Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and
Speaker 1: Court Latin US. Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Nojosa. We
Speaker 1: bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you,
Speaker 1: overlooked by the rest of the media, and while the
Speaker 1: country is struggling to deal with these, we listen to
Speaker 1: the stories of Black and Latino.
Speaker 2: Studio United Latino Front.
Speaker 1: A cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Ino Jossa O la Latino USA. Listener, Here's
Speaker 1: an episode from our archives. What You probably recognize this tune,
Speaker 1: but the lyrics are pretty different from Bob Marley's Stir
Speaker 1: It Up. What The participants in this late night jam
Speaker 1: session sitting poolside. There's about twenty of them, swaying and
Speaker 1: holding hands. It's spring of twenty eighteen here in drincon
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, a town revered for its surf spots and beaches.
Speaker 1: But this mostly non Puerto Rican crowd is here to
Speaker 1: do more than just blow off some steam. There is
Speaker 1: this one guy in the group who's grinning and swaying
Speaker 1: to the music.
Speaker 2: You can't miss him.
Speaker 1: He's got on a wide brim black hat like zorro.
Speaker 1: It's accented with playing cards and feathers. His name is
Speaker 1: Brock Pierce, and he's sort of the main reason that
Speaker 1: these people are all here. He's very rich, though it's
Speaker 1: impossible to know just how rich. He's the leader of
Speaker 1: a movement, a movement that he says will change everything
Speaker 1: from Futuramidia and PRX. It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria Jojosa
Speaker 1: today the bitcoin pirates in the Caribbean. That sing along
Speaker 1: that you just heard is from the spring of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: It's just a few months after Hurricane Maria. Much of
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico is still devastated, and these people are here,
Speaker 1: they say, to rebuild. That's why they were singing build
Speaker 1: it up. At that time, the group was calling themselves
Speaker 1: the Portopians. Many of them are newly rich off of bitcoin,
Speaker 1: the digital currency. Some have even moved to Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: to take advantage of its favorable tax laws. The man
Speaker 1: in the zoro hat brought peers. He would say, it's
Speaker 1: not about the taxes. He's declared to the world that
Speaker 1: he's going to help turn this island into a high
Speaker 1: tech cryptocurrency paradise. Reporters working Cobbler and Michael O'Brien have
Speaker 1: been following this story. We begin in March of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: and Bucking and Michael have descended into the heart of Cryptomania.
Speaker 1: They're going to take it from here, and a warning,
Speaker 1: there are some curse words in this episode, which we've bleeped.
Speaker 3: Last year, right before tax season, a few hundred Silicon
Speaker 3: Valley types touched down in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 4: Actually to these castaways. It's Puerto Crypto. Two weeks of
Speaker 4: bitcoin themed events and we're here at the finale Coin
Speaker 4: Agenda Caribbean.
Speaker 3: At least five hundred cryptocurrency enthusiasts have colonized multiple floors
Speaker 3: of the lavish beachfront hotel in San Juan. The bars
Speaker 3: are buzzing, the Panama Jackats are in season, and look out, Puerto.
Speaker 2: Rico, the disruptors are in town. And yeah, we're shaking
Speaker 2: things about.
Speaker 4: This is Lauren, one of the people we met Millie
Speaker 4: around the conference. The first thing to know about crypto people.
Speaker 4: For them, bitcoin isn't just about money. It's a revolutionary
Speaker 4: new technology disrupting life as we know it, but in
Speaker 4: a good way.
Speaker 3: Disrupt is one of the buzzwords you'll hear a lot
Speaker 3: at a bitcoin conference. Another one is decentralized. The best
Speaker 3: focus for me is to decentralize everything, like no mercy.
Speaker 4: The economy since World War Two has been decentralizing.
Speaker 5: Decentralized opps, small contrives, the new decentralized.
Speaker 3: Internet, and at the center of this centreless world cryptocurrency.
Speaker 4: We all have that weird cousin who is really into crypto.
Speaker 4: So we're not going to get too much into it.
Speaker 6: All.
Speaker 2: You've got to remember the basics.
Speaker 4: Cryptocurrencies are kind of like virtual money that's online in theory.
Speaker 4: They can be traded for goods or services like real currencies.
Speaker 4: The first one was bitcoin. Unlike normal currencies, crypto isn't
Speaker 4: regulated by any government or central bank. It was designed
Speaker 4: to be untraceable. At first, it was used largely for
Speaker 4: buying and selling things in the dark web, mostly drugs.
Speaker 4: The lack of regulations has made crypto a favorite among
Speaker 4: a certain techy libertarian crowd, which accounts for a lot
Speaker 4: of what you'll be hearing today.
Speaker 1: Hi, my name is America and I'm Penalvi and we
Speaker 1: are the cyberquot Twins.
Speaker 3: The cyber code twins are superstar coders from California. Like
Speaker 3: others here, they believe the cryptocurrency is the future and
Speaker 3: they don't think that the old rules regulating the economy
Speaker 3: should apply to them.
Speaker 1: The main one is not taking the right approach to
Speaker 1: just taring off the innovative.
Speaker 3: And so the crypto people are here in Puerto Rico
Speaker 3: looking for a way around regulations. And that's because while
Speaker 3: it's technically part of the United States, it's weird. Colonial
Speaker 3: status makes for lots of loopholes in gray areas, and
Speaker 3: the Portopians say that while they're here, they'll invest and
Speaker 3: help grow a local tech economy.
