At the Bitcoin 2022 conference last month, the Portuguese archipelago Madeira announced its optimism for Bitcoin, which has seemingly sparked confusion among many people. 

The President of Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque, made the announcement saying, “I believe in the future, and I believe in Bitcoin.” He further vowed to “create in Madeira a fantastic environment for Bitcoin” without making any additional specifications. 

JAN3 CEO Sampson Mow proudly announced that Madeira “will be adopting Bitcoin.” Many people assumed that the archipelago would be accepting Bitcoin as legal tender, but that is currently not the case.

André Loja, a Madeiran entrepreneur, provided some clarification saying, “We embrace it, we support it. We are not ‘adopting’ Bitcoin because adopting looks like we were making it legal tender when it’s already de facto legal.” He further stated that he prefers to say that they are “embracing” Bitcoin for now and not adopting it. 

Education is the first step

Loja’s primary focus is educating citizens by providing financial literacy resources. To date, he has already translated several Bitcoin-related books into Portuguese. 

In addition, Loja works alongside many educators in the Bitcoin arena, like author Knut Svanholm, to educate those interested in sound money. Loja is making plans for people of all ages to benefit from his financial education efforts. Loja announced that he is founding a Bitcoin education center in Madeira called the Sound Money Foundation.

Future Bitcoin endeavors

Madeira has declared a 0% tax on Bitcoin capital gains. In future endeavors, Loja expects Madeira will begin mining Bitcoin with renewable energy.

According to Loja, the electrical power grid is a “public company” which means that all of the mined Bitcoin will be distributed to the government's own multisignature wallet.

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