Two days in ‘Bitcoin Beach’ El Zonte 🇸🇻

El Zonte is a tiny village with a very obvious surfing history. Most people you meet there know something about Bitcoin, but interestingly, most of them aren’t there because of Bitcoin at all. They come for the waves.

Bitcoin Beach grew out of the work of people like Mike Peterson, a missionary who helped introduce Bitcoin to the local community. That has naturally attracted Bitcoiners from around the world, although during my two days there I actually met surprisingly few.

El Zonte also isn’t really a “beach resort” in the traditional sense. There’s barely any sandy beach — most of the coastline consists of rocks and large pebbles. That explains why you mostly see surfers rather than people lying around sunbathing.

Bitcoin acceptance, however, is very real. I could pay with Bitcoin in almost every place I tried. Ironically, one of the few exceptions was the surf shop where I bought my swimming shorts.

The following day I wanted to get into the Pacific. I happened to meet the owner of a small resort who was kind enough to let me access the ocean through his property, since it was one of the few places nearby with an actual patch of sand instead of rocks.

It was a quiet day, but I ended up meeting several interesting people.

Wayne, an American and Ryder from Vancouver, Canada were the only Bitcoiners I met during the day. I bought Wayne’s book, The First Social Network, in which he writes about being an early internet pioneer and creating SFnet in the early 1990s.

Ryder has been coming to El Zonte for seven years because of the surfing. He’s also the owner of Hio, an alternative to Spotify built around the idea that the proceeds should go to the artists rather than being captured by the platform.

The main Bitcoin event I had been looking forward to was the weekly Bitcoin dinner.

That part was… badly organized.

There was no clear starting time, the reservation seemed to serve no purpose, the organizer never showed up, and by the time people arrived the kitchen was already closed.

Fortunately, the people who did show up made the evening worthwhile.

First came Simon from South Africa, a very friendly guy who is looking for a possible new home abroad. He told me he is increasingly concerned about property rights in South Africa and what expanding government powers could eventually mean for assets such as Bitcoin.

Not long after that, another Mike joined us. He seemed to know Simon already. Mike is an entrepreneur who is interested in Bitcoin and had come along mainly because he wanted to learn more about it.

Eventually Ryder joined as well.

So despite the “Bitcoin dinner” barely functioning as a dinner, the four of us ended up sitting together talking for hours about Bitcoin, entrepreneurship, geopolitics and surfing.

That probably sums up my experience of El Zonte.

It’s not a place with endless things to do, and it’s definitely still more of a surf village than a Bitcoin destination. But Bitcoin has become woven into everyday life there in a way that feels much more organic than simply putting a “Bitcoin accepted here” sticker on a shop window.

And in the end, the most interesting part wasn’t the infrastructure or the organized events.

It was the random people I met because Bitcoin gave us a reason to sit down and talk.

You’re not going to believe this but I couldn’t pay for swimming trunks with bitcoin in bitcoin beach.

Arrived in Bitcoin Beach, it looks stunning.

Shoutout to ‘El Holandés Errante BBQ’ restaurant in San Salvador for accepting bitcoin. And if you’re Dutch, your getting free bitterballen!

So far I’m having difficulty to pay with bitcoin at restaurants in San Salvador.

First time visiting El Salvador. Very curious to see with my own eyes how bitcoin has influenced the direction of the country

I've been going back to iTunes from Spotify after many years because now you can run agents across your library and clean it up or act like a DJ with platform independence.

I’m confused watching the latest interviews with @Jeff Booth . The old background setup with the guitars has returned.

At first I thought these were re-uploads but you’re discussing recent events.

Have you moved back to Canada?