Table of Contents
- A Moratorium Until 2027? That’s Not Prudence. That’s Sabotage.
- The “Offences” Table Is a Warning Shot
- The Deeper Problem: Trinidad Doesn’t Understand Power, Only Control
- The Irony That Hurts Most
- The Bottom Line
By a Port of Spain correspondent
When Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008, he wasn’t just solving a technical problem. He was issuing a blistering indictment of the financial establishment. His opening salvo?
“Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. … The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size.”
Now read Trinidad and Tobago’s Virtual Assets and Virtual Assets Service Providers Bill, 2025. It is, in almost every respect, the opposite of Satoshi’s vision. Where he built a system to remove trusted third parties, this bill enshrines a new one: the Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission (TTSEC). Where he created a network where “any two willing parties can transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted party,” this bill demands that no virtual asset activity happens without the Commission’s permission.
This isn’t regulation. It’s a pre-emptive occupation of a borderless technology by a small, centralized authority.
A Moratorium Until 2027? That’s Not Prudence. That’s Sabotage. #
Let’s look at Clause 4(3). The Commission is barred from granting any authorisation to operate as a wallet service provider or to carry out virtual asset activities until December 31, 2027.
Think about that. A government looking at a global industry — one built on decentralisation, permissionless innovation, and cryptographic proof — and declaring a two-year dead zone. No new wallets. No new exchanges. No new custodians.
In Satoshi’s model, trust is replaced by verification. In this Bill, trust is replaced by a government holiday.
And for what? The Bill’s own summary says it’s following FATF Recommendations 15 and 16. Yes, FATF wants VASP regulation to fight money laundering. But nowhere does FATF demand a blanket ban on licensing for two full years. That’s a political choice. A choice to strangle the local industry before it can breathe.
The “Offences” Table Is a Warning Shot #
Look at the penalty table. An individual engaging in unauthorised virtual asset activity faces a $5 million fine and five years in prison. Continuing offence? Another $500,000 per day.
For comparison, Trinidad’s Securities Act penalties for insider trading top out at $1 million. So according to this Bill, running an uncensored Bitcoin node as a business is five times more criminal than cheating pensioners out of their savings using inside information.
Satoshi wrote:
“We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.”
This Bill replies: “You will rely on us, or you will go to jail.”
The Deeper Problem: Trinidad Doesn’t Understand Power, Only Control #
Here’s the rot this Bill exposes. Trinidad’s political and financial elite have never truly understood markets — only licences. The telephone monopoly. The broadcast monopoly. The decades of import licences. The centralised energy sector. The instinct is always: form a commission, write a schedule of offences, appoint a minister, centralise.
But you cannot centralise a decentralised protocol. You cannot “prohibit” peer-to-peer software. You cannot “direct to cease activity” a teenager in Chaguanas running a Lightning node. All you can do is drive innovation underground, or offshore, or into the hands of the same unregulated foreign exchanges you claim to fear.
Satoshi’s proof-of-work system solved the double-spending problem without a mint. Trinidad’s solution to the same problem? Create a new mint. Call it a Commission. And threaten to jail anyone who doesn't use it.
Even the Bill’s own “Comparative Legislation” table shows the Bahamas’ Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges Act, 2024 has exclusions, exemptions, and clearer scope. Trinidad’s Bill has none. It sweeps up everyone. Because in Trinidad, the default assumption is not innovation — it is guilt.
The Irony That Hurts Most #
Clause 10 talks about co-operation with the Central Bank and Financial Intelligence Unit. But there is no clause — not one — that acknowledges the existence of public, permissionless, self-custodial systems. No exemption for non-custodial wallets. No “right to run a node.” No protection for miners. No distinction between a bank-like exchange and a piece of open-source software.
Satoshi’s closing words:
“Nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.”
Trinidad’s Bill: “You can leave. You can rejoin. But if you do any of the five listed activities without our written permission — even the act of ‘transfer’ defined as moving a virtual asset for another person — you are a criminal.”
This Bill isn’t a framework. It’s a fear response. It’s the sound of a bureaucracy that saw something it couldn’t fully understand, couldn’t fully control, and decided to criminalise first and ask questions never.
The Bottom Line #
Trinidad doesn’t need a VASP Bill written by people who confuse Bitcoin with a share certificate. It needs a national conversation about decentralisation, financial inclusion, and what “trust” actually means in the 21st century.
Satoshi gave us a way to verify without trusting. This Bill gives us a Commission, a prison term, and a two-year waiting list.
One of those is the future. The other is just more Trinidad.