Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper was in Sri Lanka to shoot an episode of his Meet The Drapers TV show with local entrepreneurs, and met President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Tuesday to proselytise the adoption of cryptocurrency. He journeyed to the central bank the next day with the same pitch - but embattled governor Nandalal Weerasinghe, who is still working to calm financial mayhem, was having none of it.
"I come to the central bank with decentralised currency," proclaimed Mr Draper, dressed in a Bitcoin tie for the meeting.
"We don't accept," Mr Weerasinghe said.
It was a frostier response than Mr Draper had received in some other locations. The tiny island country of Palau in the Pacific made him the founding resident of its digital residency programme, for instance.
This story is from the February 04, 2023 edition of The Straits Times.
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This story is from the February 04, 2023 edition of The Straits Times.
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