{"id":13283,"date":"2025-02-15T15:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T15:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=13283"},"modified":"2025-02-15T15:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T15:05:09","slug":"el-salvador-dispatch-how-bitcoin-taught-a-nation-to-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=13283","title":{"rendered":"El Salvador Dispatch: How Bitcoin Taught a Nation to Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article is part of a four-piece series on El Salvador. You can find the previous dispatch, a story on El Zonte, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There was formidable energy at this year\u2019s Plan B conference in El Salvador.<\/p>\n

The event, which took place on Jan. 30-31, was historic for many of its 2,500 attendants. It was the first Bitcoin forum in the Central American nation to have a full dual-language agenda \u2014 meaning sessions in both English and Spanish.<\/p>\n

For Roman Mart\u00ednez, a Salvadoran co-founder of Bitcoin Beach, Plan B was a dream come true, because it enabled ordinary Salvadorans to make sense of their country\u2019s Bitcoin experiment and ponder their own place within it. \u201cUp until now, every Bitcoin conference was geared towards foreigners,\u201d he told me on the first day, in Spanish. \u201cNot everybody knows English. It\u2019s already hard to learn a complex topic in your own language. In another, it\u2019s three times harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mart\u00ednez was involved in organizing the event. The expectation, he said, was for maybe 100 to 150 Salvadorans would show up \u2014 but more than 1,500 tickets were sold to Spanish speakers. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen so many Salvadoran faces at a Bitcoin conference,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re arriving at a point where Salvadorans are realizing that Bitcoin isn\u2019t going anywhere, and either we learn to become part of it right now, or we\u2019re going to be left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

I could feel it too.<\/p>\n

The English-speaking area, located at the Sheraton Presidente San Salvador Hotel, had crypto celebrities on stage including Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, and OGs like Samson Mow, Jimmy Song, Blockstream CEO Adam Back and early Bitcoin developer Peter Todd. \u201cWe are witnessing a battle between centralized and decentralized systems!\u201d Walker America, host of THE Bitcoin Podcast, shouted at the conference\u2019s opening panel.<\/p>\n

Yet that side of the conference felt somewhat formulaic compared to the Spanish-speaking zone, held at the Museum of Arts of El Salvador, which was absolutely electric. Over there, Salvadorans of all stripes outlined plans to help their country develop \u2014 from providing new educational opportunities, to mixing Bitcoin with dental care, to discussing the government\u2019s strategy with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Many of the panel speakers, young Salvadorans themselves, had fire in their eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the right place in the world at the right time in history,\u201d Gerardo Linares, co-founder of Bitcoin Berl\u00edn (the initiative behind the nation\u2019s second Bitcoin circular economy<\/a>) said to a completely bewitched audience. \u201cIt\u2019s all happening right here, in El Salvador.\u201d<\/p>\n

A conference for Salvadorans<\/h2>\n

I was struck by the Spanish area\u2019s demographic makeup. Crypto conferences are famously male-dominated; participants often complain of having to navigate a sea of dudes. The English-speaking zone was like that \u2014 maybe 90% male and 10% female.<\/p>\n

The Spanish side was much more balanced, with a ratio of approximately 60% men and 40% women. While the majority of attendants sported black and orange Bitcoin T-shirts, you also saw middle-aged Salvadoran couples wearing elegant Salvadoran outfits, and twenty-something university students with turtlenecks and notepads.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I asked Evelyn Lemus and Patricia Rosales, two of the Salvadorans who spearheaded the Bitcoin initiative in Berl\u00edn, what they thought of the female attendance rate. They didn\u2019t seem surprised. \u201cThere is a new generation of Salvadoran women who do not depend on men,\u201d Rosales, a single mother herself, told me.\u201c<\/p>\n

In El Salvador, most of the time, it\u2019s women who manage family finances,\u201d Lemus said. \u201cThat\u2019s why they come to events like this: To see how they can manage and invest the family money. It\u2019s one of the reasons we really wanted to have the conference in Spanish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitcoin shouldn\u2019t be reserved to the nation\u2019s elite, but should make everyday life easier for ordinary Salvadorans, Lemus said. That concern influenced her action plan for Bitcoin Berl\u00edn. \u201cWe wanted to push back on this notion that Salvadorans don\u2019t use Bitcoin \u2014 that only expats use it. Now, if you go to Berl\u00edn, you\u2019ll see working class people using Bitcoin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making sense of El Salvador\u2019s situation<\/h2>\n

There was an overall feeling that El Salvador is on the cusp of entering a new phase in its Bitcoin experiment.<\/p>\n

