Today we are going to touch on the subject of the Internet in Cuba and cryptocurrencies. Although Cuba was the first country in Latin America to have railroads and trains, as well as being the first country in Latin America to have television, it was probably the last country to have Internet. The first signs of connection were through a local network (intranet) that was managed by a group of engineers from the public health system and the domain is INFOMED, it still exists. Professional public health personnel and institutions had access to that domain, it also housed other institutions and the entire system was connected by email, that was around 2002 to 2003, although since 1996 there had already been some things done in this environment.

Cellular telephony belonged to a select class of wealthy people or foreigners. As a doctor, I had my first cell phone when I was in Venezuela. My brothers, who are taxi drivers, had cell phones since the first ones came out. SIM lines belonged to foreigners and were paid for in CUC. You know what CUC is. At that time, the caller and the receiver paid, incredible but true. The cost was around 1 dollar per minute and SMS messages were around 35 cents. People did not talk, they only rang each other. Here is the link to a video that exemplifies this issue very well. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0jXT6nrL9qg)

Then, steps began to be taken towards connectivity via Wi-Fi, then through mobile data, with prices that were adjusted, then the plans of the telephone company, the only telephone company, ETECSA (Empres de TElecomunicaciones de Cuba SA) (We are Trying to Establish Communication Without Haste). The last definition shows very well the work for connectivity from Cuba. But well, as we say in good Cuban, “a hair from the wolf.” We started to connect and the rates have gone down, but the dream of 24/7 connection is in the order of 25 dollars for 30 days or 15 dollars for 15 days, only paid from abroad, my salary is 30 dollars a month. But we are fighting.

Since internet connections are beginning to increase, and money is not enough, the search for money began. Cryptocurrencies arrived and the PONZZI SYSTEMS came first. I have seen that Latin America has suffered a lot with this issue. But here we had TRUSINVESTING, U91, ROIMAN (THIS ONE IS CUBAN MADE), always using the tron network, Cubans love this network, even with the fees and everything else going up, but they continue in the same line. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has not been liked here. Very technical, the characteristics of the wallets, here it is difficult for them to understand the need for self-custody, also when they see the price they do not understand that they do not have to buy 1 BTC, but that is changing. Bitcoiner communities are working on education, among them is Cuba_Bitcoin, a Bitcoin-only community with strong educational work, it has carried out 4 editions of the My First Salvadoran Bitcoin diploma with adaptations for Cuba, including a Nostr topic and one on Mostro, a P2P client for BTC without KYC in Nostr, in addition to using the lnp2pbot from telegram. More than 30 businesses that accept Bitcoin have already been included in BTCMap, but we are still far from achieving a circular economy as it should be. In one of the comments @DarthCoin suggested that I tell experiences of circular economy, unfortunately at least I do not have any, but I am sure that sooner rather than later we will have not one but many of these experiences. I have come to know of some who are self-employed and earning in BTC, we hope that over time the economy will close around Bitcoin. The government issued an official gazette, very superficial on the use of cryptoassets, but nothing concrete, we are not going to wait, now we educate, we include businesses in BTCMap and we continue taking steps.

I hope that this trip has helped you a little to learn about the economic history of Cuba, the Internet at large and cryptocurrencies. Thanks to SN and the community that has treated me so well. We will continue to answer any questions.