Bitcoin Meets Conscious Living in Costa Rica | Bitcoin 2026

What's up, y'all? Pura Vida. Pura Vida? Who here has been to Costa Rica? Yes. Who here has been to El Salvador? All right, about the same. Well, we are about to make the argument that Costa Rica is probably the best place to spend your Bitcoin in the world, and I will die on the hill that Costa Rica is worthy of all your Bitcoin to go live for the lifestyle that it allows us to live. So, we have Lee here who made it easy to um spend Bitcoin. He made the Bitcoin Jungle app down in Uvita, and it spread throughout the whole country. We have Sergio with Digiplot, who will tell us how to get Bitcoin into the country if you're talking about larger amounts, whale size. And we got Ben, who has something in his portfolio possibly more worthy than Bitcoin. So, he's going to explore that later on. But first of all, so I live completely on a Bitcoin standard down in Costa Rica, like zero fiat even to get gas and everything. And Lee here made that possible. So, how what's going on? What's unique about Costa Rica and and that that makes that possible? Thanks, Paul. So, yeah. Hey guys, my name is Lee. I'm one of the co-founders of Bitcoin Jungle, which is a circular economy project in Costa Rica. Uh we initially based it on the idea of El Zonte and Bitcoin Beach. I visited there in 2021. I loved the idea. I went back to my home in Costa Rica, and I really wanted I really started to think about how we could apply that to my town. So, uh we stood up some open-source technology, and we started the Bitcoin Jungle wallet. It's a lightning-capable wallet, easy to use just like the Bitcoin Beach or the Blink wallet. Um and we started orange-pilling uh merchants around our town. Initially, it started at our local farmers market and allowed us to to buy anything, all of our food uh with sats day-to-day day our lives. And then over time, uh we partnered with a company called Bull Bitcoin who linked Bitcoin through lightning to the local mobile money system of Costa Rica. Essentially, you can send if you have a bank account in Costa Rica, you can send fiat to just a phone number and the money arrives instantly at at that other person's account. The only issue is foreigners can't use that system. And so, it's really limiting for someone like me who moved to this country and I want to participate in the local economy. And so, we partnered with Bull Bitcoin and we enable you now to use your Bitcoin, but it gets delivered to any business in the country as fiat instantly for like less than 1% in fees. And this allows you to live 100% on a Bitcoin standard. So, if you go to a business, but they don't take Bitcoin quite yet, you can still pay them in Bitcoin and they get fiat. So, you know what's funny about this is before Francis came in with this whole Bull Bitcoin off-ramp, Lee used to walk around to the farmers market and cash people out. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. >> to be the one-man bank. Well, yeah, because for something to be considered sound money, it has to be exchangeable with other forms of money, right? And Costa Rica at that time just didn't have any exchange that was available to people. And so, I would go around orange pilling anyone who would listen to me and they would say, "Cool, can I pay my rent with it?" I'm like, "Well, I'm working on it. What's your landlord's phone number? We can we can talk about it." Uh but yeah, there had to be a better way. So, and then to put this into practice, this is the tool that makes it able if you want to just live off your Bitcoin, you sell it like at at the gas station, you just put in a phone number and you're getting gas with your Bitcoin master minnows. So, it's a really useful tool. And then with that, you know, buying gas Bitcoin off-ramp, this and that, it's always the question. So, what does the government think about all this? So, we got three gringos on stage and one Costa Rican. Sergio, what kind of like fill us in on why Costa Rica's bit- Bitcoin friend- friendly on like a government perspective? Um what do we want more of? What do we want less of? Kind of compare it to maybe El Salvador, maybe Dubai, and places around the world. Yeah, it's perfect. Well, a pleasure to be here. I'm Sergio. I'm one of the partners of Digiplat. I also lead a a family office communities. So, I'm always engaged with um high-net-worth individuals with Bitcoin, with traditional finance. You know, there are places like El Salvador, Dubai, Switzerland, Thailand that are doing a specific regulation for for crypto, grace period for taxations, everything. It's super interesting what they are doing. But, the interesting thing about Costa Rica is that, in my opinion, they implemented somehow the best a regulation model. And the best regulation model is no regulation. Why? Because the government hasn't seen a threat a or hasn't showed interest about Bitcoin or in general. So, we're running across the traditional and long-term um let's call it a model. For example, the taxation model. Costa Rica has a a local taxation model. So, everything every income that is generated outside of the country has no taxes. This is