my name is Mariana Conte work at the
make your foundation and this is living
on defy how I survived Argentina's 50%
inflation of course that's the title
that I came up with around two months
ago when I submitted this presentation
four months ago when I was just
outlining what I was gonna say this was
the title how to survive Argentina's 40%
inflation and if we jump to today's
sadly the actual talk is called how
survive Argentina's fifty five percent
inflation and let me tell you we still
have three more months in the year so I
don't know what we're gonna end up but
anyway how do I survive Argentina's
inflation but you probably know I'm not
gonna give you three guesses the answer
is very very simple
I get paid and die that's it
it's I get paid in a stable
cryptocurrency that is pegged to the
u.s. dollar which is the dollar is
something that Argentinians value very
very much even though some people in the
US might say it is inflationary in its
own sense it has its own problems
for somebody in Argentina let me tell
you those problems are absolutely
nothing but let me take a step back this
is the quick agenda for today I'm gonna
do a recap of Argentina's economy this
past few years it's not gonna be any
charts or lots of numbers just gonna
tell you a story the rest of crypto in
Argentina my personal story and one defy
can do today for us and for you if you
manage to catch room stock here stock is
a lot about the future mine is about the
actual present and here's one thing
everything I'm gonna say it's totally
the truth at least in my perspective
there is gonna be one lie and I don't
want to call it a lie let's call it a
twist I'm gonna leave
for the end so let's go Argentina late
2011 I was living in Mexico till 2010
really nice economy doesn't feel like it
but let me tell you once I got into
Argentina things were starting to get
really bad
we had capital controls it was really
hard to get access to USD there began a
secondary black market the government
said that the USD was worth X and the
black market said it was worth Y and if
you worked for an outside company the
government would try to take your
dollars and buy them at the official
rate which was really low and people
started finding lots of different ways
to get access to dollars I'm not gonna
go over all of them but let me tell you
Argentinians are really really
resourceful when it comes to acquiring
dollars and other currencies that are
much much better than the original tempo
so there was some memories of 2001 the
Carlito which was when the government
just decided to freeze all of our bank
accounts and just let us take a little
bit of money out every month they
actually pacified every single US dollar
bank account and then they forests
deflated the value of the peso so was a
complete disaster and around 2011-2012
you know Argentina has a culture of
working that freelancers working for
outside companies we have really good
tech knowledge I see a lot of you here
and some of them and some of us that are
figuring out how can we get paid and of
course the answer was Bitcoin we started
a lot of us can intern in Bitcoin in
those early days and it worked really
well for people who got in around that
time 2012 2013 2014 but and I was
talking to some friends we all remember
those who got in early but not the
people who got paid in Bitcoin in 2018
maybe when if they couldn't
actually trade it back to pesos in a
couple of days they would get maybe
their salary reduced by 20% or something
so what it gave us early on patron was
protection from the system access to an
economy that was somewhat unavailable
for a lot of people but it had
volatility of course so let me say more
or less what how we are right now in
Argentina
capital controls are returning sadly
there's gonna be an election soon and
the markets have more or less spoken
that things may turn bad so the
government is already coding caps and
how much USD we can buy and since
everything depends on the US dollar in
Argentina things are starting to look a
little bit rough
just last month central bank published a
list of names with the equivalent of
Social Security numbers on an official
bulletin with the names in those numbers
of people who have bought more than 10k
USD essentially daxing them to the to
the whole country and another thing that
they're doing if you work for an outside
company and you invoice in USD when you
get that money into the interior bank
account you have to liquidate it into
pesos within five days and most of the
people what they do they buy back US
dollars once again they lose like seven
percent spread so it is starting to get
bad but this time we've seen this before
we've always seen this prices before but
I believe that there we are prepared to
do something about this
and the answer for me at least and for
the people I'm trying to get into this
died because died for us the people who
are living in this kind of countries and
economies die is better money it has all
the advantages of a cryptocurrency but
pegged to a currency that is really
really valuable to us and
that has implications and good
properties that our local currencies at
least now don't have and may never have
so let's get a little bit into my crypt
of story like he was said I've been
living off a crypto for five years I
started in late 2014 getting paid in
Bitcoin to escape capital controls as
I've said and then I found a theorem in
2015 and went more or less all in and
2016 decided I want to work at the best
project that there is some aetherium and
luckily found maker where I've been
working for over three years but one of
the happiest days of my life was when we
deployed the alpha version of single
collateral die called sigh and a couple
of weeks after that I got my first
paycheck
a hundred percent inside that was really
amazing day and just a few months later
when we released the die that you guys
know and use every day now the next
month my paycheck came in a hundred
percent died and it's been that way ever
since and this is also true I was
thinking about it and I've never bought
crypto with fear in my entire life ever
every single token that I have bit I'm
not gonna call them let's say every
single token that I have I've earned
that via my work and this is something
that I'm actually really really proud of
so let's get even more personal so what
I do with my paycheck there's two worlds
there's the fiat world and the crypto
world we cannot yet go into a store and
purchase everything we die or we lease
or we'd be a pony we're not there yet
but what we can do is I offer amp once a
month in two pesos just the bare minimum
to pay rent to pay groceries they use
one credit card I pay off my credit card
to the full amount and I stay as close
to zero as I can it's like Arjun
timepieces talks it to me so I try to
avoid it and then the encrypt the world
what everybody does I buy some Eve I
loaned I into markets like compound
dy/dx Newell I buy token sets Dharma and
then I'm earning interest in a stable
currency and I acknowledged that there's
risks there's platform risks there's
smart contract risks but let me tell you
if you have pesos in an Argentinean bank
account the risks are nonzero and
they're actually very much I would say
