What Happened When a 3,000-Person Village in El Salvador Became “Bitcoin Beach”
Last week, El Salvador’s legislature voted to become the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. While the U.S. dollar will still be El Salvador’s official currency, all businesses in the country will have to start accepting Bitcoin barring extenuating circumstances (like lack of technological resources), and citizens will be able to pay their taxes and debts with the cryptocurrency.
The government is hoping that this futuristic economic policy will attract investment from cryptocurrency businesses, provide transformative financial resources for the 70 percent of El Salvadorans who are unbanked, and facilitate remittances, which amount to about 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. And, true to the madcap spirit of the Bitcoin community, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has already directed a state-owned geothermal electric firm to start constructing Bitcoin mining facilities that will be powered by heat from the country’s volcanoes.
At the same time, critics have pointed out that the plan is very light on details and that Bitcoin is notoriously difficult to use as a day-to-day currency partly due to its volatility. In addition, there’s a good chance that a large swath of businesses in the country won’t even be able to feasibly accept the cryptocurrency; El Salvador has lowest rates of internet penetration in Latin America. Bukele, however, has been pointing to a small Salvadoran beach town called El Zonte where residents have been using Bitcoin for nearly two years as evidence that the cryptocurrency could help power the economy nationwide.
