Precis

Ten months after Hurricane Maria pummelled Puerto Rico, many of the Caribbean island’s three million-plus people are still – literally – picking up the pieces.

“I just remember this feeling of Armageddon. Everything’s dark, there’s no government, you’re on your own,” says Christine Nieves, one of the thousands of Puerto Ricans still without electricity.

Yet the winds had barely abated before Puerto Rico was rushed by entrepreneurs from the US mainland, bringing with them a promise of prosperity built on crypto-money and blockchain technology.

“A blank slate. It’s just a blank slate,” says one digital mogul, arguing the case for a Silicon Valley-style makeover in a place that’s just been levelled by a hurricane.

A blank stare is what you get if you ask most Puerto Ricans about how blockchain might change their lives. After 500 years of exploitation and dashed hopes under Spanish and American colonists, many are wary of big promises. Some are downright hostile.

“It’s that whole imperialism again and again and again in different forms,” says musician Luis Rodriguez.

The digital proselytisers face a stiff challenge selling their dream to Puerto Ricans. The territory is America’s chief pauper, weighed down by US$72 billion in debt. Hundreds of schools are being shut while pensions, health care and government wages are being slashed. Many people are leaving.

Meanwhile the influx of wealthy entrepreneurs pays just four per cent company tax and zero tax on shares and dividends.

Their guru is former child movie star turned crypto-currency billionaire Brock Pierce. He tells reporter Eric Campbell that he gets Puerto Ricans’ history and scepticism.

“I’m here to service,” he says. “I’ve committed my entire life to the last breath in service to humanity. Puerto Rico has the possibility to be put on the map as a hub of innovation and that’s a wonderful thing if it works.”

Arrogance can cruel the pitch. Foreign Correspondent films one digital advocate telling a protester: “They’re going to make something beautiful happen and you’re going to be part of it - whether you like it or not.”

The territory’s governor is a blockchain barracker. So too are some young tech-savvy Puerto Ricans excited by a digital ledger system that bypasses banks and fee-chasing middlemen. They see it making services like solar power, water and health care cheaper and fairer… one day.

For now, there’s nothing tangible about blockchain. Most Puerto Ricans just want the life they had before Maria descended, and they’re busy hunkering down for the next hurricane season.

Puerto Rico GVs

Music

00:00

ERIC CAMPBELL: It’s the world’s oldest colony in the heart of the Caribbean.  It’s been bankrupt for years and devastated by hurricanes.  So why are rich investors storming in?

00:03

Eaker

QUINN EAKER: “I think the two biggest priorities I have in life is to one, live the most awesome life that I possibly can and two, is to hope as many people live the most awesome life that they can”.

00:22

Drone shots. Damaged houses

ERIC CAMPBELL: Entrepreneurs say they can turn this ruined island into a hi-tech hub.  Are they exploiting disaster?  Or can they save the enchanted isle?

00:33

Title:
foreign correspondent

00:44

Title
San Juan, Puerto Rico

00:49

Campbell walking past library. Super:
Reporter
Eric Campbell

00:55

Guys on horses
Title: Blockchain Island

01:00

Hurricane Maria aftermath

ERIC CAMPBELL:  It was the worst storm anyone had seen.  Hurricane Maria wrecked a third of Puerto Rico’s homes and the entire power grid.  As a US territory, their hopes of rescue rested on Donald Trump.

01:05

Trump

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We are praying for the people of Puerto Rico. 

01:21

We love Puerto Rico”.

01:26

Drone shot over house.

Music

01:29

Luis and Christine on balcony

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Luis Rodriguez and Christine Nieves waited for help in vain.

01:36

Luis and Christine

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “I just remember this feeling of Armageddon.  Everything’s dark.  There’s no government.  You’re on your own. It felt like everything has collapsed”.

01:40

Drone shot over house and town

Music

01:51

ERIC CAMPBELL:  We’ve come to their town Mariana eight months after the hurricane and it still has no electricity.