super important because we're not talking about a grace period. For example, like Thailand or Switzerland for Bitcoiners. No, in this case, you have Bitcoin, you use international or foreign exchanges, and when you bring somehow money, there's zero taxation with Bitcoin, with equities, securities, anything. So, that's really an interesting thing. Second thing regarding government is the political stability that we had over decades. For example, recently this year we had a presidential election and it doesn't matter which candidate you choose it wouldn't happen anything because that's what had been happening during the story of Costa Rica. In the case of El Salvador, for example, I'm a super fan of what Bukele is doing and it's amazing, but in some conversations people has been asking me, "Hey, it's great, but what happen is for some reason Bukele is not there any anymore. If the opposition come back, hopefully that doesn't happen, but hey, let's run that scenario. In the case of Costa Rica, for example, it doesn't it doesn't matter. The other example, and I have a lot of good friends, clients, and everything, is in Dubai. The the place that was designed probably for high net worth individuals, Bitcoins, spend your life, no taxation, everything, but what do happen? A war, everybody even bombs. Here no one would imagine that probably six months ago. And in Costa Rica, for those of you that doesn't know, we don't even have army. We This is why is, for example, the pura vida lifestyle. And hopefully not, but if there's a war or a global conflict nowhere will even look to Costa Rica. So, we are in an strategic position and that's something something amazing. So, what we are encouraging is, hey, we have the best regulation, there is no regulation, and this combined with lots of value-added factors that our country have, make it the best place to live on Bitcoins. So, another question I always get, and you always hear, can you buy a house with Bitcoin? Can you buy real estate with Bitcoin? Can you buy property with Bitcoin? Ben kind of helps guide people do that, and Sergio does as well. Can you maybe talk through that process and how that looks? Um yeah, sure. So, I mean, mostly Sorry, I'm Ben Ashara. I run the consulting company Secret Keys to help people relocate to Costa Rica, help people find the right properties, help people be in make informed decisions when they want to make the move. So, I've been in Costa Rica for 10 years. I've been through all of the processes of what it takes to be an expat, to move there. I've bought property, sold property, built houses, sold houses. I've had kids there. I've relocated my family there, the whole nine yards. So, I've been through every step of the way, and I was there before these guys arrived and brought this whole Bitcoin revolution. For me, it was just like the icing on the cake. It's like, oh wow, now finally I'm living my best life here in Costa Rica, and now I can live 100% on Bitcoin. It's amazing. Now, what the app can't do is what Sergio and his company can do, which is they can, you know, make large-scale transactions happen by off-ramping your your Bitcoin, acting as a escrow, basically, and, you know, finishing your property acquisition for you. And they can do it on a huge scale, which makes it possible to, you know, bypass the normal, like, strict escrow companies source of funds problems that we have when we're like doing things overseas. And I don't know, Sergio, tell us a a little bit more about like how that works and how you guys do that. Yes, and I would like to add something more. And I want to quote Michael Saylor's speech from yesterday that I don't know how many of you saw it, but if you didn't please go and look it. And to interrupt, you can't buy bananas with stretch or MicroStrategy. It continues. >> [laughter] >> Long story short, what he's saying is, "Hey, part of the volatility is because Bitcoin holders needs to buy a house, a pay college, buy a car, and they need to sell the Bitcoin. They need to break the Bitcoiner rule that is, "Hey, never sell your Bitcoin." In the case of MicroStrategy, what they are doing is giving every two every other week a yield, so you you're able to have liquidity and everything. Why I'm quoting that? Because the majority of the transaction we have been doing for the last months is with people respecting the first law of Bitcoiner, the first rule, "Never sell your Bitcoin." So, we are helping people to use their Bitcoin as a collateral, get liquidity against their Bitcoin, with that liquidity buy the asset, the $3 million house, $5 million house, the art, the yacht, the portfolio, because we have been working with people that wants to do a lot of things, but they keep their Bitcoin, and this is super important for two main reasons. Reason one, because there's no taxable event. They are not selling the asset. They are just getting debt against the asset. This is super super important. And reason number two, once the Bitcoin start the appreciation, for example, according to Michael Saylor presentation yesterday, over the last 5 years, the Bitcoin appreciation is 30% a year. So, we're talking round