Speaker 1: This is actually good for Puerto Rico. Cryptocurrency and black
Speaker 1: community are not moving from the Caribbean like they're going
Speaker 1: to be here.
Speaker 3: The pro business Puerto Rican government here in twenty eighteen
Speaker 3: sees this as an opportunity and has been trying to
Speaker 3: lure crypto based businesses to the island. And here's the
Speaker 3: other reason that the crypto enthusiasts want to come to
Speaker 3: Puerto Rico. Anyone who moves to the island doesn't have
Speaker 3: to pay capital gains or federal income taxes.
Speaker 4: Just five years before this conference. In March of twenty thirteen,
Speaker 4: you could buy bitcoin for about forty bucks.
Speaker 2: But at its.
Speaker 4: Highest peak, just three months before the coin agenda, bitcoin
Speaker 4: nearly hit twenty thousand dollars. That's a fifty thousand percent
Speaker 4: increase fifty thousand. If you played it right, if you
Speaker 4: had just fifty bitcoins to your name, you'd have been
Speaker 4: a millionaire.
Speaker 3: But the crypto people haven't cast themselves as their average
Speaker 3: tax avoiding millionaires. Their pitch to Puerto Rico is that
Speaker 3: they're here to show the world what crypto can do
Speaker 3: for any economy and do it in a socially conscious way.
Speaker 2: And that got the ear of some local entrepreneurs.
Speaker 7: Right now, I was going to move out of Puerto
Speaker 7: Rico because I really think that politics is startable bought.
Speaker 7: Since all of these investors are moving in and all
Speaker 7: these developers are moving in, I see an opportunity to
Speaker 7: actually make this sounds ironic, make Puerto Rico right. So
Speaker 7: I need to rephrase that.
Speaker 2: Enter Armando Gonzalez.
Speaker 7: People know me here as AIA because a JA is
Speaker 7: simpler for most people.
Speaker 3: When we first met AJ, we knew we'd be spending
Speaker 3: a lot of time with him. He struck us as
Speaker 3: somebody who was savvy about the whole crypto scene, a
Speaker 3: charismatic guy with a toothy grin who fit right in
Speaker 3: with the las a fair crypto atmosphere. And he's a
Speaker 3: bit of a hustler.
Speaker 7: We have chapters all major universities in Puerto Rico, and
Speaker 7: hopefully we're going to have chapters in the nation and
Speaker 7: hopefully eventually the world.
Speaker 3: Ready to sell you something in this case his startup,
Speaker 3: but hey, that's like what everyone here is doing, ages
Speaker 3: in his late twenties. He grew up in San Juan,
Speaker 3: Puerto Rico, a middle class kid, raised largely by his grandfather,
Speaker 3: and it took him some time to figure out what
Speaker 3: he wanted to do with the life. In college, he
Speaker 3: was all over the place, studying mechanical engineering, switched to chemistry,
Speaker 3: then in a panic psychology like this.
Speaker 7: Whole existential crisis and analyzing what like why will my
Speaker 7: mother love me?
Speaker 3: It's in biological Then he switches to economics after hearing
Speaker 3: about bitcoin.
Speaker 2: To me, it was like the future.
Speaker 4: AJ thinks about it like this, Puerto Rico's in a
Speaker 4: financial crisis, and here's this new technology that can bring
Speaker 4: investment to the island and he can be a part
Speaker 4: of it and cash in at the same time. He
Speaker 4: creates a nonprofit startup called Edge of block with the
Speaker 4: goal of going into high schools and universities to teach
Speaker 4: about blockchain. Blockchain, by the way, is the technology behind cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 4: It's extremely hard to explain, so for our purposes, don't
Speaker 4: worry about it.
Speaker 2: It's basically interchangeable with crypto.
Speaker 3: When we meet AJ, he's wearing a fisherman's cap that
Speaker 3: says hodl hotally.
Speaker 8: That is awesome, hollow man.
Speaker 3: It's an intentional misspelling of the word hold. It's nerd
Speaker 3: slang for hold on to your cryptocurrency rather than selling it.
Speaker 3: And in early twenty eighteen, if you're hotling, you're in
Speaker 3: good shape.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: I actually don't hollow, but this seems like a nice
Speaker 7: thing to have too. A conversation started.
Speaker 3: He doesn't hotal as in, AJ didn't snatch up a
Speaker 3: bunch of bitcoin and it was dirt cheap. So today
Speaker 3: he's a coin agenda trying to network and raise some
Speaker 3: money for his startup.
Speaker 4: And so are about forty other crypto startups who are
Speaker 4: all pitching to potential investors in this main conference room.
Speaker 6: All right, so, without further ado, we have from run
Speaker 6: to play put your hands together for Joseph.
Speaker 4: One by one we watch these men, and it's mostly
Speaker 4: men climb up on stage. These guys paid thousands of
Speaker 4: dollars real dollars, not crypto, for the chance to pitch.
Speaker 4: Joseph himself paid more than fifteen thousand dollars to be here.
Speaker 8: Child littlebcity is a massive issue, and one in five
Speaker 8: kids is obese. This is unacceptable and the fact that
Speaker 8: it's real is disgusting.
