!
@garorant.Cover image edited on Canva free version.
Post writen in spanish
and translated with Deepl to English.
All rights reserved 漏, 2023.
