Bitcoin Can Give You Portugal Citizenship?!
Alessandro Palombo is the Co-Founder of Unbound with a mission to design the future of global citizenship. They are using …. “so Alessandro, I thought a great place to start this conversation is uh you all have a company that allows people to get a second visa and do it while still having exposure to bitcoin, but we need to start with the idea of a Portuguese golden Visa. I know very little about this, so maybe you could just tell us like what is this program and why does a country like Portugal offer it absolutely so thanks Palumbo for this question so uh well it was back in 2012 that the country Portugal decided to open up the doors allow investors to bring money in the country in various ways and in exchange for that to offer them the so-called golden Visa which is essentially a residency permit and after a few years five more specifically the right to apply to citizenship so this was a quite I would say old plan that made Portugal arguably the best uh and the more efficient citizenship buy investment program in Europe now um it was 2023 October or last year that there there has been actually a major change in the Portuguese law until that moment the more successful way for acquiring citizenship in Portugal was to invest in real estate-related private Equity Funds uh or real estate uh in October the legislation changes and actually makes investments in real estate or any adjacent matter also has private Equity Funds not anymore eligible for Golden visas that’s when we had the idea of creating a mound. Now in this Visa process it’s literally I just put $500,000 uh in um and I get the visa or are there some requirements like how how exactly walk me through kind of the mechanics of how these Visa programs work?
- Investing in Portugal’s Golden Visa program
- Portugal introduced the Golden Visa program in 2012
- Investors can bring money into the country in exchange for residency permits and citizenship
- Investment Requirements
- Investing €500,000 in a private Equity Fund
- Fund must invest 60% or more in local commercial companies
- Application Process
- Applying through a lawyer
- Expect to receive Golden Visa in 12-18 months
Process and Requirements for Golden Visa
Definitely, so uh it’s quite straightforward, in the end, it’s pretty straightforward so you invest €500,000 Euro sorry 500,000 Euro in a private Equity Fund which invests 60% or more of the net asset value in local commercial companies upon this requirement uh essentially you just apply via of course the our lawyer or whoever lawyer wants to assist you and um in 12-18 months with the current at least you know in the present time you can expect to receive your golden Visa. Is there only any other requirement the answer is yes you need to spend a certain number of days every year in the country how many on average 14 days every two years in the country so essentially it’s a long vacation in the country and this is, this qualifies you for renewing actually golden Visa so if you like to serve you’re welcome and for two weeks per two years you can actually M get and maintain your golden visa after five years from the application post-investment uh you can apply for citizenship do you need to do anything else, yes there are two requirements one is to actually uh demonstrate to have basic knowledge of Portuguese language in specifically an A2 test which is something in general not so complex and besides that uh you need to have of course a clean criminal record so these are the only requirements you don’t need to move in Portugal you don’t move your fiscal residence in Portugal these are a critical actually aspect that made this uh program so successful also because in essence, it’s the only European citizenship by investment program that doesn’t require you to really move to the country even Malta requires you to spend even if a shorter time in Malta and move your fiscal residency there so that’s why in my view over the years this program became probably the most successful in Europe and uh in my view this somehow uh matches very well with the Unbound model and that’s why probably we went so viral and we, we got hundreds of applications in 48 hours
- Investment Amount and Residency Requirements
- Investing €500,000 in a private Equity Fund
- Spending an average of 14 days every two years in Portugal
- Citizenship Application Process
- Basic knowledge of Portuguese language required
- Clean criminal record needed
Bitcoin Exposure and Citizenship
Now, what caught my attention about this was obviously the intersection with Bitcoin. Now can people use Bitcoin to pay for the 500 uh, euro uh, or does it have to be in Euros? It has to, unfortunately, it has to be in the old dear Euro so in Fiat money. We tried our best to do something different but the short answer is no, unfortunately, it’s strictly required you well an investor to invest 500,000 from a foreign bank account into your own Portuguese bank account, this is the strict requirement. Now, what you guys are doing that I think is unique and why there’s been so much attention you guys obviously have gone viral online is you are allowing for when people put that $500,000 into uh this private Equity Fund then what you all are doing is you investing in local companies inside of Portugal and those companies are holding Bitcoin from my understanding and so what you’re essentially offering to folks is you can have 500,000 Euro exposure to bitcoin indirectly and also help to secure a Portuguese golden Visa is that kind of how the system works? 