Madeira ‘embraces’ Bitcoin and how the president met Michael Saylor
The tiny Portuguese island of Madeira has “adopted” Bitcoin (BTC) — but what does that mean? The announcement made during the Bitcoin Miami Conference in 2022 has spurned confusion and misinformation.
The President of the Regional Government of Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque, hopped onto the stage in April to announce that he believes in the “future of Bitcoin,” and that he would work to “create a fantastic environment for Bitcoin.” However, the details remained unclear.
Cointelegraph spoke to André Loja, a Madeiran entrepreneur who spearheaded the plan to bring Bitcoin to the archipelago in the Atlantic ocean to find out how Bitcoin is shaping the islands’ development.
The island of Madeira exploded onto the Bitcoin world map on April 7, when Samson Mow proudly announced that Madeira “will be adopting Bitcoin.”
Upon the announcement, news outlets around the world reported that Madeira had adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. However, this was not the case. Loja explained to Cointelegraph that prior to Samson Mow’s announcement, Loja would have preferred to use the phrasing “Madeira is embracing Bitcoin.”
Indeed, in Madeira and across Portugal — 1,000 km northeast of the island — there is zero tax on Bitcoin capital gains. That means any disposal, spending, or use of Bitcoin does not need to be declared to tax authorities by the island’s 250,000 people.
Loja orange-pilled the president of Madeira just a few weeks prior to the conference, sharing his vision for Bitcoin as not only a means to attract foreign investment, but to “protect my island from the fiat system.”
By happenstance, Albuquerque came to visit Loja’s coworking space — one of the few places that accept Bitcoin in Madeira — and Loja jumped at the opportunity to share
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