Chilean bitcoin exchange SurBTC succeeded in raising private investment of $300,000, Digital Currency Group being among the funders. CoinFox approached Founder and CEO of SurBTC Guillermo Torrealba and asked him about the company’s projects and the cryptocurrency market in Chile.

CoinFox: Congratulations on closing your round of seed funding so successfully. What are the implications of this investment for SurBTC? What projects in particular do you plan to carry out using the funds raised?

Guillermo Torrealba: This is an excellent news for SurBTC, because it allows us, finally, to count on resources to strengthen the market in Chile, which is something we have been waiting for since our launch in April 2015.

In order of importance the objectives we target through this capital are:

1. To introduce liquidity to the local market, allowing individuals and firms to be able to buy bitcoins in reasonable quantities.
2. To develop bitcoin-based solutions which would use our exchange as an infrastructure. Along these lines we are developing services for international transfers, a payment processor and a payment button for freelancers who get paid abroad, among other products.  
3. To explore the possibility to enter other markets in Latin America.

CoinFox: SurBTC holds an important position on the Chilean bitcoin market. How do you see the company’s role in the larger Latin American context? What are the markets you plan to expand to in future?

Guillermo Torrealba: At SurBTC, we are conscious of the fact that this is a new business, an industry which did not exist four years ago and this is why no one knows with certainty where it is heading or how it will be treated by different regulators in every country. It is easy to think about transactions across multiple borders, but the truth of the matter is that it is difficult to structure even a single financial transaction which complies with each country’s regulations. We are aware of the fact that bitcoin needs responsible and legitimate companies and this is why we have decided to proceed forward with ambition, but also with caution. This does not alter the fact that we already have a stable and scalable structure in Chile, thus, our vision is directed towards mapping out the options for our next destination: a country south of Ecuador.

CoinFox: Often, when discussing the role bitcoin plays in Latin America, the media focus on the high percentage of unbanked population and on the volatility of national currencies. How would you describe the situation in Chile? Do bitcoin and the technology behind it see other uses in addition to facilitating remittances?

Guillermo Torrealba: It is very important to make the distinction between bitcoin “the currency” and bitcoin “the network”. In the first case we think that it will still take several years until people effectively use bitcoin as an actual payment method validated by the majority. Bitcoin, however, is also a network which allows instantaneous and safe transfer of value anywhere in the world and we think that this function is superior to that of the currency.

Bitcoin has the potential to be the channel allowing more than 250 million still unbanked people in Latin America to join the world of digital finance, for whom traditional banking is not even closely attractive. This is happening now and it is only a question of time, so that the infrastructure which all of us, the entrepreneurs of the ecosystem, are creating enables even the least expecting customers, without being aware, to shop at Alibaba and, in this way, to have access to prices much more competitive than they could hardly ever imagine in their own country. 

CoinFox: You have previously emphasised the importance of legitimising bitcoin in Chile and have stated that SurBTC will continue pressing the issue in order to achieve it. Is SurBTC collaborating with the governmental institutions in Chile in order to promote this goal and can you tell us more about your experience so far?

Guillermo Torrealba: We are collaborating with those institutions which have already accepted bitcoin. The others, and that is the majority, behave as if they have much more important concerns than dedicating even a second of their time to bitcoin. Perhaps they are completely right, for the moment.

Nevertheless, there are also those institutions which indeed see in us a way to learn in time about potential consequences from the world where bitcoin is a relevant technology. We have organised working sessions and sessions of peer education with them where we talk about the technical aspects and about what is happening in the countries where the technology is more developed. In return, they tell us how their institutions function and how they see the technology implemented there. These have been tremendously enriching experiences.

CoinFox: Finally, you used to teach at the Universidad San Sebastián. Does your experience in education contribute to your vision of how the awareness of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be raised in general?

Guillermo Torrealba: I used to teach innovation and entrepreneurship and was business and innovation consultant for the banking sector and for leading companies in the retail industry. It was there that I learned how immensely distant we are from the developed countries in terms of services, access to deep capital markets or simply regarding investment opportunities.

In addition, in my family history banking played a very important role, and not for good. This is why, since I was very young, I have always been curious about and interested in the financial industry. I was not that empathetic, at least until I got acquainted with bitcoin. 

The difficult thing when teaching this technology is to identify what ‘strikes a chord’ with the audience, rather than offering them an ordinary speech and noting their attention to fade away over a topic, albeit interesting, yet too complicated and remote to dedicate their precious free time to learning and reading on the subject. SurBTC exists because we are convinced that bitcoin is a technology capable to revolutionise and change the paradigms of the most powerful industry on the planet: the finance. And if it happens, surely we will be contributing to improve, through finance, the life of thousands of people.

Diana Bogdan