numbers, every 3 years you get what 100%. So, if you were able to buy with Bitcoin as a collateral a house, and you plan it long-term, in terms of dollars, that house will eventually be almost free, and you still have your Bitcoin. What we do is basically in summary, we understand the requirement of the of the client, usually whales that wants to live in a blue zone in Costa Rica, think about longevity. Uh there's one example, for example, one example is Jack Dorsey that is presenting today. He spent a lot of his time in in Santa Tere. Uh another guy I didn't knew, but the the CEO of BTC Media, he also lives in Costa Rica and spends a lot of time there. So, we're able to number one, do a a analysis to review the blockchain over the to review the Bitcoin over the blockchain just to make sure that the coins are are clean. We understand the transaction. We do a Bitcoin back loan. If for some reason they don't want to use it as collateral, we're able to off-ramp. We use regulated escrows, and we bring the funds to to Costa Rica and do the the payment locally or internationally. We have done real estate transactions from $200,000 up to 50 15 million dollars. So, there are multiple multiple ways to complement the amazing thing that that Li is doing more for the day-to-day and retail payments. Let's get back into that. Thank you, Sergio. Let's get back into that like day-to-day, boots on the ground, spreading Bitcoin to countries that weren't as fortunate to be born in the places like the states with our financial privilege here. What is the pitch? How do you get How do you start a circular economy? And Lee is humble, but Lee is this unique human that was able to do this. He has the technical ability to build an app, and he also speaks perfect Spanish, even though he looks like a pure gringo. And he also had a good relationship with people in the town for a while. So, there's a little bit of that. But, what is your pitch to a vendor, and how did this thing just start snowball? Yeah, so our pitch is a little bit different than what started at Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador. You know, El Salvador has the unbanked problem. 70% of El Salvadorans didn't have access to a bank account. A tool like Bitcoin would enable them to save their first $500, and that was the basis of the pitch at the beginnings of Bitcoin Beach. Costa Rica is a little bit different. Costa Ricans have access to bank accounts, actually dual Every bank in the country is a dual currency bank. They operate in dollars and the colon. And so, that wasn't an issue. But, the issue in Costa Rica is connecting foreigners, specifically tourists, with businesses. Historically, the only way to do that has been cash or credit card. And for a multitude of reasons, the barrier of entry to getting access to a credit card terminal for a Costa Rican is quite high. It can cost $5,000 a year just to get a credit card machine. And so, for a banana seller on the side of the road or where we got our raw dairy from every week on the side of the road, $5,000 is like way too high of a barrier to entry, leaving them only available to cash. And of course, going to an ATM in Central America is hit or miss. Sometimes, there's just no cash. >> I haven't been to an ATM in years. I'm not even kidding. It's amazing. >> yeah. Exactly. >> Thank you. >> And so, you're welcome. So, our pitch to small business owners in Costa Rica is that through Bitcoin it's connecting them to a market of of tourists and expats that visit and live in Costa Rica. A huge part of the Costa Rican economy is based in tourism, so this is really attractive to them. And of course we have our little merchant map and so it's free marketing, free publicity for them. And it turns out to be a pretty simple conversation. We actually start our conversations with people in Costa Rica about medium of exchange and not store of value. And so we kind of inverse what's really typical in North America. You go you want to talk to your family and friends about Bitcoin, you talk, you know, fixed supply, number go up, all that great stuff. But what really hits in Costa Rica is medium of exchange. And so we we start from that and then after they get some Bitcoin and they've seen it grow over time in their wallet, we start talking store of value and really what what I believe is the true value proposition of Bitcoin over the long term. Which is? Number go up. No. And? Freedom. Let's go. And to add to that too, we also have little co-work going on in Costa Rica, but I also wanted to mention we have an office now where people can come in and we teach about Bitcoin. Yeah, so having a real physical presence in the community is really integral to building trust around Bitcoin and around what what I do in Costa Rica. So we opened an office right in the middle of town. We have a giant Bitcoin Jungle sign. It's open to the public, completely free of charge. We give away free hardware wallets. Thank you Jack at BitKey. We train them how to use it. We talk about self custody. We offer the Mi Primer Bitcoin educational course in English and Spanish, which was pioneered in El Salvador and we've adopted that material. So