The controversy round QvaPay is simply beginning. On the one hand, the app is an answer for Cubans overseas to ship cash to their family members on the island. On the opposite, it’s accused of being a surveillance device for the Cuban Authorities. Let’s begin from the start, although. Final week, an article in Coindesk made the rounds inside bitcoin circles.
Crypto, is the one choice for Cuban entrepreneurs to globally turn out to be aggressive. https://t.co/Aq262OrxFD
— Erich 🇨🇺⚡ (@ErichGarciaCruz) March 9, 2022
Who’s QvaPay’s CEO, Erich Garcia Cruz?
Within the article “You Would Perceive Bitcoin if You Had been Beneath Cuba’s Embargo“, QvaPay’s CEO Erich Garcia Cruz sang crypto’s praises. In it, he states that bitcoin fixes Cuba’s embargo drawback. He additionally touts his personal horn, speaks on the issues QvaPay solves and predicts Cuba’s hyperbitcoinization. He additionally says:
“Earlier than crypto, no device had been as efficient in breaking via an embargo that predates the web itself.
Cubans might not have Visa or Mastercard, however they’ve PayWithMoon, which permits us to fund a pay as you go digital card with bitcoin (BTC). They will’t use banks, however present in bitcoin a public peer-to-peer financial institution. They aren’t accepted by Stripe, the ever-present web fee community, however could make transfers in seconds via Bitcoin’s Lightning Community.”
Talking in regards to the Lightning Community, the November 2021 edition of Bitcoinist’s “Latin America, Tipping Point“ incorporates a video of Erich Garcia Cruz utilizing it to pay at a restaurant in La Habana. QvaPay’s CEO can be a speaker at the Bitcoin 2022 Conference in Miami.
About his firm, QvaPay defines itself as:
“Your dollar-based digital account.
With QvaPay you may create your on-line account in digital {dollars} and begin buying and selling worldwide.
An internet fee gateway in your private transactions or for the funds of your digital and bodily enterprise.”
Nonetheless, is QvaPay as harmless because it appears?
Martha Bueno Accuses QvaPay
Within the following video, Candidate for Commissioner Miami-Dade District 10 Martha Bueno lays it down. She describes him as “a member of the Cuban Regime,” and protests his visitor talking position within the Bitcoin 2022 convention in Miami. In response to Bueno, the town host “the most important group of Cuban refugees on this planet” and receiving Erich Garcia Cruz could be “disrespectful.”
QvaPay is an software to ship remittances to Cuba, however it’s truly very harmful for Cubans!
As a substitute of receiving #Bitcoin, Cubans will obtain nugatory MLC, or a “Chuck E Cheese” coin, and will resist 10 years in jail! Beware! pic.twitter.com/Nm4ItQj7eO
— Martha Bueno (@BuenoForMiami) March 14, 2022
Then, Martha Bueno goes into QvaPay, paraphrasing what she says within the tweet, “QvaPay is an software to ship remittances to Cuba, however it’s truly very harmful for Cubans! As a substitute of receiving Bitcoin, Cubans will obtain nugatory MLC, or a “Chuck E Cheese” coin, and will resist 10 years in jail! Beware!”
After that, she denounces QvaPay as a method for the Authorities to pay tabs on Cubans who obtain cash from overseas. And qualifies the app as simply one other device within the Authorities’s “arsenal of oppression.” Her name to motion is to ask the Bitcoin 2022 convention to rescind Erich Garcia Cruz’s invitation.
Is Martha Bueno on to one thing? Or is she exaggerating? Let’s study her receipts. However first, what’s she referring to with “nugatory MLC”? In response to Cuban Adventures:
“MLC is a time period chances are you’ll hear fairly continuously, it stands for Moneda Libremente Convertible, or Freely Convertible Cash, which implies international foreign money. Though MLC may be EUR, USD, GBP, and many others, it’s handled as if it’s a foreign money itself.”
So, in keeping with Bueno, fiat currencies are “Chuck E Cheese” cash.”
BTC worth chart for 03/16/2022 on FTX | Supply: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Martha Bueno’s Receipts
As exhibit A, Bueno reveals screenshots of QvaPay’s CEO bragging about having a consumer’s “IP and cookies” and says: “Erich Jose Garcia Cruz tells the world that QvaPay isn’t “nameless”. They preserve IPs and cookies. Due to the character of the dictatorial regime in Cuba, this might imply jail time for the people who use QvaPay.”
Erich Jose Garcia Cruz tells the world that QvaPay isn’t “nameless” – they preserve IP’s and cookies.
Due to the character of the dictatorial regime in Cuba, this might imply jail time for the people who use QvaPay. #Cuba #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/FP1Mv57mMs
— Martha Bueno (@BuenoForMiami) March 13, 2022
Within the earlier video, Bueno stated that the jail time may very well be as much as 10 years. Is she exaggerating? In response to Diario de Cuba:
“Article 143 of the preliminary draft of the brand new Penal Code, which the Supreme Folks’s Court docket printed on its web site, establishes that: “Whoever, by himself or on behalf of non-governmental organizations, worldwide establishments, associative kinds or any individual pure or authorized entity of the nation or of a international State, helps, encourages, funds, gives, receives or has in its possession funds, materials or monetary sources, with the aim of defraying actions in opposition to the State and its constitutional order, incurs a sanction of deprivation of freedom from 4 to 10 years.”
So, yeah. Political dissidents, activists, and journalists is likely to be in hassle in the event that they use QvaPay as a remittance service. Bueno additionally translated a tweet that seems to identify Erich Garcia Cruz as “an advisor to the MININT.”
What’s going to occur with this story? Will the Bitcoin 2022 Convention rescind the invitation, double down on their determination or simply ignore the accusations? Ignoring the accusations, that’s been QvaPay’s CEO technique to date.
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