The adoption movement Bitcoin (BTC) as a form of payment may have gained strength in El Salvador, but in Brazil“maximalist” movements are already occupying businesses and enchanting part of the population.
Inspired by Bitcoin Beach, located in “Playa El Zonte” in El Salvador“Bitcoin Beach Brasil”, which takes shape in Jericoacoara, Ceará.
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“Maximalists” are what the most fervent Bitcoin ideologues are called among the crypto community. Satoshi Nakamoto’s most assiduous followers believe that the cryptocurrency it is the only one that exists, and its use should be as a form of payment and as a store of value.
According to the project’s official website, despite the fact that Vila de Jericoacoara is one of the most popular tourist destinations on the planet, it does not have a single ATM. “We were forgotten by the banks, but now we have Bitcoin.”
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“We are creating a sustainable economic ecosystem, with a mission to prove that Bitcoin can have the biggest impact on the lives of those that society often ignores,” the website announces.
On social networks, the growth of establishments and people who adopt cryptocurrency is publicized in the form of celebration:
Buying fruits with @bolt_card. The merchant running @Breez_Tech on our PoS machine!
Another NFC ready small business on Jericoacoara listed on @BTCMapDotOrg
Support our Bitcoin Circular Economyhttps://t.co/BvvsOnLpro pic.twitter.com/mI56qd1hKY
— Bitcoin Brazil Beach ⚡ (@BitcoinBeachBR) November 3, 2022
The experiment, as the movement created by founder Fernando Motolese is called, is an attempt to foster the economy of the place through the inclusion of unbanked people.
The Brazilian cryptocurrency investor and enthusiast aims to create a circular economy in the village with the cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto.
The project asks for Bitcoin donations to pay the expenses of services provided to local people participating in the project, according to the website. “We will not convert Bitcoin donations into fiat currency,” the website warns.
The most used technology in place is the Lightning network, the second layer of Bitcoin that offers greater scalability within the cryptocurrency network because it works outside the blockchain through the opening of “payment channels”.
“Money needs to be free”, says experiment supporter
Vinicius Kinczel, acts as P2P (buys and sells Bitcoin from people to exchange) and has a channel on the networks called “Satoshi’s Word”.
In the channel, he travels around Brazil trying to teach the population how to implement the currency as a form of payment.
Kinczel is also working on the front lines of Praia Bitcoin and comments that the importance of the project has to do with the privatization of the currency while criticizing the government.
“Bitcoin is the tool of freedom […] Money needs to be ‘apoliticized’, it is a very strong instrument to have a state monopoly. We have to denationalize it”, he says.
He says that he began to have this vision in 2013, a year before the elections were between Dilma Rousseff (PT) and Aécio Neves (PSDB). As he comments, in his opinion, “money needs to be free”, and it could not belong to any government. “Be it Aécio, be it Bolsonaro, Lula or Dilma”, he says.
How did the experiment on the Brazilian “Bitcoin Beach” begin?
The experiment website itself shares a document where it tells the story of how Bitcoin Beach began. The intention is to encourage other places to adopt the experience as well.
The experience began on September 8, 2021, with the installation of a validator node – used to send transactions from the network to a “mempool” where the miner will accept and validate, or not, a block within the Blockchain.
The validator node chosen was called “My Node Btc”, and according to the document “for educational purposes, and with available equipment used in the village.”
0.02 BTC was injected to open payment channels on the Lightining network with the node, as well as to purchase products or services from local residents with an average value of R$20 per transaction. “In the social layer, R$ 1 was donated by users.”
It is stated that, no user has ever had contact with Bitcoin or the Lightning Network, but they had smartphones connected to the internet with 120 MegaBytes of free space, and that was enough to introduce them to this new model.
Who already accepts Bitcoin (BTC) in Praia?
On the project’s website, a document is published with businesses, artisans and other artists who already accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment. According to information from the project, more than 120 people already use a virtual wallet as a form of payment.
According to public data, currently 0.033 BTC, about BRL 3,411.31, circulates in the Praia Bitcoin economy.
So far, it has ten different businesses – tourism agency, bakery and inns –, three social projects and eight self-employed workers and others that will soon join the list.
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