Speaker 4: He's pitching a fitness app that will reward people in
Speaker 4: crypto for working out. The app, he says, will also
Speaker 4: help end world hunger.
Speaker 8: So someday you'll be literally running to feed someone else.
Speaker 8: How far will you run to feed the world than you?
Speaker 8: Does anybody have any questions? I know, I just kind
Speaker 8: of paced in front of you and talked.
Speaker 3: All right, you guys, But Joseph and the like are
Speaker 3: not the main attraction here at the conference. The person
Speaker 3: that AJ and others came here to see is Brock Pierce.
Speaker 3: So who is Brock Pierce?
Speaker 9: Obviously describing this Rock Pierce who is now a billionaire,
Speaker 9: who's billionarep he wants to make Puerto Rico the center
Speaker 9: of the Earth.
Speaker 4: You heard about him earlier at the singalongs. The guy
Speaker 4: in the Zoro had.
Speaker 2: Midcoin Foundation chair.
Speaker 10: Brock Pierce, the child star who grew up for now
Speaker 10: some Puerto Rico that.
Speaker 5: Sleepee creepy cowboy from the future is named brock Pius.
Speaker 5: He began his career appearing in The Mighty Dogs.
Speaker 2: Rock started his career as a child star in the nineties.
Speaker 5: Then got involved with some very unsayfigures.
Speaker 4: When he was seventeen, he helped run an online media
Speaker 4: company that got into some really sketchy territory.
Speaker 5: Just google brock Pius scandal is all I'm saying there.
Speaker 4: Then circa two thousand and one, he founded a company
Speaker 4: that employed Chinese sweatshop labor to collect and sell imaginary
Speaker 4: gold in World of Warcraft, the video game. This amazingly
Speaker 4: made millions of dollars.
Speaker 3: Side note, at one point the company was run by
Speaker 3: Steve Bannon.
Speaker 2: Yes that's Steve Bannon.
Speaker 4: And those millions of real dollars from virtual gold. Brock
Speaker 4: put into digital money Bitcoin early on, which made him
Speaker 4: a billionaire.
Speaker 2: At least that's what they say.
Speaker 4: And now with the new agy crystal swathed psychotropic persona.
Speaker 4: Rocks acquired quite a cult following in the crypto community
Speaker 4: as a guru and on stage at coin Agenda.
Speaker 2: He's at the main event, and.
Speaker 10: As I like to point out, as Puerto Rico has
Speaker 10: got a pr problem.
Speaker 2: The room is full.
Speaker 3: Brock is sitting cross legged directly on the stage today.
Speaker 2: He's draped in linen.
Speaker 10: So many wonderful technologies all coming together at the same time,
Speaker 10: so many extraordinary innovators and entrepreneurs from all the modalities.
Speaker 10: You know, this is not a crypto or blockchain movement.
Speaker 10: This is in everything sort of movement.
Speaker 3: And everything movement. You might be thinking this is all
Speaker 3: sounding pretty crazy, and yeah, it does to us too.
Speaker 3: But he's succeeded in selling a vision, a seductive one,
Speaker 3: a vision that technology will set us free, make us
Speaker 3: wealthy and spiritually fulfilled. And it could start right here
Speaker 3: in Puerto Rico, a place where at this time more
Speaker 3: than one hundred thousand residents are without power after the hurricane,
Speaker 3: where government, both local and federal, isn't helping people in
Speaker 3: their time of need. May the crypto people can offer
Speaker 3: solutions where the government fell short.
Speaker 2: What do people have to lose.
Speaker 10: Fortunately, this is an island that's need of help and
Speaker 10: that makes people more willing to listen than usual, and.
Speaker 4: They do add big ideas for Puerto Rico, crypto based
Speaker 4: cab companies, building startup cities on unused public land, even
Speaker 4: turning the island into a cryptocurrency financial hub, a sort
Speaker 4: of Caribbean Hong Kong but for bitcoin.
Speaker 3: One of the locals buying this vision is AJ. He
Speaker 3: wants to be a part of Brock's Everything movement. AJ
Speaker 3: sees a role for himself. He wants to get in
Speaker 3: with Brock, make some money, and bring a Puerto Rican
Speaker 3: perspective to Brock's team while he's at it.
Speaker 7: And it's my duty to let them know that if
Speaker 7: they're going to benefit from this taxes, they should give
Speaker 7: back to the island. That I'm talking to them, I'm
Speaker 7: convincing them that they should move to Puerto Rico, connecting
Speaker 7: them with other people and they will invest in the
Speaker 7: island and we will make it better.
Speaker 3: One of the things that crypto people keep talking about
Speaker 3: is using a new tech to fix the island's infrastructure,
Speaker 3: for example, installing smart grids and solar panels throughout the island,
Speaker 3: and as the conference is winding down, I meet some
Speaker 3: people who are telling me they're headed into the countryside
Speaker 3: to do just that. I'm told it's my chance to
Speaker 3: see the crypto solutions for Puerto Rico in action. The
Speaker 3: guy organizing the trip is a self proclaimed surf instructor, videographer,
Speaker 3: life coach, entrepreneur, and blockchain evangelist by the name of
Speaker 3: Jonathan Fritzler. He's psyched to have the media coverage.
