Pro-crypto Mexican billionaire, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, is looking to launch the first Bitcoin-accepting bank in Mexico. Salinas unveiled this bullish news through a tweet on June 27, noting that he hopes to achieve this feat by integrating BTC services into Banco Azteca, a leading Mexican bank, which he founded 19 years ago. Salinas shared these details while responding to a tweet in which MicroStrategy CEO, Michael Saylor, tagged him.
The tweet contained a video in which Salinas said he had invested a lot of time in studying BTC and that he thinks it’s an asset that every investor should have in their portfolio. He went on to tout the flagship cryptocurrency, saying it has international value due to its capped supply. According to Salinas, fiat currencies are fraudulent.
Explaining why he believes fiats are fraudulent, he took a journey back to 1981 when he started his career, pointing out that at the time, one dollar was equal to 20 Mexican pesos. However, due to increasing inflation over the decades, the same dollar is equivalent to 20,000 pesos.
Helping Mexicans hedge their wealth against inflation
While he only highlighted Mexico’s current situation, Salinas said countries like Venezuela, Argentina, and Zimbabwe had tougher luck. He added that the fiat system’s fraudulence is also evident in the US, where monetary emission just shot up, rendering the dollar’s use as hard cash a joke. When given a choice between investing in fiat currencies, silver and gold over the next 30 years, Salinas said he would take Bitcoin (BTC/USD).
Should Salinas see these plans through, Banco Azteca will join an expanding list of banks that accept crypto across the globe. Reportedly, Banco Azteca has more than 16 million savings accounts and 19 million credit accounts. The bank also had a presence in El Salvador, which recently declared BTC legal tender until 2019. By accepting BTC, the bank is set to help Mexicans hedge their wealth against the rising inflation in the country.
This news comes after Salinas, who is currently the third-richest man in Mexico, invested 10% of his liquid portfolio in BTC in November last year. At the moment, he is worth $12.9 billion.
Source: invezz.com
