The Venezuelan businessman who recently agreed to purchase a substantial portion of the assets of HashFast—a bankrupt Bitcoin miner maker startup—believes that he has a plan to save the company. What is it exactly and why will it succeed where the company itself failed? He’s not saying.

"I cannot talk about certain areas because of a confidentiality clause I signed as a member of the HashFast Creditors Committee," Guido Ochoa told Ars by e-mail, in English.

"However, it is not like you asked: as part of the contract negotiation with HashFast we offered some things in exchange for others, among them, we offered the HashFast Estate the possibility to acquire part of our future production at a cost price," he said. "There is also a marketing topic but I am afraid I cannot give you details at the moment."

As Ars reported on Monday, the new deal between Ochoa (himself a former HashFast customer) and the San Francisco startup allows Ochoa to build mining boards that he will then sell back to HashFast at cost. This arrangement baffled the federal bankruptcy judge.

"What troubled me was to read that Mr. Ochoa will allow the debtor to buy mining boards?" Judge Dennis Montali said from the bench in a hearing on December 5.

"This is like a patient that is going to die from three different things and now you're suggesting a fourth surgery," he added. "Now they want to do a hip transplant? Why?"

A new economic order?

On Monday, after Ars published its latest article on HashFast, Ochoa contacted Ars through Eduardo de Castro, the company’s former CEO and its sole effectively remaining employee. Eventually, Ochoa e-mailed Ars directly and agreed to answer a few questions via e-mail.

"I would first like to clarify that I have nothing to do with the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan government has to do anything in this negotiation, so your questions should eliminate stigma to my country and its government," Ochoa said at the outset of the e-mail exchange.

Ochoa’s father, also named Guido Ochoa, is a member of the Venezuelan Congress and is a member of the National Assembly’s Science and Technology Commission. The elder Ochoa is a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the party of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Given that Venezuela has had strict capital controls for over a decade now, it is very difficult to move large amounts of money out of the country. Just this month, Caracas allowed the central bank to hold currency reserves for the first time in something other than the country’s currency, the bolivar. The reserves will now be in foreign currency, precious metals, and even diamonds. As such, it’s easy to see how Bitcoin could be attractive in a place like Venezuela: it could be used for international financial transfers.

A Venezuelan news website, RunRun.es, reported (Google Translate) Thursday that the younger Ochoa’s plastics company, Siosca, had received $18 million from the Commission on Administration of Foreign Exchange between 2004 and 2012.

But the younger Ochoa told Ars moving money outside the country is not his intention.

"Personally, I am not working with Bitcoin for the reasons you state in your question," he wrote. "As I said before, I have been following Bitcoin since 2010, and the unfortunate bankruptcy at HashFast has given me an opportunity to get involved in the design of ASIC chips for mining. The vision we have is to create new chips with greater processing power and a much better processing/consumption ratio. We hope to become world leaders in the design, manufacture and sale of Bitcoin mining systems."

Interestingly enough, Siosca itself does not even accept Bitcoin.

"My business in Venezuela distributes to large companies," he wrote. "We do not sell in small quantities (retail). I think there are no more than 10 companies or individuals working/accepting bitcoin in Venezuela, it really is an unknown subject."

So why is he interested in Bitcoin to begin with?

"Since childhood I have been interested in the world of technology, I had seen happen big changes in technology that I had wanted to participate in but, my limited experience, no access to capital and youth among other reasons, only allowed me a minimal involvement," he added.

"I have been looking into Bitcoin since 2010 and I think it is something sensational that has the potential to become a revolution like the industrial revolution or the personal computers, the Internet, mobile network, etc. If my intuition and analysis is correct and, I hope it is, Bitcoin will be the next revolutionary change in new ways to make monetary and commercial transactions and possibly, impose a new economic and social order."