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 instrument 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 develop into 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 Underneath Cuba’s Embargo“, QvaPay’s CEO Erich Garcia Cruz sang crypto’s praises. In it, he states that bitcoin fixes Cuba’s embargo downside. He additionally touts his personal horn, speaks on the issues QvaPay solves and predicts Cuba’s hyperbitcoinization. He additionally says:
“Earlier than crypto, no instrument had been as efficient in breaking by 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 don’t seem to be accepted by Stripe, the ever-present web cost community, however could make transfers in seconds by Bitcoin’s Lightning Community.”
Talking concerning the Lightning Community, the November 2021 edition of Bitcoinist’s “Latin America, Tipping Point“ contains a video of Erich Garcia Cruz utilizing it to pay at a restaurant in La Habana. QvaPay’s CEO will likely 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.
A web based cost gateway to 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 Erich Garcia Cruz as “a member of the Cuban Regime,” and protests his visitor talking function within the Bitcoin 2022 convention in Miami. In response to Bueno, the town host “the biggest group of Cuban refugees on the earth” and receiving him could be “disrespectful.”
QvaPay is an software to ship remittances to Cuba, however it’s truly very harmful for Cubans!
As an alternative 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 an alternative 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 approach for the Authorities to pay tabs on Cubans who obtain cash from overseas. And qualifies the app as simply one other instrument 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 look at 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 often, it stands for Moneda Libremente Convertible, or Freely Convertible Cash, which suggests international foreign money. Though MLC might be EUR, USD, GBP, and so on, it’s handled as if it’s a foreign money itself.”
So, in response to 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 person’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 might 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 Individuals’s Court docket revealed on its web site, establishes that: “Whoever, by himself or on behalf of non-governmental organizations, worldwide establishments, associative varieties 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 towards 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 could 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 is 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 up to now.
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