01:54

Generator. People doing washing

It’s been the longest and largest blackout in US history and it’s not over yet.

02:01

Luis singing

02:11

Luis playing guitar

ERIC CAMPBELL:   President Trump hailed the rescue effort as a triumph.  Studies suggest more than 4,000 died because help came too late.

02:17

Family photo

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “The story that we’ve been passed from generation to generation is America is going to protect us,

02:32

Christine. Super:
Christine Nieves

is going to provide, is going to… when it matters, they can defend us.  And then when it mattered, they couldn’t get people here.  I think it was a great moment of just a story collapsing and that’s very important and very powerful, because that’s the story that we’ve been holding on for generations”.

02:39

Power lines and station

Music

03:00

ERIC CAMPBELL:  The power grid was antiquated and unreliable even before Maria took it down. 

03:04

Drone shot – work on power lines

Mainland contractors are struggling to put it back up and it’s already hurricane season again.

“Now part of the problem is that FEMA, Federal disaster agency,

03:10

Campbell to camera on road where crews are working on power line

is forbidden by law to improve the grid. When they make repairs, they can only restore it to the way it used to be and that means they’ve had to source outmoded equipment, some of which isn’t even made any more, ship it down from the mainland and spend more time and money to make the system bad again than it would cost to make it good. It really is that insane”.

03:20

Luis installing solar panels

Luis Rodriguez has given up waiting.  A musician by trade he’s now an amateur electrician by necessity.  He and his neighbours are putting up solar panels and installing batteries.

03:48

“Is the government encouraging people to do this?  Or helping them?

04:09

LUIS RODRIGUEZ: “As a country they want to put a tax, a 30% on every solar thing”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “You’re kidding?”

LUIS RODRIGUEZ: “Yeah, no I’m not”.

04:13

Luis and Christine's house

[Luis singing]

04:22

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Since Maria, their community’s done almost all the rebuilding on its own. 

04:26

Christine visits community kitchen

Luis and Christine helped mobilise the town to clear roads, rescue old people and set up a community kitchen.

04:36

Women cooking

At its peak, it was feeding 350 people a day – all thanks to donations and tireless volunteers.

04:49

Campbell and Christine carry food plates

“This looks great!”

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “I know.  I know”.

04:57

ERIC CAMPBELL: Washington has actually stopped them buying cheap food from neighbouring Caribbean islands.

05:03

Container ship

For more than a century, all imports have had to come from US ports on US ships.

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “So if we want to get an avocado from Dominican Republic

05:09

Christine

it has to go to Florida first.  America has a 3.5 million captive market.  We can’t buy anything that is not from America. That’s good for them”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “And that makes the prices more expensive?”

LUIS RODRIGUEZ: “Yes, everything is expensive here”.

05:20

Colonial buildings by water

Music

05:35

ERIC CAMPBELL: Puerto Ricans are literally second-class citizens compared to mainlanders. 

05:40

After the US seized the island from Spain in 1898, Congress made it a territory not a state. 

05:45

Man flying kite

That meant people here can’t even vote for their president.

05:54

San Juan GVs

Music

06:01

Band playing in street

06:04

Container ship near coast/Statue of Columbus

ERIC CAMPBELL: The island has been run by outsiders pretty much since Christopher Columbus came across it in 1493. 

“For centuries Puerto Rico was seen as the gateway to the new world.

06:12

Campbell to camera

Since the hurricane it’s shown everything wrong with the new world. Today’s politics and economics and bureaucracy have fundamentally failed this community.  Which is why some say it’s the perfect time to become the gateway to a different new world”.

06:29

Drone shots. To Rincón

Music

06:46

Rincón surfing, beaches

ERIC CAMPBELL:  This is where Puerto Rico’s next chapter might be written, the west coast resort town of Rincón – surf capital of the Caribbean. 

06:55

Music

07:04

Re-Start party

ERIC CAMPBELL:  It’s a week-long gathering called Re-Start Week, aimed quite literally at restarting Puerto Rico.  Many of the guests are unlikely looking millionaires.  They trade in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, selling digital money for real money.

