El Salvador’s Wild Bitcoin Experiment Just Might Work
Last fall, El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender. I traveled there to see what it looks like on the ground.
Right after I hopped out the back of a pickup in El Zonte, El Salvador, I recognized I wasn’t in an ordinary beach town. El Zonte’s welcome sign had two Bitcoin logos, its cafes offered 75% Bitcoin discounts, and its trash cans sported the Bitcoin emblem. I’d been hitchhiking my way through the country’s west coast, enjoying its world-class surf conditions last month, and wasn’t looking for its Bitcoin epicenter. But somehow, I’d stumbled right in.
When El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender last September, many — myself included — reacted skeptically. Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, seemed to be YOLOing away the country’s treasure like a Reddit-addicted crypto trader. Bukele bought millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin, complained he “missed the f***ing bottom by 7 minutes,” then Bitcoin’s price tanked, costing the country dearly. It seemed like a mess. But the reality on the ground, I found, is more complicated than the narrative. There’s a good chance El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment works out, at least in some ways.
The Bitcoin movement in El Salvador began in El Zonte when a California surfer named Mike Peterson…
