Moving Your Bitcoin Business to El Salvador? What to Know About Banks, Residency and Self-Custody | Carlos Gil of ECIJA

Before anyone was buying property in El Salvador with Bitcoin, Mike called a lawyer to ask whether giving Bitcoin away in El Zonte could put him in jail.

You’ve heard the country made Bitcoin legal tender. What you haven’t heard is what that did to one law office, one land deal and one very stubborn banking system.

That lawyer is Carlos Gil, partner at the Salvadoran office of ECIJA, an international law firm. He’d never heard of Bitcoin when Mike called around 2011 or 2012. He read the paper, and a few months later he was on board.

Then came the day Bukele announced legal tender. Carlos’s phone rang nonstop the next morning with international clients asking about taxes, capital gains and how to keep their books. By 2022 he was at a Bitcoin conference where strangers bought him lunch just for being Salvadoran.

Then Mike bought land. The closing took six hours because QR codes on the Bitcoin Beach wallet expired every minute and the seller’s brand-new custodial account couldn’t hold the full price. Carlos explains what self custody turns that into, and why a wire from the U.S. still gets flagged while Bitcoin doesn’t.

Through all of it, the banks were the slow part. Carlos tells foreign clients to keep Bitcoin off their corporate documents because El Salvador banks wouldn’t open accounts for Bitcoin companies, and his first one waited three months. Here’s where it gets strange. Banks from Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala are now the ones getting licenses, and a bank president who once turned people away called Mike a year ago asking for a favor.

Where that leaves the El Salvador economy today, in Carlos’s words, is a sandbox where international chains and El Salvador real estate companies come to test the technology, while a bank officer still can’t process a man who held Bitcoin for 15 years and wants to retire in La Libertad.

That same financial innovation grew his firm from two people to 64 lawyers and gave a Salvadoran born in the ’80s something new. For the first time, his country was known for something good!

Whether you’re moving to El Salvador to set up a company or just want to know if the legal side holds up, listen before you decide. The lawyer’s answer starts with “it depends.”

—Bitcoin Beach Team

Learn more about Carlos Gil:
X: https://x.com/carlitos_gil
X (Law Firm): https://x.com/ECIJA
web: https://www.ecija.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecija/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/ecija_law/
Email address: cgil@ecija.com


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Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00 Intro
02:12 How did Bitcoin Beach get its first lawyer in El Salvador on board with Bitcoin?
06:24 What happened in El Salvador when Bitcoin became legal tender?
13:09 How did Bitcoin change how the world sees El Salvador and Salvadorans?
17:26 How did the Bitcoin Beach wallet work in El Zonte before any regulation existed?
20:44 How to buy land in El Salvador with Bitcoin?
22:13 Self custody vs custodial wallet: which is better for large Bitcoin purchases?
25:28 Is El Salvador a good place to start a Bitcoin company?
33:36 Can a Bitcoin company open a bank account in El Salvador?
39:31 Do banks in El Salvador accept Bitcoin now?

Live From Bitcoin Beach