07:14

Warren

WARREN: [subtitle] “Everyone says we’re the smartest guys in the world why don’t we come out somewhere we can live in this beautiful place and be guests of these great people and, you know hopefully make a difference”.

07:37

ERIC CAMPBELL: “And what’s the business attraction of coming to a place that’s just been levelled by a hurricane?”

WARREN: [subtitle] “A blank slate.  Right?  It’s just a blank slate”.

07:47

Partygoers play pool

07:57

Visitors at BBQ

ERIC CAMPBELL:  They believe their technology can help replace Puerto Rico’s broken infrastructure, from cellular networks to solar powered grids.  It’s called Blockchain and the guest of honour is a self-professed Blockchain billionaire.

QUINN EAKER: “He’s super famous, super wealthy, everyone wants his time,

08:01

Quinn

but what’s really extraordinary about Brock is that one, he’s literally dedicating the projects that he invests in to be projects that are furthering the average person, not just the super-rich”.

08:22

Brock arrives at party

ERIC CAMPBELL:  His name is Brock Pierce.  Once a Disney child star, he helped build up a global video company that collapsed in scandal.  He recovered from that to make a fortune in cryptocurrencies.

08:35

MAN AT GATHERING: [subtitle] “Do you surf?”

BROCK PIERCE: [subtitle] “I’ve been surfing a bit over in San Juan. My surf game ain’t there yet, but I’m inspired”.

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Now 37 he’s made Puerto Rico his new home.

08:54

Campbell greets Brock

“Evening Brock, how are you?  Eric. Thank you very much for talking to us.  It’s great to meet you”.

His vision is to create a tropical Silicon Valley.

09:13

Brock interview. Super: Brock Pierce

BROCK PIERCE: “Puerto Rico has the possibility now of being put on the map as a hub of innovation and that’s a wonderful thing if it works”.

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Brock Pierce says he can bring serious money from the mainland.

BROCK PIERCE: “One of the personal skills that I have and one

09:20

of the things I can do to make a difference is I can bring the venture capital.  I can bring the angel investors, the mentors, the advisers, the co-working facilities, the companies.  I mean how many companies has anyone heard of that can raised venture capital in Puerto Rico?  I’m yet to hear of one”.

09:37

Partygoers play pool

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Blockchain was first developed for cryptocurrency, but its applications go much further. For this Blockchain gang, Puerto Rico’s the perfect place to show what it can do.

BROCK PIERCE: “You know has the internet changed our lives?

09:55

Brock interview

Have mobile phones changed our lives?  The Blockchain is something that is that transformative, but you don’t need to understand it in the same way do you know how your phone works?  Do you understand all the components and how they’re made?  And do you know how the internet all works?”

10:13

San Juan beach GVs

Music

10:31

ERIC CAMPBELL:  It’s not just altruism or surf and sand attracting the tech crowd, the island is just a 3-hour flight from New York.  The local government is offering huge incentives to stay.  In the birthplace of Pina Colada, they’d pay just 4% corporate tax and zero tax on capital gains and dividends.  Most locals don’t get what they’re bringing.

10:35

Music

11:09

Blockchain vox pops.

LOCAL REPORTER: “Que es Blockchain?  Blockchain?”

LOCAL WOMAN: “What is Blockchain? What is Blockchain is the question?”

11:13

LOCAL MAN #1: “What is what?”

11:21

LOCAL MAN #2: “Blockchain?”

11:22

LOCAL MAN #3: “Que?”

11:23

LOCAL MAN #4: “No idea what that is”.

11:25

LOCAL MAN #2:      “I don’t know what Blockchain means”.

11:27

LOCAL MAN #4: “What is it?”

11:29

LOCAL WOMAN: “I have no clue”.

11:31

LOCAL REPORTER: “Que es Blockchain?”

