Renato Rodríguez, CEO of Airbit Club, took part in the Mexican Senate to talk about cryptocurrencies. For its part, Colombia recognized Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto.
Mexican politicians show evidence of being wrong about exponents of cryptocurrencies or their associated technology. The public officials, together with the organizers of the talks, seem not be working to determine who should talk about the industry behind cryptoeconomics.
On July 26th, the Senate of the Republic was the stage for the talk “A technological vision of the future of democracy.” One of the invited panelists was Renato Rodríguez, CEO of Airbit Club, who was introduced to the audience as the leader of this organization and a consultant in cryptoeconomics.
It is common knowledge that, both Rodriguez and the company that he directs, have been reported to be involved in alleged scams, based on multilevel schemes, that blur the true meaning of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general .
For three years, users and different institutions have issued warnings about Rodriguez and Airbit Club. Even the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced, in March 2017, that Renato Rodríguez operated a business called Vizinova in which he allegedly used money from investors for personal expenses including luxury cars and houses. The leader of Airbit Club, together with one of his partners, agreed to pay US $1.4 million in returns plus US $160,000 in fines.
More recently, the National Commission of the Stock Market of Spain (CNMV) issued, in January of this year, a warning against Airbit Club, stating that it was not in its records, thus not being authorized to provide investment services.
A simple way to determine the reputation of Airbit Club on the Internet is to search for the name of the company on Google. The search engine will not only yield corporate information about the company, but it will also index dozens of articles and videos in which the operations of this organization are questioned.
Allowing Renato Rodríguez to talk about cryptoeconomics in the Mexican Senate demonstrates the ignorance about what he has really contributed to the cryptocurrency ecosystem, beyond question and doubt about his way of acting protected by this disruptive technology.
Craig Wright in Bogota
Prior to the events in Mexico, politicians of the Council of Bogota, Colombia, had recognized the Australian businessman Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin. In recent years, he has claimed to be the person behind the pseudonym of the person or people who devised the first cryptocurrency in the market.
Despite this claim and the recognition in Bogota, the community of bitcoiners has contradicted Wright, who is known within the ecosystem as “faketoshi.” In fact, some people recommended that council representatives receive advice before issuing documents of this type.
The events in Mexico and Colombia show that there is still ignorance worldwide about the main actors that drive the development of cryptocurrency technology and its adoption. They also suggest that there are those who, taking advantage of the interest aroused by Bitcoin, try to deceive people who want to learn how to use it.
Both politicians and new enthusiasts should conduct their own research to learn about the dynamics of companies and their representatives so that spaces are not open for those who, instead of fertilizing the land of cryptocurrencies, make it less fertile.
By Willmen Blanco
