Mega Prisons and Bitcoin in El Salvador

bitcoin city presentation. image via youtube.

It’s 2023. It’s time for authoritarian leaders to update their aesthetic. Sure a stuffy military uniform used to lend an air of authority, but today’s young leaders are looking more and more like silicon valley tech billionaires. A backwards baseball cap. Laser eyes on their Twitter profile. Plans to build a city powered by a volcano that mines bitcoin. Mega-prisons ripped from the pages of Judge Dredd. That kind of thing.

This week we’re talking about El Salvador and its millennial leader Nayib Bukele. With us here to do that is Tiziano Breda, an expert on the region who has covered it for the International Crisis Group and is now with IAI, the Italian international affairs institute.