Sixty percent of Salinas’ portfolio is in Bitcoin, while the other 40% is a mix of oil and gas investments.
During the Bitcoin Conference 2022 in Miami, Florida, Cointelegraph met with Ricardo Salinas, founder, and president of Grupo Salinas, in an exclusive interview. As an early adopter of Bitcoin (BTC), since his $200 days, Salinas has experienced the ups and downs of the market firsthand and has learned a thing or two along the way.
Salinas began the day as a panelist on the main stage of the Miami Beach Convention Center, among other billionaires like Orlando Bravo, Marcelo Claure and Dan Tapiero. In a discussion titled “Bitcoin Billionaires’ Capital Allocators,” Salinas revealed that 60% of his portfolio is in Bitcoin, while the other 40% is a mix of oil and gas investments.
Interview Highlights
On April 7, Mexican Senator Indira Kempis, also attending the conference, announced that she was proposing legislation to make Bitcoin legal tender in Mexico. The senator had commented that, “in Mexico, 67 million people are not included in our financial system. Bitcoin is the solution to this problem. Through inclusion and financial education, people can have a better quality of life.”
Mexico would follow Honduras and Portugal if it goes ahead with the legislation. In Honduras, specifically the island of Roatán, according to Samson Mow, former director of strategy at Blockstream, Honduras Prospera Inc. is the organizer and promoter of the jurisdiction. The president of the entity, Joel Bomgar, said that, “Bitcoin within Prospera operates as legal tender. That means there is no capital gains tax on BTC, you can freely transact using BTC, and you can pay taxes and fees to the jurisdiction in BTC.”
The next jurisdiction to make Bitcoin legal tender was Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal. Miguel Albuquerque, President of the Regional Government of Madeira, said that “individuals in Madeira are not subject to capital gains tax when they buy and sell Bitcoin,” while also touting the region’s 5% corporate tax rate, in its Free Trade Zone, as one of the lowest in Europe.
When asked what he thought about this, Salinas said “it’s going to be an uphill battle” to make it happen because his country “unfortunately” has a mindset too attached to its control over fiat, or what he calls “fraud.” of the fiat.
“The powerful in the central bank and finance ministry hate Bitcoin for the freedom it represents and it is a direct threat to their monopoly money,” Salinas added.
Salinas, as the founder of Mexican bank Banco Azteca, admits that he is part of a problematic system and reveals that he would love for his bank to have access to Bitcoin payments, deposits, and loans. In the meantime, however, as the owner of the Grupo Elektra supermarket chain, he is currently working on enabling retailers to accept Bitcoin payments for all items.
While meeting with Cointelegraph, he said that Bitcoiners are still a small percentage of the total population and that there is still a long way to go before there is universal adoption. He also reminded viewers that regardless of an investor’s age, the most important quality any investor can have is curiosity and open-mindedness to learn continually.
By Audy Castaneda
