Is Mexico the next big step for Bitcoin adoption? Real-life impressions and usage statistics.

Thank you for the support. I’m really bullish on Bitcoin but I’m also really bullish on Mexico. I’m from Canadian origins but I have lived in Mexico for the last two years. I’ve always been a bitcoin creator, organizing meetups back in Montreal. When I came to Mexico, I saw there is a need of propagating the Bitcoin word. So I started creating meetups and trying to meet communities. So this presentation is basically the last two years what we have been doing in Mexico and also comparing it with statistics from Bitrefill to see what is happening on the ground – is it reflected also in the usage of bitcoin? So yeah that’s it.

So something I really like, people are mentioning Paco a lot. I met Paco last year at the conference and we became great friends, even if he didn’t remember me. When I saw he was coming to Mexico, I think it was his 32nd country, so I told him “hey let’s organize like a Mexican Paco Tour of Bitcoin meetups across Mexico”, and we managed to do like seven in seven different cities. So we had an amazing time and we had the occasion to meet a lot of bitcoiners living there.

The first Meetup was in San Miguel de Allende. I also have a great friend Andrew Howard living there and we’re almost neighbors now. This meetup was really expats-focused, so it was mostly older people. There are a lot of Americans living in San Miguel. It’s a beautiful town, if you have the occasion to visit I highly recommend it. It was mostly wealthy people, Americans looking to invest into hard money; less transacting with it. The organizers are here, so whenever you’re in town and you want to attend a Bitcoin meetup in Mexico you’re free to contact them.

Also in San Miguel there is a company called Bitcoin Hubs. They have been distributing payment things so you can pay with Bitcoin at different businesses – so you have a bunch of different restaurants, touring services, and a lot doing this effort right now. So I wouldn’t call this a Bitcoin circular economy, I would call it more Bitcoin tourism, but it’s still something that’s being done in Mexico right now at the moment.

The second meetup we did in Querétaro. That was the smallest one unfortunately because it started raining and Mexicans are scared of the rain a lot. So it was small but then it was a mix of expats and also Mexicans so it was nice to see. The organizers are me, Gustavo, and Tristan, my great friends that have also been working together for a long time. Normally there’s more people at the meetup than this time but it was still cool.

Third one in Mexico City, obviously the biggest of them all there was maybe 50-60 people. That’s I think the most representative for Bitcoin adoption and development in Mexico because you have a mix of young professionals, expats, and basically all the biggest companies are based in Mexico that are working in the Bitcoin space. So if there’s a place that you need to be in Mexico for Bitcoin adoption I think Mexico City is one of the greatest cities out there and also shout out to the organizers.

Puebla – that was a more maxi-focused, middle-aged professional family people, so not really developers or this kind of person but still a great Meetup.

Guadalajara – that was really surprising but it was mostly Mexican developers because the meetup has been tied with the tech community there. So I think that’s also a really good city especially on the tech side. There were around 40 people. That was a good meetup as well. I see Rigel in the crowd, you can see him flexing his big arms.

Puerto Vallarta – that was only Canadian refugees like me or almost. Maybe one Mexican. So a lot of people looking at bitcoin as freedom money. So that was a completely different crowd but also people focused on freedom, and you know how to effectively live your life in Mexico as an expat, and somebody that moved their family and this kind of stuff.

Another shout out – it wasn’t part of the official Mexican tour, but everything started happening at the same time in Mexico magically. So there is a growing initiative for a Bitcoin Circular Economy. The first one in Mexico, in Yucatán, in Mérida, also tied with Sisal which is like a magical town in Mexico, and they’re also here in the crowd and they’re going to do an announcement tomorrow. Shout out to them, they’re doing great things so I think that’s a really promising project. They’re also looking for sponsorship and this kind of stuff.

We also did the first Bitcoin Mexican conference. It was organized by Yopaki, an emerging Bitcoin only startup in Mexico that will also have a really nice announcement tomorrow so make sure to not miss that. I know the surprise but you should come, I think it’s going to be great. We projected the Bitcoin logo on the Mexican Central Bank and we almost got caught by the police! I’m not taking  credit for that, the Yopaki team did it all. But if you want to do this somewhere else in the world make sure to have the projector in your car so when the police show up you can flee away from the scene and play dumb… so that’s a really good trick.