100% you did your homework very well and and yes, this is absolutely correct so we came up with this model uh being inspired by the idea of creating the most Capital efficient solution and at the same time bringing in a mutually beneficial way value to the country these is a very important topic that I would like to expand with two notes notes number one is um you know when it comes to European citizenships uh even by investment they are never something you know uh they are serious commitments and Portugal is no exception so we don’t sell something with a spirit of oh this is going to be necessarily easy and so forth and so on no no no this is a serious commitment and we put together the best team and actually mounder already actually promoted and managed previously a golden Visa Found Real Estate our team cumulatively worked on 110 golden Visa procedures and I come from web3 having spent more than seven years in crypto so um this is never an easy journey I would like to remark it and secondly there is a real citizenship that gives you the status s of European citizen at the end of the program and that’s something pretty relevant in terms of edging why because this is what I always say to everyone we don’t know how the world will look like in five or 10 years and this is the very same reason that makes Europe highly and efficient arguably for business which is fragmentation is possibly the same reason why acquiring a European citizenship can be so profoundly valuable in terms of edging the position of anyone in 5 10 20 years for example, we don’t know if your kids want to study in Berlin or in Paris or rather to open a company in eastern of Europe because maybe in 20 years from now of Europe will be the right place where to launch the most interesting companies for the best entrepreneurs out there so with this program you can get in this direction and get there now um um this is somehow the you know the background of what we been put together the very important disclaimer is we are using a very old and well-validated model what would what we invented really was essentially changing the scope of activity of the SPV on the territory of port and that was in my view a brilliant move and we got very um you know overwhelmed actually by the reaction of the market which we didn’t expect to be honest and um that’s how I believe this this is going to be great also for Portugal why the companies pay taxes in Portugal and directly we will promote web adoption and Bitcoin adoption at the institutional level also in the country so in our view and according to many this is a very in my view valuable maneuver that will bring back eventual exposure to Portugal which has been and in our view will be a primary hub for web three in Europe and in the end as you know there are many co-founders colleagues of you of us already in Lisbon or Port right or in general in the country or capar so I think this there are many actually different points that all together probably um well align around this initiative yeah so if I was to do this I want exposure to bitcoin uh but there are people who say hey maybe I don’t want exposure to bitcoin maybe I want exposure to ether or Solana or name you know whatever other asset what is your plan is are you going to stay just with Bitcoin are you going to go into other things and are there risks Associated uh with kind of picking some of these other assets so to recap actually fund number one the exposure is going to be exclusively in Bitcoin but of course we are going to expand the portfolio of products of Unbound and as you know right now we are we are working with mainly with Crypton native teams and partners and during these discussions it became evident there is an opportunity of cooperating uh eventually for new products which may get exposure in various ways on different projects potentially also ethereum Network Sol the Sol Network and other primary uh blockchain networks for now Unbound fund one the current one investment strategy focuses only and exclusively in investing in companies whose investment strategy is acquiring only exposure to bitcoin via ETFs are there other countries that you can go and do this I know that there are some other countries that have kind of golden visas or or you know various types of programs is that also something that your company’s looking at from a road map standpoint today’s episode is brought to you 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Cox how about that go check it out today go to domain money.com pomp yes uh yes at the same time um so uh the answer is yes also as you maybe can can tell by the accent I’m Italian and I before essentially becoming an entrepreneur I I actually qualified as a lawyer I did a bit of an academic career in Italy for for in the legal sector and then I started doing VAR startups so uh on the Italian side we are confident we can actually implement this model potentially in a linear way compared to Portugal and uh well we may we may implement this model in a very attractive country that I’m sure would generate second actually Vitality but I I don’t want to mention it right now because it came up after an iteration with a specific person who is very well known in the space of immigration actually so let’s put in the ston yes maybe if someone wants to follow us I would really love to see anyone subscribing also my newsletter and keeping in touch uh and we we we we will be in touch and updating everyone as we as we progress one major clarification on this point um so the answer is yes we’re going to expand portfolio of course but at the same time the philosophy behind this initiative uh is to really care a lot of the quality of product number one and partially that’s also why we’re going to keep this initiative as a quote unquote family business I’ve been doing startups since a while I I have very good contacts with very good investors and I do respect them a lot but at the same time uh I don’t know maybe maybe maybe because we went so viral maybe because these are business targeting Indian families so we we are serving literally the future of families and We Believe with Z my cofounder and fiance that having this as a family run business somehow um I don’t know adds specific value so this translates in in our approach of treating every potentially you know investor lpce and customers a new member