LOCAL MAN #5: [subtitle] “It’s technology based on a digital ledger. It allows you to use Bitcoin”.

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Correcto! 

11:32

People GVs

Since the time of Columbus assets have been tracked by bank ledgers.  The benefit of Blockchain is that it makes its own ledger, cutting out the bank and any fee charging middle man.  You deal peer to peer, or as they say here, mano a mano.

11:43

Campbell to camera on street

I’ve just used a credit card to deposit $200 into a Bitcoin app to buy a very small slice of a Bitcoin.  Now I can either sit on that and wait for the price to go up before I cash out, or I can try to use this digital money to buy something real”.

12:02

Campbell into taxi

“Buenos días”.

JOSE SANTANA: ““Buenos días, good morning”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “You take Bitcoin I understand?”

JOSE SANTANA: “Yes of course I take Bitcoin”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Fantastic, let’s go”.

12:22

Taxi ride with Jose

Music

12:29

ERIC CAMPBELL: Jose Santana had to Google what Bitcoin was when a crypto trader first booked his taxi.

12:35

JOSE SANTANA: “Yes I had to Google it because I had no idea and I only had one hour and thirty minutes to figure it out because I tell the client a white lie, you know I said I accept crypto currency but I didn’t.  So I had to figure out how to do it.  Because I say maybe this is going to be an opportunity for me right now”.

12:42

ERIC CAMPBELL: He downloaded a digital wallet.  Now every time he’s paid in cryptocurrency, the software makes an encrypted record called a “block”.  Each new block updates a “chain” of blocks creating a reliable and transparent ledger.

[arriving at destination] “Okay thank you very much. What do I owe you?”

13:02

JOSE SANTANA: “So fare is 29 dollars in Bitcoin”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Okay so this is my first time. So I press 29 dollars and I press send.  Easy peasy”.

JOSE SANTANA: “Yes, easy”.

13:21

ERIC CAMPBELL: That system of secure, decentralised records creates huge potential for reconstruction. 

13:24

Aerials over houses

People could set up their own solar power grids and charge households for exactly what they use. 

13:44

Boy on bike/Men in yards

They could eliminate corruption by tracking how every dollar is spent.  And with crypto, they could avoid transfer fees on money sent from aid groups or relatives on the mainland. 

13:56

Man shows damaged home

But for all the hype, people right now have more urgent concerns – like fixing their roofs before the next hurricane.

14:12

OLD LOCAL MAN: [subtitle] “FEMA did nothing.  I got no money.  Look at my home!  I’m broke.  Look at my eye, I can’t see from the eye”.

14:23

Campbell to camera walking on street

ERIC CAMPBELL: “This is already one of the poorest places in America.  But while the rich are getting tax breaks, the poor are getting squeezed.  Healthcare costs are rising, pensions are being cut, workers are losing their benefits. University fees are going to be more than doubled and literally hundreds of schools are being closed.  This is harsh economic medicine people here see as poison”.

14:35

University of Puerto Rico

Music

15:05

Student protest

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Students are leading the fight against savage austerity cuts.  The University of Puerto Rico is losing $200 million.  Student activist and folk singer Adriana Rodriguez says it has nothing to do with Maria.

15:11

Adriana at protest

ADRIANA RODRIGUEZ: [subtitle] “Those aren’t problems of the hurricane.  They’ve been here before – because of the economic and political crisis”.

15:38

ERIC CAMPBELL:  For decades local governments funded their spending by issuing cheap bonds, in effect selling IOUs. 

15:46

Adriana at protest leading chant

ADRIANA RODRIGUEZ: [subtitle] “Where are the Puerto Ricans who’ll defend us? Where are they? Here!  Where are they?  Here!”

15:53

ERIC CAMPBELL:  The tab is now running at 72 billion dollars and the US Congress has ordered Puerto Rico to slash the debt.

