A young,female Senator from Monterrey has a Bitcoin policy recipe for Mexico

The problem is that it is unlikely to pass. But, if it does, Ricardo Salinas Pliego will be the first to benefit.

Mexican senator Indira Kempis Martinez (Movimiento Ciudadano, Nuevo León) wants to make bitcoin legal tender in Mexico by following the El Salvador model. Except the Central American model will be hard to pass through Mexico’s congress.

Kempis wants to introduce the legislation to congress at some point this year and appears to be working with Gabriel Todd, a Senate advisor and urban planner from Monterrey, on the project. It’s likely that she will align with another member of Mexico’s congress, Eduardo Murat Hinojosa (PRI, Morelos) who has previously supported Bitcoin legalization.

Outside of the political arena, there are likely to be two lobbying forces influencing the legislation. One key figure is Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who wants his Banco Azteca to be able to offer BTC buying/selling. His Grupo Elektra stores have already begun accepting bitcoin. The other figure is Samson Mow. Mow recently left Blockstream to work on Bitcoin nation-building and has already met with Kempis Martinez. Mow says Mexico is “on the list” for nation state Bitcoin adoption.

There’s no doubt Kempis will apply some of the features of El Salvador’s Bitcoin law in her legislation package. In January, Kempis met with deputy minister of innovation Fabrizio Mena to discuss El Salvador’s Bitcoin policy with a team of advisors.

The problem is that Kempis is not Nayib Bukele. President Bukele commanded a majority in congress when he pushed through his Bitcoin legal tender bill. There was little resistance in congress. Kempis will face much more friction. Her Movimiento Ciudadano party is not aligned with larger party machinery like president AMLO’s Morena. Nor is it formally aligned with the opposition PRI and PAN parties. The absence of congressional alliances makes it hard to see how Kempis’ bill would pass.

Compounding the obstacles is the fact that AMLO has explicitly said he doesn’t want to make Bitcoin legal tender. He doesn’t see the point. That is even after his ally Ricardo Salinas Pliego has lobbied AMLO’s administration to allow traditional banks to deal in crypto. And in a country where corporatist pressures on the presidency often steer policy, if Salinas Pliego isn’t having much luck with AMLO, it is hard to see how Kempis will.

Kempis sits on the Senate’s energy committee where she influences policy-making that would impact Salinas Pliego’s Bitcoin mining initiative at the Domo de San Pedro geothermal facility. It is possible that Salinas Pliego has quietly tapped Kempis to start the initiative. Sources I’ve spoken to doubt that’s the case, but it would be smart move. A non-controversial figure might be what the controversial Salinas Pliego needs to get a controversial bill passed through a Morena-controlled legislature and notch approval from the president.