between the these services, these educational content and the hardware wallets that we give out, we've We've able to build a lot of trust in our community. um and people know where to find me. They can come say hi, they have a question, we're there. And what really blows their mind is we don't charge any money for this. Um actually, people get really nervous when they walk into the office cuz they think we're like lying and we're going to hit them with a bill at the end. And then when they realize it that whole hour meeting was actually completely free, uh they're really excited to start using Bitcoin in their life. That's amazing. So, let's start shifting a little bit to lifestyle. Ben, we're going to end with you. Lee, quick from you. What does Pura Vida mean to you? And then Sergio, what describe a Pura Vida lifestyle. Okay. Uh Pura Vida for me, if you don't know, it's the kind of national motto of Costa Rica. Um and it's something that is unique to every individual. What I've learned living in Costa Rica for the past uh 6 years now, uh Pura Vida is taking the good with the bad. And uh just enjoying life for every moment, even if it's a bad moment, you can usually find a little bit of beauty in it. For me, Pura Vida is a way to to have a very a very natural lifestyle, but combining with amazing businesses, for example. And this is a real case. I have been in in a blue zone where people uh are doing longevity, living more than 100 years, but meeting with a billion-dollar family offices, barefoot, with food on the ground, doing amazing businesses, while you listen to to the sea, are connected with nature. And that's something great because it doesn't matter how much money in any terms you do, if you don't have the time and the health to enjoy that, your numbers doesn't matter. That's for me the Pura Vida. Ben, what's more valuable than Bitcoin? Well, everybody's wondering, right? There's like, you're not supposed to say something like that here, right? It's the Bitcoin is the end-all to the end-all, but um the thing that brought me to Costa Rica more than anything was like, okay, I was living in Asia, I was living in India, I was living in Indonesia, I was living in Australia, all over the world. You know, having pretty adventurous lifestyle, but when I started my family and I was raising my kids and they're small, I was like, okay, this Asia situation is a little bit problematic. There's too much overpopulation, there's too much pollution, my kids are brea- breathing plastic fires and I'm like I'm like, no, this isn't going to work out. I was like, I got to find somewhere better to be and I I work remote so I could live anywhere. So, I literally scoured the planet. I went everywhere you could possibly go trying to find the best place that had everything you need kind of in balance. Not being too remote, not being too you know in inside, you know, the the still on the fringe of reality but not too far outside and to be honest, I found Costa Rica to be the perfect balance because it has a expat community. It so you have, you know, you can't move your wife and kids somewhere where there's nobody. It's not going to work out. So, you got to have some community, you got to have clean water, clean air, clean food and this was the main thing that I was looking for. So, the first thing that I did when I went to Costa Rica was I planted a food forest. So, it's like I wanted to ask and like, who has a food forest in their portfolio? Anyone? All right, we got one guy, nice. Let's talk about it after. Lee's got one, too. I've got one and my trees are all fruiting now. I have a 20-acre farm. It's got over 1,000 fruit trees. I have gravity-fed spring water. In case they turn off the electricity on the planet, I'm still going to have water flowing exactly where it needs to go. No need for a pump, no need for any support from the grid or from supply chains or anything. And let's talk about these delicate supply chains as well because as you know we're in this war zone and things are going on weird in the economy. I tell you in Costa Rica is the last place people are going to starve. Like we don't really Okay, we import things but we don't need them. Like if we had to live on everything what we had in Costa Rica we're still going to be fat. We're still going to be healthy. Um there's not many places on the planet they can really claim that. And so for me that was like a really cool thing. And I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom or you know it's the end of the world but I kind of like to have my ducks in a row. I like to have what I call my ultimate insurance policy which is having this food forest. I like you know at the end of the day if I want to go there and just retire and live on the fruit of the land I can do it right now. And to be honest it's a really fun way to um you know integrate with my family. I bring them out there. My kids love it. We run around the farm. You like we're like what foods what foods are fruiting right now? What's going on? Let's go we go with buckets. We collect all the food. It's so much fun. It's so amazing. And some people view some of you might think like oh that