in our Global family this is what we we like to to to say we live in Lisbon we have also business in Portugal so we Sorry in Porto so we do often Back in Forth with Porto uh actually also our dog name is Porto just to give you an idea because we met in Porto with you so this is the kind of LEL of connection with the country and uh so what I’m trying to say is sometimes is very good to scale up fast but at the same time occasionally it’s even more important to take the necessary time even if we went hyper-viral and we got more than a quarter of a billion of a manifestation of interest in 48 hours still I think it’s very important to focus on one single product and do really your best and and to I could expand on this a bit but I will keep it short there are various reasons Anthony why Portugal technically and strategically make a lot of sense as a citizenship investment program so I would first want to make sure that we are delivering the best value in a in a in a in a very solid way in Portugal and then we we want to expand but only at the condition that we we really can ensure the best qualitative service in every other country which is INE inevitably generated when you have a direct touch with the ter your patterns very well you have been doing this already a couple of times
- Expansion Plans and Quality Focus
- Portfolio expansion planned, starting with Bitcoin exposure
- Focus on quality and personalized service
- Family Business Approach
- Family-run business model for personalized service
- Treating clients as part of the global family
Risks, Rewards, and Family Benefits
Already, this is this is not this a regulated environment it’s a very complex industry a very old one so for innovating it you inevitably you need to know your own things and for now we have the best experience merging crypto and immigration uh actually uh related industry knowledge in Portugal so yes expansion but at the same time focus on delivering a lot of one1 quality in Portugal so I have some questions around uh maybe the Nuance or the mechanism right so I put 500,000 uh into this private Equity Fund do I get the profits as profits are generated from the fund or what what happens there 100% sure these are to the effects Anthony a private Equity related investment so it works like that so you uh first of all we agree to do this together there are two options but I’m not going to to go in details in about four weeks from when we decide to move together you are going to be investment ready you SP 500,000 on your new local bank account that we will help you opening uh you will invest the 500k in Euro in the fund bank account which will invest in the SPV or in the spvs now um the fund duration is eight years as a worst-case scenario the fund is a closed-ended fund so you technically count at the third year they hey I want to get make my money but a secondary Market transaction is allowed so in case you change end you don’t want to anymore The Residency or citizenship you can tell us and we will do our best to find eventually an acquirer and this may happen so it is true it’s a to closer-end fund but there could be potentially ways for allowing someone to change idea and eventually get back their liquidity are so over eight years worst-case scenario is the time needed for everyone in the fund to arrive at the citizenship essentially Finish Line it may happen that on year six or seven this already happens in that case assembly of the share units holders can deliberate an earlier liquidation of the fund so when the fund liquidates year six seven or eight essentially all the assets of the SPV are are liquidated the money is returned to the fund at the fund level and the fund distributes actually the capital back plus the profit uh the spb will pay some taxes in Portugal instead the fund level doesn’t pay taxes and if you resident in Portugal by the time the taxation on the personal income level will be 10% if your residents abroad resident abroad you will need to double-check with a tax advisory in your country of fiscal residence so the answer is absolutely yes you’re going to get back finger crossed the capital and the profits assuming as we all believe that Bitcoin will perform very well in the next five six and more years and we take only 10% so just to clarify the typically no VC model is 220 as you know very well better than me so in this case we brought down the management fee to 1.5% per anum and 10% performance fee we believe that this better aligns with this use case and in my view it’s quite a fair request for put together and assist you all the way along actually for uh actually a very long long long long time period so uh yes it’s absolutely an investment for profit and we recently actually improved also the model of the fund and just for your own interest there may be also on an annual basis earlier distribution of performance performances to the share unit soers and to us of course in the same proportion 90 10 uh in case the SPV business which is indirectly connected to the Bitcoin Market performs very well so in short terms yes you, you send 500k in the fund fund of course which technically is closed but there could be ear distribution in case Bitcoin as we all expect on year two three four five will hyper perform now if I go and I do this as an individual um I’m married I have children do they also get citizenship or what is kind of the um you know implications for for families 100% this is actually the best part so these are a very family-oriented solution so you can bring your spouse your kids your parents and also your spouse parents there are some requirements I will be very short on this but in general so all your kid all the kids you may have which are actually financially dependent from you they can coly with you in general if they are up up to 12 years old our immigration lawyer suggests to uh avoid essentially they will be reunited after you
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