Speaker 11: We have a frickin' epic story unfolding because last night
Speaker 11: I was at this hip hop concert and I met
Speaker 11: this guy who's down to put solar panels on the
Speaker 11: roof ar cond this place for free, and it would
Speaker 11: be good to have you guys there because it just
Speaker 11: makes it look more symbolical of like something's happening. Having
Speaker 11: MPR there, it would just like make the whole story
Speaker 11: like a little bit more awesome.
Speaker 3: So the next morning, Jonathan and I, along with four
Speaker 3: volunteers and a camera woman pile into a minivan.
Speaker 2: We're headed to Cabra Ds on the west side of
Speaker 2: the island.
Speaker 3: In true crypto fashion, most of them accessorize with crystals
Speaker 3: or agates of some sort. One guy has to be
Speaker 3: jeweled goateea and rocks a tailored purple vest with matching
Speaker 3: fedora and slacks.
Speaker 2: Not exactly typical work gear for the tropics.
Speaker 12: Were we going to have install their panels today?
Speaker 5: I don't know, so when we come back to do
Speaker 5: the work late.
Speaker 11: This is kind of, uh, you know, front lines media
Speaker 11: activism right now.
Speaker 3: If you didn't catch that, he said, We're not actually
Speaker 3: going to install the solar panels today. This is going
Speaker 3: to be front lines media activism, he says, which apparently
Speaker 3: means vlogging while driving.
Speaker 9: So, hey, you guys, real quick, I just wanted to
Speaker 9: do a quick video. We're here live and headed to
Speaker 9: the hospital that was donated.
Speaker 2: We pull up to a huge facility.
Speaker 11: We made it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we've made timing.
Speaker 3: It used to be the town's only public health clinic
Speaker 3: until it closed down about ten years ago.
Speaker 12: Follow us as we all get out.
Speaker 3: And as we file out of the van, Jonathan directs
Speaker 3: us for the camera.
Speaker 2: And stop, stop stop right there, perfect director.
Speaker 3: Once we have the perfect take, we get a tour
Speaker 3: of the place from a member of a nonprofit one
Speaker 3: human family coalition that's coordinating relief work there.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's start with the tour.
Speaker 3: Since Hurricane Maria, a group of volunteers, including a search
Speaker 3: and rescue team, doctors and nurses have been using a
Speaker 3: wing of the building as a makeshift hospital, and.
Speaker 2: There's also unused rooms on used operating rooms.
Speaker 3: Then the tour ends and we circle up for thoughts
Speaker 3: and prayers.
Speaker 9: Puerto Rico being one of the corners in the Bermuda triangle,
Speaker 9: almost being like a lost island, but we.
Speaker 12: Have not forgotten about you.
Speaker 9: We're here to support, and more than anything, we're here
Speaker 9: to raise awareness for ourselves and for the world through
Speaker 9: sharing these videos, through sharing this media.
Speaker 2: That's why we're here.
Speaker 9: We're here for them, the people who have lost their homes,
Speaker 9: the people who have lost their families, We're here for them.
Speaker 9: We're here AH one, two three.
Speaker 2: And that was it.
Speaker 3: Then we piled into the van and left. No work
Speaker 3: of any kind was done. Side note. Over a year later,
Speaker 3: the cap of the s clinic still doesn't have the
Speaker 3: solar panels or even an X ray machine. None of
Speaker 3: the crypto voluntearists from our trip of them back there,
Speaker 3: and the building is currently closed. The video shoot felt
Speaker 3: more like a low key pr campaign than an actual
Speaker 3: aid mission.
Speaker 2: It was clearly a networking opportunity.
Speaker 3: Maybe not the best example of Brocks Everything movement in action.
Speaker 3: We thought, okay, maybe it was just a fluke, but
Speaker 3: it turned out to be just a taste of what
Speaker 3: was coming.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino US say hey, there's.
Speaker 12: A representative of me. This is a decentralized moment.
Speaker 6: Is I'm not aware of anyone building any gated community.
Speaker 3: I think you ald.
Speaker 1: The island and the rest of the world react to
Speaker 1: the portopians, stay with us, don't stay by. Yes, hey,
Speaker 1: we're back. And before the break, our reporters, Joaquin Cottler
Speaker 1: and Michael O'Brien took you into the world of cryptocurrency.
Speaker 1: True believers set on making Puerto Rico their new home.
Speaker 1: But in the wake of Hurricane Maria, a bunch of
Speaker 1: rich Americans moving down and talking about changing everything on
Speaker 1: the island wasn't the best kind of optics. A few
Speaker 1: days after the big conference that our reporters just took
Speaker 1: you to, the Intersect published a story about disaster capitalism
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico, and the crypto guys were front and center.
Speaker 13: They are attracted to Puerto Rico because it holds out
Speaker 13: the promise that they can convert their cryptocurrencies into harder
Speaker 13: currencies while paying no taxes whatsoever.
Speaker 1: That was March of twenty eighteen. A few months later,
Speaker 1: anti austerity protests took place around the island.
Speaker 14: Thousands marked May Day by joining a general strike in
Speaker 14: the capital of San Juan to protest austerity measures, and so.
Speaker 1: In that context, the Pertopians were coming off as pretty
Speaker 1: tone deaf. Back now to Juaquin and Michael.
