How two former hosts on Russian state TV became key advisers to the Salvadoran government's adoption of bitcoin while having crypto investments in the country
Santiago Pérez / Wall Street Journal : Tweets: @nicktagliaferro and @ricardovalp Tweets: @nicktagliaferro : I think the most impressive thing about the crypto ecosystem's collective quest to speedrun the entire federal criminal code is that they're starting with a lot of laws that are quite hard to actually get caught violating https://twitter.com/... @ricardovalp : @WSJ @PerezEnMexico confirms Bitfinex's Max Keiser and Stacy Herberth are advisers to Bukele, investors in business they advise and gatekeepers determine who is eligible to do #bitcoin in country. And they say they don't get remunerated 🤣 https://www.wsj.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
El Salvador's bitcoin experiment has always been a small circle around Nayib Bukele rather than an open market: the government paid citizens $30 each to sign up for the Chivo wallet, its wallet partner Strike was found operating on thin US licensing, and the president has used the currency as propaganda to burnish his image abroad. The Wall Street Journal now names the human layer of that circle: Max Keiser and Stacy Herberth, former hosts on Russian state TV, advising Bukele while holding stakes in Salvadoran bitcoin businesses.
The reporting alleges they also act as gatekeepers deciding which firms may operate bitcoin in El Salvador — meaning advisers are positioned to approve or block competitors to companies they invest in. That lands just before the program's credibility test: by early 2024 Bukele was still refusing the IMF's demand to drop bitcoin as legal tender despite low citizen usage.
First-order effects
- Keiser and Herberth face direct conflict-of-interest exposure: they advise the government, hold investments in entities they advise, and allegedly control eligibility for who can do bitcoin business in the country.
- Bitfinex, their affiliated firm, is pulled into reputational risk because its personnel effectively sit between the Salvadoran state and any company seeking bitcoin market access.
Second-order effects
- Crypto firms targeting El Salvador must route through adviser-investors, giving incumbents with ties to Keiser and Herberth an advantage over rivals seeking entry — access itself becomes a priced asset.
- The findings compound the governance questions already raised by Strike's licensing gap and the IMF's pressure, giving Bukele's critics and lenders concrete evidence that the program mixes state policy with private gain.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, national crypto adoption in the region — already pursued by politicians as a profile-raising exercise — risks consolidating around informal adviser networks rather than transparent regulation, making due diligence on 'bitcoin-friendly' jurisdictions a core task for every entrant.
- Sustained reporting like this pushes multilateral lenders toward demanding formal disclosure and licensing rules as conditions for engagement with adopting states, converting what began as a marketing exercise into a governance compliance problem.
The trend: State-level bitcoin adoption is hardening from publicity stunt into an insider economy where advisers with personal investments control market access, and scrutiny is catching up.