The Head Of Colombia’s Top Exchange Buda.Com Wrote To The President Of Colombia
Sometime this week, Alejandro Beltran of Buda.com, which is Colombia’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, effectively shuttered by banks in the country refusing to do business with it. He has written an open letter to the nation’s new president in the hope of winning a reversal. Last month, Ivan Duque Marquez was elected and has been cited as embracing new financial technology.
Mr. Beltran started by noting “Being a Fintech company, we received with great enthusiasm your promise to promote the development of new technologies in Colombia. For this reason, it hurts us that the pressure of the previous government on the banks led them to close our bank accounts, forcing us to stop our operation and taking away from our almost 40,000 clients the possibility of buying cryptocurrencies in a safe and transparent manner.” As being head of the leading cryptocurrency exchange in Colombia, Buda.com, Mr. Beltran knows the business. Before operating the largest crypto venture in his country, he worked as an administrator in finance for about ten years, He is also the host of the Spanish language podcast, Calle Bitcoin. Reports term the occurrences of bank bans spontaneous, a variation on organic, but, whatever the actual case, by summer of this year Buda.com was effectively shut down. Banks in Colombia had decided, seemingly all at once, to cease doing business with any company even mildly related to cryptocurrencies.
After various appeals, Mr. Beltrán has taken to an open letter, desperate to get some relief at the highest levels of the Colombian government. He chose to name newly elected President Iván Duque. It’s a choice probably due to Mr. Duque’s statements the beginning of the present month on cryptocurrency and financial technology. According to reports, “the country’s new president, Ivan Dupue, revealed his administration’s commitment to cutting down rent taxes for crypto startups for a period of up to five years. The main motivation behind the proposal is to stimulate the creation of new jobs in the industry.”
Mr. Beltrán wrote, “This letter, Mr. President, is to ask you very kindly and vehemently for your intervention in this great problem in order to reopen our bank accounts. We do not ask for special treatment or exceptions. We only ask to have access to a basic service to undertake, as an entrepreneur who starts with an idea that can have a positive impact on society. For our part, we are committed to continuing contributions to the education of new technologies, promoting spaces that empower Colombians to be agents of change and helping in Colombia to develop a healthy and safe cryptocurrency industry.” As of publication, the President has not responded.