Speaker 4: The May Day protests, they aren't really AJ's thing. He's
Speaker 4: gone all in with Brock Pierces Everything movement. It's a
Speaker 4: few months after the conference and Brock is spearheading another
Speaker 4: week of crypto events, this time on the west coast
Speaker 4: of the island instead of in the capital. They're calling
Speaker 4: it Restart West. When we first met Aj at the
Speaker 4: crypto conference, he was dead set on getting in with
Speaker 4: Brock and his inner circle, and when he'd heard about
Speaker 4: this trip out west, he saw his chance.
Speaker 2: So he just showed up at Brock's house the.
Speaker 7: Day before they were going to leave. I just went
Speaker 7: there and I didn't leave. I was down to sleep
Speaker 7: in front of the door. That wasn't needed in order
Speaker 7: for me to go with them.
Speaker 2: And it worked.
Speaker 4: They brought him along to act as a liaison between
Speaker 4: the crypto people and the locals.
Speaker 7: Because it's important to have someone from here help with
Speaker 7: the cultural and language barrier.
Speaker 4: After all the bad press after the last events, the
Speaker 4: goal was to make this one appear more inclusive. They
Speaker 4: wanted to develop a better relationship with Puerto Ricans. Aj
Speaker 4: would be their super.
Speaker 7: Weapon, and that's why it's important to be working with
Speaker 7: locals if you want to make an impact on the island.
Speaker 3: Of the locals, and as Aj tells it, his local
Speaker 3: knowledge came in handy. For example, they were having trouble
Speaker 3: getting a venue. Aj stepped in. He made some calls,
Speaker 3: pulled some strings in one fifty thousand dollars donation to
Speaker 3: the university. Later, Restart West was in business.
Speaker 4: Restart West is a more intimate affair, at least compared
Speaker 4: with last March's events, more of a retreat than a conference,
Speaker 4: lots of brainstorming sessions about how to be of service
Speaker 4: to the island.
Speaker 10: Puerto Rico has the possibility now of being put on
Speaker 10: the map.
Speaker 6: There's a hub of innovation and that's a wonderful thing
Speaker 6: if it works.
Speaker 4: Overall, think less pitching, more guided meditation, shand hum.
Speaker 12: I am peace, I have silence inside of me.
Speaker 4: They shack up in a ritzy villa in the hills
Speaker 4: overlooking the water and rincone. One of the first evenings
Speaker 4: goes so well and impromptu singalong breaks out, the same
Speaker 4: one you heard earlier.
Speaker 2: At first, things go pretty smoothly.
Speaker 4: AJ organized as a hackathon at the university that's a success.
Speaker 3: Two days later is their big outreach event, the Day
Speaker 3: of Listening. It's built as an opportunity for the crypto
Speaker 3: people to listen and learn from Puerto Ricans.
Speaker 7: No I actually wanted to be more involved in the
Speaker 7: planning of that particular event.
Speaker 3: AJ says that if he had been, the flyers wouldn't
Speaker 3: have all been in English.
Speaker 4: For one, because the event takes place in a conference
Speaker 4: frame at a resort spruced out with fake columns in
Speaker 4: these wrenched chandeliers.
Speaker 2: Frock's wearing a shirt that says Banksy is female.
Speaker 4: Rock led the charge you guys have been working your
Speaker 4: butt off for years down here.
Speaker 12: That helps hear Now.
Speaker 3: It's basically just the crypto people themselves in the room,
Speaker 3: mostly non Puerto Ricans, except for a group of protesters
Speaker 3: that showed up. There were half a dozen of them
Speaker 3: in the room. They started by voicing their concerns.
Speaker 12: I can't even afford to buy the land I'm stepping on.
Speaker 2: All you see is extraction. I don't agree with this project.
Speaker 4: And it quickly becomes apparent that this day of listening,
Speaker 4: it doesn't have a lot of listening on the agenda.
Speaker 2: More telling, Really, it is.
Speaker 12: Going to be a beautiful thing. All of these people.
Speaker 2: Have such good intentions, but you don't know that yet.
Speaker 12: Ed, I'm not a believe.
Speaker 3: And they're going to make something beautiful happen, and you're
Speaker 3: going to be a part of it, whether you like
Speaker 3: it or.
Speaker 4: Not, whether I like it or not, it's going to
Speaker 4: rock steps up and takes the mic me.
Speaker 12: This is a decentralized movement.
Speaker 10: If someone wants to build a gated community, I mean,
Speaker 10: they can't do what they want to do.
Speaker 3: I guess just the activists accuse them of cryptocolonialism under
Speaker 3: the guise of helping Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria.
Speaker 2: Things escalate quickly.
Speaker 5: Planet have any interest in Puerto Rico until the taxpace came,
Speaker 5: and that's why you're here.
Speaker 12: I am here in service.
Speaker 10: I've committed my entire life to the last breath, in
Speaker 10: service to humanity.
Speaker 12: I go where I can make a difference. I do
Speaker 12: not give a about money.
Speaker 6: It is not about compounding interest, it's not compounding impact.
Speaker 12: Where can you make a difference? And so at the
Speaker 12: choint is that world going. I like water and I
Speaker 12: like more places. So there's a lot of places in
Speaker 12: the world that need help.
Speaker 6: And great.
Speaker 4: A few moments later, they're somehow arguing about agriculture now
Speaker 4: and Brock comes out with a strange retort, awesome.