The last four years have seen the Central American nation, once known as the homicide capital of the world, rebrand itself into Bitcoin Country. President Nayib Bukele, by locking up MS-13 and Barrio 18 and putting an end to gang warfare, had given El Salvador a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reorganize itself and attain prosperity \u2014 at least that\u2019s how most of the people at the conference seemed to see it.<\/p>\n

A lot of conversations revolved around the pick-up in Bitcoin adoption. For years, despite bitcoin becoming legal tender in 2021, you could only pay for stuff with the cryptocurrency in El Zonte, the small surfing village also known as Bitcoin Beach<\/a>. In 2023, 88% of Salvadorans did not use the digital coin, according to a survey by the Central American University.<\/p>\n

But now a second Bitcoin circular economy has been implemented in the town of Berl\u00edn, up in the mountains, and other initiatives are reportedly growing elsewhere, like in Santa Ana, the second largest city in the country.<\/p>\n

Mart\u00ednez, Lemus and Linares were all eager to share tips and advice. The secret sauce to adoption, they said, is to mix Bitcoin initiatives with social work. \u201cIf the way to get people to use Bitcoin was to make hamburgers instead of doing social work, then I would be making hamburgers,\u201d Linares told me. \u201cWhatever works. People like social stuff, so that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Stablecoin giant Tether\u2019s decision to relocate its headquarters to El Salvador was also perceived as a massive win. Tether reported $143.7 billion in assets, including $94.5 billion in Treasury bills, in the last financial quarter of 2024. For comparison, El Salvador\u2019s GDP was estimated at $34 billion in 2023 by the World Bank.<\/p>\n

Tether has become the largest company (by far) to be based in El Salvador \u2014 and other crypto firms are bound to follow in its footsteps, taking advantage of the nation\u2019s advanced crypto regulatory framework<\/a> and increasingly skilled workforce<\/a>. For Salvadorans, that means more career opportunities, higher salaries and the possibility that the country may become a tech hub in its own right.<\/p>\n

\u201cEl Salvador should not only be known for being the first to implement bitcoin as legal tender,\u201d Darvin Otero, CEO of tiianki Technology<\/a>, said on stage. \u201cLet\u2019s change the lives of the young folks here and create the next leaders of this tech movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a small territory, but we can have a big dream,\u201d Alejandro Mu\u00f1oz, a Salvadoran lawyer, said. \u201cWe can provide a big service. \u2026 Good lawyers will attract good investors and filter the scammers out. Bitcoin education needs to happen in the legal industry; steps are being taken already in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bright future ahead<\/h2>\n

The conference occurred only days after the government, as part of a recent multi-billion dollar deal with the IMF<\/a>, rescinded bitcoin\u2019s status as legal tender \u2014 meaning that businesses aren\u2019t obliged to accept bitcoin payments anymore. While some members of the Bitcoin community have accused Bukele of caving to the IMF, none of the Salvadorans at Plan B seemed to see it that way. In their view, nothing has changed on a practical level, since the vast majority of businesses didn\u2019t use Bitcoin to begin with.<\/p>\n

In fact, a number of people welcomed the deal. \u201cEl Salvador locked in long-term funding to finish the reforms needed,\u201d Mike Peterson, an American expatriate who lives in El Zonte and co-founded of Bitcoin Beach, posted<\/a> on X recently. \u201cThe IMF loan puts the country on track to get the BBB credit rating that most sovereign wealth funds require to invest in a country.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the big difference between Salvadorans and Bitcoiners. Hardcore Bitcoiners prioritize global adoption; they want the cryptocurrency to eventually supplant government-issued currencies, like the U.S. dollar. For them, El Salvador is a stepping stone, the first nation to initiate hyperbitcoinization, but certainly not the last.<\/p>\n

Salvadorans don\u2019t have the same priorities. For them, Bitcoin is simply a tool, a means to an end. Their goal is to develop Salvadoran society.<\/p>\n

\u201cSalvadorans have always been proud of being Salvadoran. But there was a lot of pessimism. We were never the first in anything positive, only in negative things,\u201d Linares told me. \u201cNow people come from all parts of the world to listen to what we have to say. Bitcoin has a lot to do with that.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of projects here in El Salvador that invest so much time and resources and get almost nothing in return \u2014 except tremendous pride in being able to give back to the community and support everyone else. This feeling needs to expand throughout the country. We\u2019re in a moment of great change. You can feel it in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is part of a four-piece series on El Salvador. You can find the previous dispatch, a story on El Zonte, here. There was formidable energy at this year\u2019s Plan B conference in El Salvador. The event, which took place on Jan. 30-31, was historic for many of its 2,500 attendants. It was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-13283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}