Both the book and the film Fight Club are works that I return to whenever I’m bored—to laugh, to notice new details, and to relearn what I once thought I understood. There’s a scene (no spoilers) where Tyler Durden says, “The things you own end up owning you.” You can take it as a catchy line in a brilliant book—or as a warning about the system we live in, a system that turns your right to use what’s yours into a bureaucratic ritual of permission.
On November 11, we held a talk about the importance of peer-to-peer. As a Paraguayan, I get it. Without needing statistics, evidence, or even a hint of doubt, I know that peer-to-peer trading makes up more than 90% of all crypto transactions in Paraguay today.
A peer-to-peer system is when you buy from another person—whatever amount, whenever, however—based on mutual terms, on a platform that couldn’t care less about your identity. The main incentive isn’t profit; it’s autonomy. There’s no “approval process,” no bureaucracy. It’s the philosophy of trade as it always should have been: the individual as part of the community—the smallest unit of economic sovereignty.
And yes, you can still buy from an exchange. The irony is that, to “protect” you, the Know Your Customer (KYC) system treats you as guilty before the transaction even begins—a wall built from bricks of suspicion. That unnecessary filter destroys the very soul of exchange: reciprocity.
My reality, as a Paraguayan consumer, is this: banks don’t want to modernize or integrate crypto-related activity. The irony is that Paraguay’s Central Bank has already brushed up against the topic through legislative updates I mentioned in another issue, as well as the Binding Consultation 582 from the Tax Authority, which allows for proper invoicing if crypto is exchanged and one wants to generate an accounting event, as accountants would say. But now it’s the banks, hiding behind “internal policies,” who are hunting down anyone who uses crypto—even though, behind closed doors, they themselves admit to using Bitcoin, USDT, and others.
I won’t even mention the Central Bank itself. Its members—from top leadership to mid-level staff—have attended our meetups and, of course, asked for discretion, which we gladly granted.
“It’s not that we don’t want to regulate, Nelson,” a senior official told me. “It’s just that the Central Bank doesn’t care right now; there are other priorities. Some of us use USDT and like it, but it’s not a priority.”
“Of course we move USDT every day,” a top executive from one of Paraguay’s five biggest banks told me. “Our clients use it to move money—millions at times—and we pay less than one dollar to move it all. Of course we want to adopt it, but there’s no consensus among the board. We’ll have to wait.”
So, what’s left for us?
Vexlear en cuevas.
Let me explain.
During communism in Eastern Europe, when the State owned the economy, Vexl was the only way to get scarce goods. Vexlers weren’t criminals—they were people in the streets and basements who built a parallel economy outside the dead weight of bureaucracy. And it worked perfectly.
It wasn’t just a European phenomenon. In Argentina, cuevas (underground exchange houses) emerged as a direct consequence of government intervention. Inside the cuevas, people negotiated rates based on real-life conditions—not the distorted view of the Central Bank. It was (and still is) the pressure valve that kept Argentina’s middle-class economy alive.
Both phenomena—separated by time and geography—prove one simple truth: the economy doesn’t need permission, it needs incentives. When value and will meet, exchange happens.
That’s why peer-to-peer is the purest form of social trust, where responsibility becomes your ally. KYC calls this practice a “risk,” when what it really means is maturity. It’s ironic—they say they want to protect you… from yourself. Because when you hand over your identity, you’re mortgaging your own freedom. And even after giving them everything, you’re still treated as guilty.
That’s why we choose peer-to-peer.
We’re not trying to evade anything—evading implies clear rules. We simply choose to stand at the margins because the banks themselves have pushed us there. We’re continuing the natural evolution of the primitive Vexl, but now it’s open-source, transparent, and available to both our friends and our enemies.
I’m not saying you should start a Fight Club, but the essence is similar: an underground network that doesn’t seek control or permission—it seeks meaning.
That’s our philosophical response to the bureaucratic slavery of the 21st century.
The best part? You’re not forced to use peer-to-peer. You can still buy however you want. Sovereignty is optional.
So, be happy.
Buy satoshis. Support peer-to-peer in your community.