Speaker 12: And that's wonderful. To eat the rainbow? Are you saying
Speaker 12: to eat the rainbow?
Speaker 6: Yes, the colors, the food groups, natural agriculture, organic food, biodynamic.
Speaker 12: It's great stuff.
Speaker 4: The look on the protesters face is one of shock
Speaker 4: mixed with controlled rage. The day of listening has officially
Speaker 4: gone off the rails.
Speaker 10: I think I just offered to get a farm, and
Speaker 10: if you were so interested in doing this, I just
Speaker 10: offered to support.
Speaker 12: You and give you as munch help because I can't.
Speaker 11: I don't think that. I think that.
Speaker 12: I think that's point of year.
Speaker 4: Somehow the day wrapped up without anyone getting punched in
Speaker 4: the face and everythings cooled down.
Speaker 2: Brock said this in an interview.
Speaker 6: We had a very healthy conversation with you know, a
Speaker 6: few local Puerto Ricans that don't yet understand what this
Speaker 6: movement or technology is about. For five hundred years, this
Speaker 6: place is you know, been taken advantage of. So I
Speaker 6: mean that I think that that's where.
Speaker 2: Puerto Ricans should start. They should start skeptical.
Speaker 4: Videos of the argument quickly surfaced on social media, the
Speaker 4: press picked it up, it went semi viral.
Speaker 5: Suddenly the die of listening becomes a die of project.
Speaker 7: And that's a perfect example of why you need someone
Speaker 7: from here involved in an event that is called day
Speaker 7: of listening, because if you want to listen to the
Speaker 7: Puerto Ricans, well you start by listening to the Puerto
Speaker 7: Rican I want to help you.
Speaker 3: Aj says that if they had listened to him, they
Speaker 3: would have had more portagins in the room that were
Speaker 3: open to their ideas. He would have anticipated the protesters,
Speaker 3: maybe figured out a way to stop them from disrupting,
Speaker 3: do some damage control.
Speaker 7: And just like one redly Gold, person could come in
Speaker 7: and just make a gigantic scene about her own individual
Speaker 7: ideas and people would think that she is to presenting
Speaker 7: the rest of us, when that is not true. She's
Speaker 7: just an individual.
Speaker 3: The whole episode left kind of a stink on the
Speaker 3: crypto movement in Puerto Rico. For a lot of the locals,
Speaker 3: the Portopians seemed to be just another example in a
Speaker 3: long history of people coming to the island to make
Speaker 3: a quick, text free bug, and the timing just couldn't
Speaker 3: have been worse. At the same time the Puerto Ricans
Speaker 3: are dealing with so much. After Restart West, there wasn't
Speaker 3: a whole lot in the press about the Portopians, but
Speaker 3: just a few months later, Bitcoin was all over the
Speaker 3: news again.
Speaker 13: In twenty eighteen, bitcoin lost about eighty percent of its
Speaker 13: value relative to the dollar. We're not just talking about
Speaker 13: Bitcoin here, Other big cryptocurrencies lost the lion's share of
Speaker 13: their value.
Speaker 2: True disaster struck the crypto World's.
Speaker 13: Been a wild ride for Bitcoin this month and this year,
Speaker 13: the cryptocurrency going from the highs near twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 13: to the lows and near three thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Crypto bottoms out. Billions in virtual coin just gone.
Speaker 2: I come to bury Bitcoin, not to praise it.
Speaker 4: Sent to the Great Microsoft Windows recycling bin in the sky.
Speaker 4: Those thousands of prospective Portopians, well, most of them just bailed,
Speaker 4: but the true believers forged ahead, including Aj.
Speaker 7: They are buying out the islands, little Buck.
Speaker 3: I'm riding in the cab with AJ and his then girlfriend, Scarlett,
Speaker 3: who also works for his company, Edgie Block a lot
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: We met up with him.
Speaker 3: Again in March of twenty nineteen, a full year after
Speaker 3: we first met him. They're going to give me a
Speaker 3: tour of Portopia itself, the crypto enclave in old San Juan,
Speaker 3: where Brock and his cohort are snatching up and repurposing
Speaker 3: historic property.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they literally must have just unloaded their career ships.
Speaker 3: Brock and his followers have set up shops right in
Speaker 3: the heart of the Spanish colonial.
Speaker 7: City, almost the Monastery Rock Fierce, his home on the island.
Speaker 3: The monastery is a beautiful old Masonic lodge. It's painted
Speaker 3: a bright pastel orange and sits in a row of
Speaker 3: other majestic, similar looking buildings. AJ used to spend quite
Speaker 3: a lot of time here, but he hasn't been inside
Speaker 3: for months.
Speaker 7: We're going to gatus issues with some people that are security.
Speaker 3: As we walk around. I noticed something's different about aj.
Speaker 3: He's less cocky, pensive, a little distracted. The rest of
Speaker 3: the buildings he shows me are within a few blocks
Speaker 3: of the monastery. There's a co working space, but it's
Speaker 3: mostly empty. There's a weird cafe and a big vacant
Speaker 3: building that once housed the children's museum.
Speaker 7: So Uerte Rico close, a lot of schools, a lot
Speaker 7: of hospitals, and a lot of like landmarks. In one
Speaker 7: of these places was the Shoulders Museum.
