Have you heard of the Bitcoin Beach? It is a small community in El Salvador that has built a micro economy entirely using Bitcoin. This is a pretty neat experiment that has turned into a complete bitcoin success story. Michael Peterson is the Director of Bitcoin Beach and is leading the project in El Zonte. It all really started in 2018 when an anonymous donor contacted Michael Peterson. This donor wanted to start an economy somewhere in the world where financial services were not accessible. The donor gave Michael an undisclosed amount of bitcoin to jumpstart the education, and utility of using it within the community.
A Micro Economy Experiment
El Zonte is a bit of a grand experiment within the already grand experiment we know as Bitcoin. Ever since the inception of Bitcoin, (and even before it), it has been debated whether or not people would actually use Bitcoin as currency. Now, there is a place on earth that is actually trying to manifest the vision of Bitcoin. A true peer to peer electronic cash system used within a population that is subject to corrupt, or non-existent financial services. This is essentially what makes El Zonte a remarkable micro economy experiment. El Zonte is a community of about 3000 people, living an hour or more from the nearest city centre. A lot of the times, people need to travel into the city in order to access financial services. The people living in this community are of all ages, but there is definitely a chunk of the population that is elderly. Within this demographic, it was difficult to teach them about Bitcoin and explain to them the reasons why it should be used over cash.
Michael and his team decided to go about teaching the community in a different manner. Explaining the technology to a younger demographic, and a select group of stores, Michael was able to incentivize people to spend their bitcoin on groceries. Then another group decided to start simplifying the paying of electricity bills. People eventually were able to pay their home electricity bills, from their home, using Bitcoin. A third party company would then make the payments on their behalf to the power company. This is an example of real value being created where there was none before. Like it was mentioned before, people needed to travel hours in order to pay their utility bill, now they can pay it from their home. This is what Bitcoin represents to people in developing nations. Bitcoin is a skip technology for those without financial infrastructure.
Bitcoin is a Skip Technology
Just like how Africa skipped landline telephones, so too shall developing nations without financial infrastructure skip banks. There is really no need to build brick and mortar institutions for depositing sums of cash. Cryptocurrency has all the technology required to handle the populations living in developing nations. Banks are needed to provide the safekeeping of funds, and the offering of financial services such as loans. However, all of this is possible within the cryptosphere. All of which would not be possible without the invention of Bitcoin.
The Go Full Crypto Vision
We want to help people opt-into the world of cryptocurrency, one dollar at a time. In order to do this, people must need a reason. They need their own "why" behind discarding their government currency for the world currency of the future. Go Full Crypto is putting out content to help people discover the reason why they want to get involved in cryptocurrency.
Download Episode 16 of Go Full Crypto - Michael Peterson from El Zonte, Bitcoin Beach
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