Making Bitcoin legal tender in Mexico will be ‘an uphill battle,’ says Ricardo Salinas

During the Bitcoin 2022 Conference in Miami, Florida, Cointelegraph caught up with Ricardo Salinas, the founder and chairman at Grupo Salinas, in an exclusive sit-down interview. As an early Bitcoin (BTC) adopter — since its $200 days — Salinas has experienced first-hand the highs and lows of the market and learned a thing or two along the way.

Salinas started off the day as a panelist on the main stage of the Miami Beach Convention Center among fellow billionaires Orlando Bravo, Marcelo Claure and Dan Tapiero. In a discussion titled “Bitcoin Billionaire Capital Allocators,” Salinas disclosed that 60% of his portfolio is in Bitcoin, while the other 40% is a mix of oil and gas investments.

That same day on April 7, fellow conference attendee Mexican senator Indira Kempis announced that she proposed legislation to make Bitcoin legal tender in Mexico. Mexico would follow El Salvador, Roatán, Honduras, Madeira and Portugal, if it does go through with the legislation. When asked what he thought about this, Salinas said it’s “going to be an uphill battle” to make this happen because his country “unfortunately” has a mindset that is too attached to its control over fiat, or what he calls “fiat fraud.”

“The powers at the central bank and ministry of finance hate Bitcoin because of the freedom it represents and it’s a direct threat to their monopoly money.”

As the founder of the Mexican bank Banco Azteca, Salinas admitted he’s part of a problematic system and revealed that he’d love for his bank to have access to bitcoin payments, deposits and lending. In the meantime, however, as the owner of the Elektra Group supermarket chain, he is currently working on enabling the retailers to accept Bitcoin payments for all items.

Related: Lightning to strike Shopify merchants with addition of BTC payments

While sitting with Cointelegraph, he said that Bitcoiners remain 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 no matter an investor’s age, the most important quality any investor can have is curiosity and the mental openness to continually learn.