📺 Bitcoin Beach: How a town in El Salvador became a testing ground for bitcoin

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📺 Bitcoin Beach: How a town in El Salvador became a testing ground for bitcoin | 60 Minutes www.cbsnews.com/news/bitcoin-beach-el-salvador-60-minutes-2022-04-10/

150 sats \ 9 comments \ @cryptocoin 11 Apr 2022 bitcoin

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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @cointastical 13 Apr 2022

Here's a Tweet that starts a Twitter thread with good info:

1/ You may recently have seen the @60Minutes feature below about @BitcoinBeach and the #ElSalvador government @AsambleaSV's adoption of #Bitcoin as legal tender for the country. This is just the tip of a much, much bigger global movement. 🧵

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @cointastical 13 Apr 2022

And the full Twitter thread, unrolled:

Thread by @ScottAWolfe on Thread Reader App https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1514000583044354055.html

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 11 Apr 2022

Overall that was pretty good. The main FUD in this clip is volatility. I wish I understood more about volatility but it seems irrelevant in a circular economy.

When I transact with friends in Bitcoin, we tend to not be super concerned about the exchange rate in cases where the underlying goods/services weren't at some point denominated in dollars.

5 sats \ 5 replies \ @cryptocoin OP 11 Apr 2022

The only traffic jams in El Zonte are caused by loose livestock.

in 2019, El Zonte got an unexpected break. Peterson says he was introduced to someone representing an anonymous donor with a fortune in bitcoin who wanted to see it put to good use – with one stipulation.

The stipulation was you can't just convert it into dollars because they believe the actual usage of bitcoin would be what would benefit the people. And so for me, it was, like, wow, this is somebody that wants to actually see a circular economy generated using bitcoin and they're willing to actually put the funds behind it.

Mike Peterson and his partners turned their attention to a group much more comfortable with all things digital – teenagers.

We were hiring them to do things in the community – pick up trash out of the river – and then we'd pay them in bitcoin. And so, they got into this rhythm of going out and working and earning bitcoin.

I will benefit if the price of bitcoin goes up, but I can't impact that. I can't influence that. That's not the driving reason behind this. The reason is we want to see El Zonte transformed.

Sharyn Alfonsi: You get a direct message on Twitter from who? Jack Mallers: The brother of the president. Jack Mallers: He wants to meet with me. And he gave me 24 hours.

President Nayib Bukele once referred to himself as "the world's coolest dictator."

Luis Membreño: The government wants people to think that this can be a currency. But this is just an asset and a speculative asset with a huge volatility. Imagine the U.S. dollar having a volatility of 20% in one day; would be crazy.

In El Zonte, 19-year-old Ismael Galdamez doesn't worry about a wipeout. He's teaching surf lessons and back in school.

When he learned the shaved ice vendors in El Zonte were going 30 minutes out of town to buy ice, he decided to become the ice supplier in town and used his bitcoin profits to buy this freezer.

Ismael is planning to move his parents and siblings into this new house in El Zonte later this month. He plans to pay the mortgage in bitcoin.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @cryptocoin OP 11 Apr 2022

Here's a trailer for a documentary on El Salvador:

🎥 DARE TO DREAM (A story from El Salvador) - OFFICIAL TRAILER #18909 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8CMA28efRQ

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @cryptocoin OP 11 Apr 2022

And here's a trailer for even yet another documentary on El Salvador:

🎥 Bond to Unbind - Bitcoin and El Salvador [trailer2] | Satoshi Pollen #18947 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EevmI3oQhfc

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryptocoin OP 11 Apr 2022

Here's the teaser Tweet that 60 Minutes had been airing to promote their show:

60 Minutes to Air Segment on El Zonte and its "Bitcoin Beach" experiment #19091

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryptocoin OP 11 Apr 2022

Here's a 4 minute follow-on video from the 60 Minutes Youtube channel, as a "60 Minutes Overtime" video:

This is a postcard from the future, to show the world that bitcoin is money and that everyday people can use it as such.

The tech behind the Bitcoin Beach Wallet

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryptocoin OP 11 Apr 2022

And there's even one more documentary in the works:

New #Bitcoin Documentary Trailer