sounds really hard to accomplish. That's like a really big deal. Sounds really expensive. Actually it's not. Um it's totally scalable from small to large scale. You can get a rural piece of land for really cheap. It's like a barren land that might have been a cattle field. It's a regenerative project. You plant up the farm with just full of fruit trees and the only thing you got to do really is watch them grow. Um there's no irrigation required. It rains plenty. The only thing you need to do is actually chop chop it back. Um make sure that the jungle doesn't take it over. And so you know it's a very passive farming system that creates a huge abundance and at the same time the the property is going up in value over time and not only like the normal just market rate but because you have trees that have value growing on them as well it's like a win-win-win. So you're not like oh this is an expensive investment. It's like no it's banking your money somewhere that you're never lose it. Kind of like you're you know, leveraging your Bitcoin to buy some property. You're not spending your Bitcoin. You're also not spending your Bitcoin to have this food forest because it's going to hold its value and it's always going to be there for you. You pass it down to your kids and they they always have the safety net. For me, that's what really turned me on about Costa Rica. That's why I went there in the first place and um you know, and just you know, being able to live off Bitcoin now at the same time it's literally just the cherry on the top for me. And uh you know, the lifestyle we have there, it's incredible. I mean, me and Paul we're surfing 6:00 a.m. almost every day. I try to get out He's out there more than I am, but I got to bring my kids to school but he's out there. I mean, we're just we're loving it. And you know, during COVID, I had already all this set up, you know, like when COVID hit I was like I was like, I got my food forest. I was like I was like, what's everybody going to do right now? I was like, I'm going to go surfing, you know, it's going to be chill. >> [laughter] >> And so um yeah, I'm just so grateful to have found this this life. I'm I'm It's an honor to share it with you. I want to inspire you all to This This is also attainable for you. You can have this dream. If you live remote Are you If you work remote, you can live in paradise. There's no reason why you shouldn't. And your nervous system will thank you. Welcome to Predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. Every headline moves the line. Every moment is your market. Call the moves. Bet on your instinct. Your prediction, your edge. Dualbetz Predict, where everything is a market. Yeah, it's beautiful. I I just see places like this in Central America where it's super apt for human thriving. You just It's warm all year round. The fruit, there's ripe fruit all year round. It's abundant. It's just bound to blow up and I just wanted to like end by saying the point of us being here is we think it's going to be inevitable. I think it's amazing that the Bitcoin pieces are already there because we think that is also inevitable. And Sergio and Ben are here to help like guide you if you're legitimately thinking about coming down. And if you're coming down to come visit Bitcoin Jungle, hit me up. You guys know where to find me. So, I actually made a movie. No sponsors, nothing. Me and my buddy. And I think the trailer for it is playing in about 1 second. 2 seconds. 3. Maybe not. It's called Hummingbird. And it tells the story of Bitcoin Jungle. We're witnessing this shift where we are basically pulling the the rug from below the feet of this class of people that are abusing others. I believe whether and worked with indigenous cultures all over this planet. Every one of them has a prophecy that we have now arrived at the time of tremendous transformation. The prophecy of the hummingbirds that Rubita is the land from which the hummingbird people will emerge and heal the fracture of the world. The project started at a local organic [music] farms market founded by Gina Avila and her mother Estela. This prophecy says that back in the midst of history, human societies decided to go on two different paths. One was the path of the eagle, which was the path of the mind. >> And the other was calf and condor, the calf of the heart. >> [music] >> The last thing I wanted to do is sweep in and eat all the children, swap big territorial colonialism with financial colonialism. The goal of Bitcoin is to eliminate the banks entirely. But the prophecy goes on to say that we will arrive at a time with the potential for the two to come together and create a whole new level of consciousness. This time is now. It's now. Thank you everybody. Thank you guys so much. That was amazing. We're right back here if you guys want to come talk to any of us. Revita. >> [music] >> Every year this community comes together [music] to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. >> [music] >> And every year the stage gets bigger. >> [music] >> Sound money center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? [music] You come home. Nashville, July [music] 2027.