Dvoracek, a 71-year-old Czech national who sells artisan bread with his Venezuelan wife at local food markets, said he is now doing around 25% of his sales through the new Bitcoin Jungle wallet.
“Most of us using bitcoin now leave the credit card machines at home," he added, referring to his fellow stall vendors.
On a recent Friday in the surf town of Dominical, over a dozen vendors including Dvoracek were accepting bitcoin.
The wallet app has had about 1,500 downloads, and 1,000 monthly active users.
The project is a prime example of how the original Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador’s El Zonte — which presaged that country’s decision to make bitcoin legal tender last year — is spurring the organic growth of local bitcoin ecosystems elsewhere in the world. It’s also providing more evidence that bitcoin can be an effective and useful payments system
Like the El Zonte project, Bitcoin Jungle’s wallet runs on the second layer Lightning Network.
It’s a fork of the original Bitcoin Beach wallet built with the open-source Bitcoin development platform Galoy, but has added features like a GPS map showing locations where bitcoin is accepted and contactless near field communication (NFC) payment capability.
Instead of relying on adoption by locals, Bitcoin Jungle is primarily aiming to penetrate the ranks of foreign tourists who flock here for Costa Rica’s unspoiled beaches, verdant rain forests and pristine waterfalls.
Lee Salminen, a software developer [and partner in Bitcoin Jungle] said he’s optimistic that more locals will come on board, especially given that Costa Rica’s own currency has declined around 10% against the dollar in the past year.
After the first week of Bitcoin Jungle going live in the local markets, every vendor took the option to cash out. Now, very few are doing that, says Salminen.
Marking the next step in enhancing the ability to switch between bitcoin and fiat was the recent arrival of two shiny new bitcoin ATMs.
“The tourism ministry wants to talk with us to form an angle of how bitcoin could be positive for tourism here and use that to drive legislation,” he said.