Speaker 3: In tourists thronged Old San Juan. This was a place
Speaker 3: that locals brought their kids. It had been shudded for
Speaker 3: two years.
Speaker 2: When brought announced that he was going to buy it.
Speaker 3: Crypto people used it as sort of a meeting and
Speaker 3: co working space for a bit, but the community resented
Speaker 3: outsiders taking what used to be a cultural building and
Speaker 3: turning it into a private space for techis. The mayor
Speaker 3: of San Juan even got involved. There was some drama,
Speaker 3: a Twitter fight. Supposedly there are plans for a new
Speaker 3: museum going forward, but for now, the big empty building
Speaker 3: just sits there.
Speaker 7: After a while, nothing's happening with it, and I don't
Speaker 7: think no one any has ties no longer, so I
Speaker 7: really don't.
Speaker 3: Know what It serves as a reminder of the tension
Speaker 3: between the crypto folks and the community. I tried to
Speaker 3: get the details from AJ about exactly why it's been
Speaker 3: sitting vacant for so long, but he doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: really know what happened, and it seems to hit a
Speaker 3: nerve when I press him on it, like, wouldn't you
Speaker 3: be among the people who knew what happened to that
Speaker 3: building if you were like part.
Speaker 7: Of that Yes, well, yes, but no, because we.
Speaker 2: Basically Armando likes to express his opinion, and his opinion
Speaker 2: is not welcome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Scarlett is trying to be diplomatic. I'm she takes
Speaker 3: Aj aside and urges him to stay cool, but he
Speaker 3: clearly wants to get some stuff off his chest.
Speaker 2: No, we need to talk about this first.
Speaker 3: He admits that while he was once a trusted member
Speaker 3: of Brock's inner circle, not so much anymore.
Speaker 6: He's significantly older than the other Puerto Ricans that they
Speaker 6: work with, and he's very passionate and outspoken.
Speaker 2: He's harder to work with.
Speaker 7: Sometimes my passion can seem like a threat to some
Speaker 7: of them.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 3: AG says they treated him well when he was useful,
Speaker 3: but when he spoke his mind about things like how
Speaker 3: they screwed up the day of Listening, he fell out
Speaker 3: of favor. Not with Brock directly, he says, but with
Speaker 3: the new inner circle.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the things that broke. Sometimes he's not here and
Speaker 7: then there's this a group of people that forms under
Speaker 7: him that they just are looking up for themselves.
Speaker 2: There's no hierarchy and everything she centralized.
Speaker 6: It's a doggy dog situation where people are fighting over power.
Speaker 6: And like frequently when we were part of the those
Speaker 6: A's songs like.
Speaker 3: The Lord of the Flies, new people showed up in
Speaker 3: the scene that AJ didn't get along with. He started
Speaker 3: feuding with everyone. Rumors start flying around, and AJ developed
Speaker 3: a reputation as a bit of a loose cannon.
Speaker 7: I just became like this volatile, crazy, intense Puerto Rican
Speaker 7: kid that we shouldn't trust, even though he's doing everything
Speaker 7: for them.
Speaker 3: So AG gets pushed aside, and according to him, they
Speaker 3: lose someone who could have helped them look better in
Speaker 3: the eyes of Puerto Ricans.
Speaker 7: My biggest criticism is that I don't want the whole
Speaker 7: thing to look like a pubilicity scheme, because if it
Speaker 7: looks like a publicity scheme, people are not gonna take
Speaker 7: them seriously. And if they don't take them seriously, we
Speaker 7: can have impact.
Speaker 3: Scarlet's worried he'll say too much and get them in trouble.
Speaker 3: After all, they're still trying to get funding for their startup.
Speaker 3: She tries to stop him, but he finally goes off.
Speaker 2: What is the point?
Speaker 7: What is the point of this? That they're filled with
Speaker 7: both people and it's.
Speaker 4: For all the time that we've known Aj, he's always
Speaker 4: appeared to believe one hundred percent in the Portopians and
Speaker 4: their whole vision for the island, and this is the
Speaker 4: first time that we see that his feelings are maybe
Speaker 4: more complicated than that. In the year since we met Aj,
Speaker 4: it's pretty clear that the cryptocurrency paradise that Frock prophesied
Speaker 4: hasn't exactly come to pass.
Speaker 2: But is it all bs?
Speaker 4: We went back to Coin and Jena, Caribbean this year,
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen, after Bitcoin's value crashed.
Speaker 2: It's a completely different scene.
Speaker 4: Last time was a multi floored multimedia affair. This year,
Speaker 4: it feels like the entire conference could fit in an
Speaker 4: elementary School, Capeia. As soon as I walked in, I
Speaker 4: was greeted by someone selling crypto artwork.
Speaker 8: So this is crypto art, okay, so think of it
Speaker 8: as bitcoin or in physical form as artwork.
Speaker 2: It's kind of steampunky, a little magic to gather.
Speaker 4: There's these top hats, tribal tattoos, basically what you'd expect.
Speaker 2: Were you here when you hear last year? I was not,
Speaker 2: so I understand it was much bigger. I will thank
Speaker 2: you for your time, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Counting the art dealer, there's just half a dozen booths
Speaker 4: in the lobby. Brock isn't even here. But I did
Speaker 4: find one person worth talking to, Michael Turpin. He's the
Speaker 4: man in charge of coin agenda. We went to him
Speaker 4: wondering why didn't anyone see this, this crypto crash, Why
Speaker 4: didn't anyone see this coming?
