Sirlibz
Bitcoin has been adopted as money in a small rustic beach town off the coast of El Salvador. The village houses an estimated 3000 locals who are unbanked.
The Bitcoin Beach Initiative
This is an initiative that was set up by an anonymous donor in partnership with Micheal Peterson, a San-Diego native that spends up to 9 months volunteering in El Zonte.
The vision of this initiative is to set up a sustainable Bitcoin ecosystem and economy for the villages where residents are unbanked and the local businesses do not meet the requirements to accept Credit cards.
To cut out on Bitcoin fees and transaction delays, the Bitcoin Beach Initiative utilized the Australian-based wallet known as Wallet of Satoshi, the wallet utilizes the Lightning Network protocol.
“Originally, it didn’t make sense for 25 cent transactions, but did for 5 dollars. But when the transaction costs ramped up again, we switched over to the Lightning Network,” says Michael Peterson, Founder of Bitcoin Beach.
What can you buy with Bitcoin?
You can basically buy anything here with your Bitcoin just like you would have used cash anywhere else.
You can buy Hardware supplies and also pay your utility bills with Bitcoin. Youths keep the community clean in exchange for Bitcoin, the Bitcoin Beach Initiative also gives grants to children who wish to further their education. They provide those students with transportation funds to school and money for snacks.
You can use Bitcoin to buy groceries from stores, three restaurants, cut your hair in the saloon all with Bitcoin. Contractors, builders and suppliers for construction projects are all paid in Bitcoin.
How is this possible?
Well, cryptocurrency has overall always been about educating the masses, and also seeing up techs that would aid that mass adoption. With the right kind of cryptocurrency education, even elderly ones are able to adapt.
“As we injected Bitcoin into the community, we also taught local businesses how to accept it and helped educate them on the advantages and drawbacks of accepting Bitcoin…There was a lot of resistance among the adults, [it was] too technical. So we moved on to youth, they picked it up right away. The key is to get them to start transacting right away, then they want to learn more about it, the security of it, and how it works,” described Michael Peterson.
The Bitcoin Beach Initiative is also working on a new product Strike App, which will allow the connection of recipients’ Bitcoin wallet with the senders Bank account thereby allowing international transfers to be made.