16:02

ADRIANA RODRIGUEZ: “That’s a debt that we didn’t create.  When I say that we didn’t create it, I’m talking about the people, the students, parents

16:10

Adriana interview

and teachers and like it was politicians in power with these corrupt practices that got us into that debt and I would even say that banks in the United States knowing that we didn’t have the capacity to pay this, to pay them back, loaned us the money anyway in sort of like this plan to, to keep us in debt”.

16:15

Students walk

ERIC CAMPBELL: For generations many graduates have had to move to the mainland to find work.  This crisis will make it even harder for them to stay.

16:39

Mural

It’s left young people desperate to find a new way. But they’ve grown deeply sceptical of outsiders.

ADRIANA RODRIGUEZ: [singing/subtitle] “We remember the disaster.  Look it was just a natural thing. 

16:50

Adriana singing

This is the product of being a colony.  We are never a priority.  Let’s write our history. Let’s look for freedom.  Where is it?”

17:04

Guy spray painting/Day resort

Music

17:15

Re-Start Week participants at session

ERIC CAMPBELL: It’s the main session of Re-Start Week, a listening day to hear what Puerto Ricans think.  The Blockchain gang knows the local support will be crucial if they’re going to turn

17:40

Brock posing for photos

this into a Blockchain island.

QUINN EAKER: “I have believed for quite some time now, that you know, cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology was going to change the world.  In fact, I believe it already has. 

17:53

t

Like when you drop a rock in the pond or whatever, the ripples start going out, but it takes seconds or minutes for those ripples to finally reach the outside of that pond, right?  And so you know the Blockchain has already rippled reality, it’s already rippled reality and reality is changing before us”.

18:08

Re-Start participants around bar

ERIC CAMPBELL:  The mood around the resort bar is upbeat, but there’s trouble looming in paradise. 

“With all that you’re doing

18:27

Brock interview

there are still people who say you’re a vulture capitalist coming down here to feed on the carrion of Puerto Rico’s misery”.

BROCK PIERCE: “They haven’t met us.  Hang out for a moment and you should be able to tell instantly that that’s not our intentions”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Does that annoy you when that happens?”

BROCK PIERCE: “No, I don’t get annoyed by, you know, the uninformed.  You don’t get mad at a child”.

18:35

People into Re-Start session

SPEAKER #1: “We’re here to support. We want to understand the challenges, what you have faced

19:02

Re-Start session speaker

and how we can help make the home affordable for you, for the land.  And help bring our tools and guidance but to support with.  So we’re here just to support and learn and we’re going to co-create this, what we want to design together”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: At first, it’s mainlanders doing most of the talking, but independence activists have crashed the session to ask some pointed questions.

19:08

Amy asks questions

AMY MONTOYA: “You guys are making it seems like all the children in Puerto Rico need to be well versed in technology.  And that is not the case.  What they need to be well versed in is agriculture”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: Suddenly the day of listening becomes a day of fighting.

SPEAKER #2: “All of these people have such good intentions,

19:31

Guy with Amy

but you don’t know that and I’m not asking you to trust them”.

AMY MONTOYA: “I do, I believe that people have good intentions. I do believe that”.

SPEAKER #2: [speaking over the top of Amy] “They have such good intentions and they are going to make something beautiful happen and you’re going to be a part of it whether you like it or not”.

AMY MONTOYA: “There you go!  What is that though, ‘whether I like it or not’.”

LOCAL ACTIVIST: “We don’t like it.  We don’t like it”.

SPEAKER #2: “Eventually you will.  The whole, the whole understanding,

19:52

Brock watches confrontation

you’re going to create something that you’re going to like”.

SPEAKER #3: “It’s not going to happen overnight and you know what?  It’s going to happen when all of us work together because this land is our responsibility collectively”.

20:14

More confrontation

FEMALE ACTIVIST: “You guys didn’t have any interest in Puerto Rico until the tax breaks came and that’s why you’re here”.

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Instead of being welcomed as allies, they find themselves being treated as crypto-colonialists.