Speaker 14: Why do people not recognize when they're in the middle
Speaker 14: of the bubble because they're high, they're on the drug
Speaker 14: of the bubble.
Speaker 4: That's not necessarily his opinion, It's something that Turpin heard
Speaker 4: someone say earlier at the event. But Michael Turpin is
Speaker 4: one of the most influential people in crypto. He throws
Speaker 4: these coin agendas, these crypto conferences all over the world.
Speaker 2: But we'll be back next year, and he says bitcoin
Speaker 2: will rise again.
Speaker 14: I expect that the price of bitcoin will probably be
Speaker 14: about double. Not financial advice, but I've been projecting. I
Speaker 14: projected in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: At the price of bitcoin, and Michael Turbin was right
Speaker 3: after we talked to him. The price of crypto shot
Speaker 3: back up again. But will it mean anything for Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3: Ever since Puerto Rico became a colonial possession of the
Speaker 3: United States, mainlanders have shown up to make their fortunes
Speaker 3: on the island. First there were the sugar barons, then
Speaker 3: the pharmaceutical industry, and most recently, hundreds of people from
Speaker 3: the hedge fund industry who arrived attracted by the island's
Speaker 3: tax loopholes, in some cases, the very same hedge funds
Speaker 3: that are eating off the island's dead crisis. Rock and
Speaker 3: the Portopians came to the island promising that they weren't
Speaker 3: like the others, that they were here to help, to invest,
Speaker 3: to change everything for the better, And so far there
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to be much proof that that's what's happening.
Speaker 4: It wouldn't be accurate to say that the Portopians Everything
Speaker 4: movement has contributed absolutely nothing to Puerto Rico. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: Coin Agendas organizers say they gave twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: to local charities. Rock Pierson himself has made a few
Speaker 4: public donations that we were able to track down about
Speaker 4: seventy thousand dollars worth in total. For context, that's less
Speaker 4: than he donated to Trump's reelection campaign and to the
Speaker 4: RNC this year. Rock does have a nonprofit called Integrow
Speaker 4: that helps channel other people's donations into various causes, and
Speaker 4: in interviews he said that his main contribution has been
Speaker 4: to encourage entrepreneurialism, but it's unclear what lasting impact he's
Speaker 4: actually brought to the island. Rock declined to be interviewed
Speaker 4: for this story or to answer any of our questions,
Speaker 4: including our questions about his contributions to Puerto Rico. Brock
Speaker 4: sold himself as a different kind of investor, but easy
Speaker 4: any different. When he was on stage at Coin Agendas
Speaker 4: selling the Everything movement one of the companies he co founded,
Speaker 4: Block One, they were partnering with some of the very
Speaker 4: same hedge funders who owned Puerto Rico's debt.
Speaker 3: And as we're creating jobs. According to recent government data,
Speaker 3: for each of the twenty two hundred people who moved
Speaker 3: to the island to avoid taxes since twenty fifteen, just
Speaker 3: about two jobs were created. But AJ thinks that by
Speaker 3: promoting Puerto Rico as a crypto and tech hub, more
Speaker 3: jobs and investment will come. Despite all the missteps, the
Speaker 3: colonial posturing, the grandiose promises to change everything. He's still
Speaker 3: betting on Brock and the Portopians.
Speaker 7: My grandfather, for example, is constantly like reminding me that
Speaker 7: all the Americans have done, this goes over. I don't
Speaker 7: know if I should say that, but then I keep
Speaker 7: telling him no, I mean, this is an opportunity.
Speaker 3: I mean it's an opportunity for himself and for Puerto Rico.
Speaker 7: As I'm saying, I'm also convincing myself because I have
Speaker 7: some hope in humanity and I really think that if
Speaker 7: the right people online, they can really make a difference.
Speaker 7: And I know it's really swimming against the current. I
Speaker 7: can make a difference on this island that I'm going
Speaker 7: to be able to see on my own lifetime.
Speaker 4: He still believes, even though some days it's hard for
Speaker 4: Agent and keep the Faith.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Michael O'Brien and Juaquine Cottler.
Speaker 1: It was edited by Marlon Bishop, who is mixed b
Speaker 1: Dephnely Leveau. Fact checking this week by Amy Tardif. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Andrew Mergalvovasquez and Nico Rouge. The Latino USA
Speaker 1: team includes Andrea Lopes, Russado, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Victoria
Speaker 1: Strada and Prinaldo Leanos Junior, with help from Dori mar Marquez.
Speaker 1: Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso, Additional engineering support by
Speaker 1: Gabrielle Abias and jj Carubin. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna.
Speaker 1: Our theme music was composed by Segher Ruinos. I'm your
Speaker 1: host and executive producer Marie jo Josa. Join us again
Speaker 1: on our next episode and in the meantime look for
Speaker 1: us on social media. I'll see you there and remember
Speaker 1: matebayas bye.
Speaker 13: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising
Speaker 13: Simons Foundation, unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation
Speaker 13: dot org, The Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the
Speaker 13: front lines of social change worldwide, and the John D
Speaker 13: and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,