In this episode, host Sunny Ray talks with Ricardo, a Mexican economist whose career took him from the Ministry of Social Development to the country's tax authority and eventually its deposit insurance agency, before bitcoin changed everything. Ricardo recalls first hearing about bitcoin from a stranger in Tulum around 2012 or 2013, initially dismissing it before rediscovering it through research at the deposit insurance agency and later through a political decentralization movement in Mexico. He reflects on how Austrian economics, largely absent from Mexican university curricula, helped him understand the flaws he sensed in debt driven monetary policy and fractional reserve banking. Ricardo describes quitting his government job with his wife's support, her own distrust of banks rooted in the 1994 Tequila Crisis, to co-found the crypto consultancy Oruca.co. The conversation also covers a blockchain traceability project with Costa Rica's coffee institute and the early growth of Mexico City's crypto meetup scene. Sunny and Ricardo trace a personal arc from skeptical economist to committed bitcoin believer, setting up the discussion of Ricardo's later work in the Avalanche ecosystem.
A Mexican government economist explains how bitcoin, Austrian economics, and a Tequila Crisis shaped his path to Avalanche.
When did we first meet?
We met in September 2019 at a blockchain forum in Paris, at the OECD. I don't remember the exact panel, but it was a good year for building in crypto since there wasn't much hype yet. It was great to hear your presentation and experiences with the Indian market.
What were you working on around that time?
I was with partners in Mexico running a consultancy called Oruca.co focused on individual transformation and crypto. We did education work with universities and partnered with the German development agency GIZ on a traceability project with Costa Rica's coffee institute, helping them track which farmer was behind each product for gourmet export markets.
What's your background, and how did you end up working for the Mexican government?
My background is economics. I started at the Ministry of Social Development fighting poverty, then moved to the tax office's IT department doing financial assessments. Later I joined the agency equivalent to the FDIC, working in international affairs and research on deposit insurance and fintech regulation.
How did you first hear about bitcoin?
I moved to Tulum for a couple of years and a random Argentine guy in the strong local bitcoiner community started talking to me about it, tied to how Visa and Mastercard cut off funding to WikiLeaks. I was curious but didn't really understand it then, and life moved on.
Working inside government, were you worried it would just get banned?
I knew it would be disruptive to a heavily regulated banking sector, but I also saw how strong Mexico's fintech wave was, regulators couldn't stop that, so the same would be true for bitcoin. My economist colleagues mostly dismissed it as a scam, though it was easier discussing it with engineers and lawyers.
What did you feel was wrong with the economics you were taught, versus Austrian economics?
In Mexico, economics education is mostly Keynesian and monetarist, Austrian economics is essentially erased from curricula. I never learned about thinkers like Hayek until after university. I could sense something didn't add up, especially watching my father's generation afford homes on savings while my generation increasingly can't.
What's the core difference you see between Keynesian and Austrian economics, especially relating to bitcoin?
It comes down to debt. Keynesian economics relies on fractional reserve banking, where only about 10 percent of deposits are actually held, letting money supply grow artificially. Austrian economics argues for full reserve banking to prevent that artificial expansion. You see the debt-fueled result clearly in the US and Mexican economies today.
How did your wife react, and what happened after you got deeper into bitcoin?
Her family lost savings in Mexico's 1994 Tequila Crisis, so she already distrusted banks, and she got into bitcoin with me watching videos together. When I decided to quit my government job to pursue crypto full time, she supported me, and we co-founded our consultancy Oruca with a friend from a political movement called Wikipolitica.
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