‘Fiat, Debt, Bitcoin, Merit’ Jimmy Song Sings Praise Of Apex Crypto At LaBitConf 2022: Interview — FTX Token (FTT/USD), Bitcoin (BTC/USD)

The 10th annu­al Latin Amer­i­can Bit­coin & Blockchain Con­fer­ence (LaBit­Conf) 2022, on Nov. 11 and Nov. 12 in Buenos Aires, Argenti­na, offers a bright light of opti­mism amid a harsh cryp­to win­ter. The event offers pre­sen­ta­tions by more than 120 inter­na­tion­al speak­ers, includ­ing Eliz­a­beth Stark, Michael Say­lor, and Vita­lik Buterin.

At the event, Ben­zin­ga caught up with anoth­er notable speak­er, Jim­my Song, a Bit­coin Edu­ca­tor, Devel­op­er, and Entre­pre­neur, and the author of “Pro­gram­ming Bit­coin” and “The Lit­tle Bit­coin Book.” Song is also a decid­ed Bit­coin Maxi.

He tweet­ed, “Reminder: “Bit­coin Mod­er­ates” told you to put your mon­ey in FTX and Block­Fi. Still think it’s Max­i­mal­ists who are toxic?”

The recent FTX Exchange FTT/USD deba­cle has bad­ly impact­ed Bit­coin BTC/USD, which hit a new 2022 low under $16,000, as well as crush­ing FTT by 46.49%. The rip­ple effect also hurt Solana SOL/USD which lost 60% of its val­ue in just 24 hours.

When asked about his pre­sen­ta­tion on the mer­its of BTC vs. fiat cur­ren­cy, Song respond­ed, “I gave a talk about Fiat ver­sus Bit­coin, sort of the men­tal­i­ty shift that, that soci­ety takes when you go for fiat, which is based on debt, and Bit­coin, which is based on mer­it. And those two things have a lot of down­stream effects.”

Also Read: ‘That’s What End­ed Up Break­ing It’: Vita­lik Buterin Tells Ben­zin­ga What Broke FTX, Why Solana, Ethereum Did­n’t Fail 

Song believes in Bit­coin as a supe­ri­or alter­na­tive to fiat and oth­er cryp­tocur­ren­cies, and believes its strength is crit­i­cal in Latin America.

“I think you see a lot of cor­rup­tion and crony­ism in Latin Amer­i­ca. Just look at the offi­cial rate of exchange for the US dol­lar vs. the Argen­tin­ian Peso ver­sus the exchange rate on the blue mar­ket. There’s a huge dis­par­i­ty because the Cen­tral Bank of Argenti­na wants cap­i­tal con­trols.” Song said. “They basi­cal­ly steal from peo­ple that are exchang­ing at the offi­cial rate. That’s what cen­tral banks have been doing for a long time.”

He advo­cates for the offi­cial accep­tance of BTC as a glob­al cur­ren­cy, claim­ing it is more sta­ble than fiat and immune to gov­ern­ment control. 

“I think peo­ple in Latin Amer­i­ca get it bet­ter than most because there are cur­ren­cy changes, and two-thirds of your sav­ings are gone. We’re in the trend of the U.S. dol­lar, but USD has not done well, either. The key is with Bit­coin, you don’t have to trust any­body. You can ver­i­fy every­thing your­self. The minute you trust, you open up a secu­ri­ty hole where your wealth can be seized.”

Song has lit­tle con­fi­dence in alt­coins, which he sees as a sim­i­lar risk to fiat.

“When you’re hold­ing Argen­tin­ian Pesos, you’re trust­ing the Argen­tin­ian gov­ern­ment. But if you’re in the Car­dano, you trust Charles Hoskin­son. If you’re hold­ing a BNB coin, you’re trust­ing CZ. What the hell is the dif­fer­ence? You’re just trust­ing a dif­fer­ent per­son instead of Argen­tin­ian cen­tral bankers?”

Song’s solu­tion is sim­ple – a trust­less sys­tem based on BTC.

“Don’t trust —  ver­i­fy. If you’re trust­ing some­body else, you can get screwed.”