I'm very sad to be leaving! It's very energizing to visit El Salvador, where people's lives appear to be quickly improving and everyone is full of optimism.
I had lunch at the hotel restaurant (paid to their Blink account) and took a car for $35 to San Salvador (paid through Blink). You can also take the bus for ~$1. Bus 102A leaves from Sunzal and goes direct to San Salvador via El Tunco. If you are coming from El Zonte you can either take any bus to Sunzal, or go all the way to La Libertad and switch to the 102 there, which departs much more frequently.
I also got to take a final stroll through San Benito and spend some sats.
☕ I went to a coffee shop nearby that is marked on BTCMap. I ask about Bitcoin and I'm told they don't accept it, but as I turn around the shop manager changes her mind and says that I can pay with Strike, asking whether Strike is Bitcoin. I enjoy my desserts, but when it comes to paying I have to help her navigate the Strike wallet, which is surprisingly difficult. Neither of us can figure out how to create a dollar denominated invoice, so I calculate the exchange rate on my phone and she invoices me the sats amount. Not sure she will be accepting Bitcoin again.
🍟 I head back to McDonald's, and ask to pay with "Chivo." It takes a while for the Chivo tablet to appear, and it's some web-based checkout system I hadn't seen before. In Chivo, you can either "receive USD" and optionally convert to BTC, or you can "receive BTC" and optionally convert to USD. Not exactly intuitive. But at least in this web UI switching between onchain addresses and Lightning invoices is much smoother. The receipt contains a prompt to leave feedback in exchange for free chicken nuggets. Maybe somebody will read it.
🏪I go back to the convenience store where I paid successfully with Bitcoin before, but am told that they don't accept it. I end up paying with cash.
🥩 For dinner I end up at an Argentinian restaurant that I found on BTCMaps, but when it comes to paying, I'm told they don't accept Bitcoin after all.
🛫I pay $35 for an airport transfer. It's midnight soon, and there was no traffic or lines at security.
Conclusion:
El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment is in full swing, and whether you consider it a failure or a success depends largely on your expectations. It's been almost exactly three years since Bitcoin became legal tender, and in that time we saw the currency drop and recover rapidly.
I fear a lot of people lost significant money in this bear run and weren't able to hold onto their sats for long enough to see them appreciate in value. Does this experience make it more likely people will spend their Bitcoin in the next cycle, or less likely for them to accept them?
The Chivo rollout was a bit of a disaster and I fear a lot of goodwill was burned in that process. But the app has matured and can now reliably receive payments. The UI is still not great, but it's navigable and the ATMs are invaluable for Bitcoin in El Salvador. Whenever I came past a Chivo ATM, I saw others use it, which I can't say about Bitcoin ATMs anywhere else in the world.
Bitcoin is, for the moment, tourist money. It makes a lot of sense as tourist money, as tourists are used to digital payments and often do not have easy access to cash while on vacation in the tropics. When people from all over the world visit a developing country, payment issues are bound to arise, unless you use Bitcoin. Tourists are big spenders, so whatever tourists have, people will accept.
Places that are cash-only tend to not accept Bitcoin, and outside of El Zonte, places that accept Bitcoin almost always also accept cards. It seems that Bitcoin is not as useful for the unbanked as we thought.
Communities of enthusiasts embedded in the local economy can ensure the success of Bitcoin payments. There's still a lot of hand holding, and anyone involved in wallets and payment providers should be making regular trips to learn how their customers use their products. They should be promoting the businesses that use their product, keep online directories up to date and make sure that these business continue to accept Bitcoin payments.
A wide variety of payment processors feels like a sign of a healthy Bitcoin economy. Bitcoin Beach started with their own wallet (now Blink), but today you can find about half a dozen of wallets and payment processors along the beach. Each business has its own unique needs, and its great to see competition over who serves them best.
We lack professional integrations of Lightning payments. Contrary to intuition, it's very rare to be able to spend sats online in El Salvador. Whenever a business takes Bitcoin, the process feels separated from the regular business flow. The McDonald's integration is broken, vending machines never accept Bitcoin, and neither do online retailers, airlines or most utility providers.
Regularly spending Bitcoin matters. If we want Bitcoin to become money, we have to treat it as money. The masses will not adopt Bitcoin before Bitcoiners do, so I believe as Bitcoin proponents we have a duty to use it wherever we can and spread it in our communities. For now, people who use Bitcoin are a tiny minority even among Bitcoiners, which already are only a tiny fraction of the population. It only takes a handful of customers every month for a business to keep accepting Bitcoin payments, and in San Salvador, many shops hadn't seen a customer in weeks.
Beyond Bitcoin, there appears to be a big boom in credit cards, payment solutions and other digital wallets. You're guaranteed to see far more advertisement and acceptance for these "fintechs" than for Bitcoin. As El Salvador rises, well-off locals are turning primarily to bank cards, not to Bitcoin.
Resources:
🌐 I heavily depended on BTCMap to find businesses that accept Bitcoin. I also made sure that every place I visited was either verified or removed from the map before I went to bed that day.
📌 Organic Maps is an open source map using the same OpenStreetMap data that BTCMap does. I heavily use the app, and all maps are stored locally on your device so you have them accessible even without internet reception (amazing for hiking). With a bit of finesse you can export the data from BTCMap using the KMZ file format and import it into your Organic Maps app.
✈️ Travala is great for booking flights and hotels over the Lightning Network.
🇩🇪 Rooms and apartments for rent in Berlin is a useful directory if you want to stay in Berlin.
🏖️ El Zonte Rentals is a similar directory for finding homes along the beach. As of right now the site seems to be offline, but I hope it comes back up soon.
🚗 Bitdriver can help you arrange airport transfers, trips to and from the beach or pretty much anywhere. Their drivers were always highly reliable and safe.
Thank you!
I'm very grateful for everyone who accompanied me on parts of trip, thank you Larry, thank you to the wonderful people at the Bitcoin Center Berlin and the Bitcoin Beach Community. You're an inspiration to us all! If anybody would love to experience our own circular Bitcoin economy in Vancouver, BC, please reach out!