Conclusions from the Paco Tour: there is always a maxi somewhere close to you. So make sure to be loud on social media – you’re going to make great friends. I live in Querétaro, which might not be a popular city, but we now do this Bitcoin barbecue every two weeks because magically there’s like five, six bitcoiners living close by. So if you’re looking for a community, just try to find them, and bitcoiners have a tendency to gather together.

So there’s a lot of initiatives, but what are the numbers showing? So I will show some metrics from Bitrefill of the Bitcoin usage, well, the app usage in Mexico. So obviously this is only one app, so it doesn’t show the whole reality of Bitcoin usage, but this can give a perspective.

Why I think this is important is because people talking about hodling, they like to go to conferences, to Bitcoin conferences and have fun together, but obviously I think usage is mostly measured by spending. So are people really spending their bitcoin? Be honest – from you, who is spending bitcoin on a regular basis? Okay, that’s not bad. I’m proud of you.

So for those who don’t know, Bitrefill is basically a global app on which you can buy different gift cards, pay bills, for example in El Salvador buy eSIMs, so you can basically live your life using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. So I know that a lot of people use it here and usually people love the service. For those who don’t know it, I invite you to try it, and I’m also giving out some free sats to try in exchange for a little interview. So you can come to me and I’ll be happy to send you some sats on Bitrefill.

So the title of my talk is: is Mexico the next big step for Bitcoin adoption in Latin America? Obviously El Salvador was the first step and it has been doing great. In September, 85% of the transactions that happened on Bitrefill were done with Lightning Network, which is the most advanced by far from any other country so that’s really, really impressive considering that we also accept other stable coins and some cryptos. I know some of you don’t like it but it’s the reality.

So volume-wise it’s a bit different. I showed the transaction count, but for the volume it’s a bit similar but it’s also even lower in terms of the volume. So people that are bitcoiners spending bitcoin are doing smaller transactions on average in Mexico than other altcoins or stablecoins.

So why is it the case? So basically I think Mexico is on a really good economic path, so perhaps people don’t really see the need of using Bitcoin right now. And that’s fine, but everything can change in a moment especially in Latin America. The peso has hyperinflation two or three times already. So  even if the peso is really strong right now and people have no inflation problem, it can change. So basically right now Mexicans don’t really need an inflation hedge.

So what are the other opportunities? Perhaps remittances, right? A lot of other companies like Bitso, other exchanges have been working on trying to integrate using bitcoin and obviously other cryptos for remittances because it’s the second biggest market in the world after India I believe. So most, like 50 billion and more, are going between the US to Mexico every year and it’s growing because in the US there are like 35 million Mexicans living there. Personally, that’s my theory.

I think that the biggest driver for Bitcoin adoption in Mexico will be people like me, like my friends, that are living in Mexico. People that care about freedom, that use Bitcoin in their everyday life, that may even earn bitcoin. You can see like the hype of people moving to Mexico. There’s a record number of people getting their residency permits, citizenships, going out with Mexican people getting married, it’s a real thing. So I invite everybody that never visited Mexico to visit because it’s an awesome country and I believe it will continue to grow.

So conclusions: right now Mexico is less of a Bitcoin country than the rest of the world if you compare it to Bitrefill, with the Bitrefill statistics. With all the initiatives I showed we’re basically everywhere, we’re like a small family right now. We try to help each other all the time. So I believe it will be a slow process but eventually it will get there. And obviously the data I showed is still really small so Mexico is not the biggest volume compared to others, like the United States or Europe, so we cannot draw all the conclusions from that. I’m also the Bitrefill Ambassador in Mexico so I’m trying to expand the offerings of gift cards and make the options more wide so people can really live with Bitcoin for everything. So we’re getting there.

I also wanted to bring this idea that Bitcoin is also just a tool. Obviously all of the initiatives might show us that, okay, Bitcoin is really big in Mexico, there’s a lot of stuff happening. But the data shows something else right. So apart from the ideology, we also need to understand that Bitcoin is only a tool for most of the people that will use it in the future. So my CEO Sergey, my boss, is often saying: everybody uses a car (or almost everybody), but who is going to a car conference? Like they exist but you’re probably not a big enough car fan that you’re going to go to car meetups and posting car memes and stuff like that. It’s the same for Bitcoin: we’re here as the ideologists, but Bitcoin will also be used as a tool. So yeah use it as a tool, use Bitrefill.

You can follow me on X and if you ever want to do something in Mexico I can put you in touch with people. Let’s make Mexico big and Bitcoin as well so thank you. Don’t forget the free sats, I have free sats!