20:25

Brock addresses session

BROCK PIERCE: “I am here in service.  I’ve committed my entire life to the last breath in service to humanity”.

LOCAL BLACK WOMAN: “We don’t need a saviour, coming in a white skin with blue eyes.  We don’t need saviours”.

20:37

SPEAKER #4: “We’re not here to take over or do anything.  We want to step behind you and give you strength in your numbers.  I’ve relocated my life from Hawaii”.

20:48

Amy

AMY MONTOYA: “So don’t tell me you don’t have an agenda because your agenda is to come live on our land and you know what?  It’s not that we don’t want you here.  It’s not that we don’t want Americans here.  We want you here on our terms, just like any other country”.

20:57

ERIC CAMPBELL: This is not how the day was meant to go.

21:11

Brock

BROCK PIERCE: “I’m here to help any farmer that wants to figure out how to farm. I don’t want to own their land. I want to figure out how to give them the resources so they can grow on their land.  It’s teach a man to fish, teach, teach a person how to grow.  You know, great people want to grow some things here?  I’m here to help you grow some things.  You show me, bring me the farmers that want some land.  I will figure out how to buy that land to give it to them so that they can grow the things that are needed here. Show me, show me real opportunities and I’ll show you real solutions”.

21:15

Re-Starters at outside bar

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Outside Brock Pierce puts on a brave face.

21:42

Brock

BROCK PIERCE: “We had a very healthy conversation with a few local Puerto Ricans that don’t yet understand what this movement or technology is about.  But they are upset, generally speaking, about the state of things and you know being, feeling like victims for 500 years and very, very passionate and going, how is this going to be different? You know how should we trust this?  You know and I think that’s healthy”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Are you surprised by the lack of trust?”

21:49

BROCK PIERCE: “No not at all. I mean for 500 years this place has, you know, been taken advantage of, so I mean I think that that’s where Puerto Ricans should start, they should start sceptical”.

22:29

Seafront bar

Music

22:41

Mariana houses/Murals

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Back in Mariana, Christine is getting ready for the next disaster.  Luis’s old school closed five years ago. 

22:44

Christine and Campbell in school

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “Yes, this is heartbreaking.  It’s just…”.

ERIC CAMPBELL:  They’re turning it into a community centre.

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “We think that his place has the potential

23:02

Christine interview

for turning into an emergency clinic if it’s necessary after any hurricane, a centre for actual community driven hurricane preparedness and planning, which we are going to be working on once the generator gets here”.

23:16

ERIC CAMPBELL:  As usual they’re getting no help from FEMA or the island government.

23:31

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “Trying to be the government… not the government but understand what it is to be, to self-govern. I mean how do you do that? How do you manage resources and energy and understand what people need?”

23:35

ERIC CAMPBELL: “And you’re working on the assumption that there is going to be another giant storm like Maria again”.

23:46

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “We’re preparing for that”.

23:51

Sunset shots

23:53

ERIC CAMPBELL:  Like many of her generation she left Puerto Rico after she graduated. 

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “I actually left to never come back”.

23:58

Christine

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Why have you come back?”

CHRISTINE NIEVES: “Why?  Because if it’s not now, there’s nothing worth fighting for. [emotional]

24:05

Christine and Luis

It’s now.  We are at a crossroads and we’ll look back at this moment and it’s either going to be a beautiful place that we’ve always dreamed of, or not”.

24:13

String of lights

[Luis sings]

24:27

ERIC CAMPBELL: They power up the generator for another night off the grid.  The much hyped Blockchain may one day help rebuild Puerto Rico but that will depend on local people being willing to embrace it.  The age of outsiders telling them what’s best are over.

24:35

Luis sings

25:02

Credits start over

Reporter: Eric Campbell

Producer: Matt Davis

Camera: Mathew Marsic

                Matt Davis

Editor:  Nikki Stevens

Researcher: Anne Worthington

Executive Producer: Marianne Leitch

abc.net.au/foreign

© ABC 2018

25:10

Outpoint after credits

25:34