in the mid 20s 30s 50s
the risks are there so I would much
rather trust you guys with my dive and
the Argentine government and another
thing that's happening this is getting
more common every day I'm sure that
there's a lot of you that get paid and
die your salaries maybe it's in full
maybe it's some amount but I've been
talking to so many of you and people get
paid and die and you use that die to put
into things like compound earning
interest and for the ones that actually
live in countries like Argentina
Venezuela you're escaping volatility
inflation you're escaping control of
like a crappy government and
the economy so this is not only happened
in Argentina it's happening in so many
places and what I always say it's like
if you want to see what krypter can do
today look south look to the emergent
economies people like me everybody has
stories like this and talk to these
people and learn from them and try to
build for this kind of people too and
this is something that we're doing at
the Maker Foundation working with local
companies from a lot of the Latin
American countries that I mentioned also
Mexico Brazil helping exchanges and on
and off ramps and maybe creating
point-of-sales
or working with Thai wallets and the
most important thing of all educating
people educating people which is key I
say we this is personal
I want people earning and saving and die
I try to get as many people into this as
I possibly can and okay we come to a
twist right it's not a very big choice
but I like it nonetheless I've mentioned
all of what I do the earning and I
getting things into compound like having
a normal there's a lot of people in
Argentina that I know that do this but I
go one step further right this I'm not a
normal person who works for an outside
company and gets paid like I'm up here
talking to you at Def Con
I work in the etherium ecosystem with
all of you that I can help make this
place better and this ecosystem better
so what do I do I turn everything I get
into either
because I believe in this and when I see
all of you I think that this is the
right thing to do
I am a maximalist and even though it
would be better to just maybe keep
everything in die this is not what I'm
gonna do I'm up here I'm making this
world better and I turn everything into
e like I told him I asked a friend of
mine so what's your trading strategy and
what he said is I try to buy a little
bit every day so that's exactly what I
do I try to buy a little bit every day
because of all of you you know
the core devs the EIP writers I went to
so many talks today teams working on a
theory and phase zero one two all the
community the people who tweet if this
money over and over and over even you
guys I love you it is because of you and
that's what I'm gonna keep doing and
just remember a strong eath makes for a
stronger die die is a stabilized version
of ether so everything that we're doing
I think is encouraging the dial system
and that's going to make at least the
people in my country I'm trying to get
out of the crappy economic system that
they're in we're helping to make it
better and now I would like all the
Argentinians here which I know pretty
much every one of you to just like stand
up I want to see all of you because most
of you and you see that there's a lot
most of them
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most of them have stories very similar
to mine and I want everybody who didn't
get up to just look at them and I'm
taking Argentina because it's what I
know but I know that there's probably a
lot of you from other places that face
there's equal problems but look at the
people who stood up and talked to them
it's like what I've said today this is
an anecdote but enough anecdotes and it
starts to resemble something of kind of
like data then that's the way I see it
so we're all trying to get DEFCON 20 20
bonus itís because I think it's the
right place to be there because you all
know that what I'm talking about is what
we leave every day and just like do
everything I'm saying that sweet DEFCON
be a 2020 and thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
we actually have like five minutes for
questions and this is the last talk of
the day so if anybody wants to get up
and ask a question you're free to do so
otherwise yeah I see a couple of hands
please to the microphone we do have some
more t-shirts and we have the yep look
for us after every time you said your
friend I see is your friend does that
that's your friend exist at all this
friend is an amalgamation of a lot of
people including a lot of the people who
stood up yeah okay sorry for this but
how do you pay taxes yeah and this was
this was in one of my slides and I
decided to take it out I do pay taxes I
decided not to put him in because
talking to people from so many different
countries tax laws are so different that
I would end up spending most of the time
discussing tax strategies I pay my taxes
yeah but I might do better in another
country it's like if you want to know
what I do for taxes like come to me
after and all that I mean I've said
almost everything I'll be happy to tell
you the rest that since everybody's
coming from different countries I don't
want to assume anything anybody else
we're good
hey thanks very inspiring by the way as
someone who also gets paid in crypto I
wanted to ask a question what were some
of the largest challenges you had to
overcome in the last few years you know
leaving the traditional finances behind
so first it was just basically off
ramping the fees were way too high they
still are sometimes so for me sometimes
it's even easier maybe I can change died
to pesos or maybe I can get dying to
ether in two dollars and $10 in two
pesos it's like there are many different
ways to and since the economy changes
everyday there may be a good or better
way to do it differently and then just
another was I started using only cash
and that didn't really work for my like
credit history so I did have to go back
a little into the system via credit card
just the fact that I thought that I
could be using crypto every single day
and that is not the case but I used it
once a month at least to offer him and
that is enough for me well and aside the
little bit that I buy every day
hey great talk you're putting yourself
out there it's basically explaining how
you're bending the rules against the
government aren't you afraid that there
might be some consequences to that like
that the government starts taking other
measures to find people like you I think
it is possible but I'm not trying to
make myself a martyr or anything it's
we've seen plenty of other people do
what I'm doing over the years
first with Bitcoin I'm doing this with
dye so I don't want to say that it's a
price I'm willing to pay but if we get
enough people outside the system then
maybe we can get the system to see that
there is something wrong and help it
change we have
with one minute I thank you very
touching talk thank you I'm traveling to
Argentina in December and what's the
best way to change dye or ether to low
local pesos I mean locally I'll give you
my Telegraph great so if there are any
more questions thank you so much for
staying I love you all
[Applause]
you