How to survive 1 month in El Salvador using Bitcoin only | Crypto Stories Ep. 12

It was actually Laura's idea. She mentioned it first. I remember it perfectly. The Internet was overflowed of videos of international journalists coming to San Salvador and showing, buying McDonald's and paying with the Lightning network or at the bitcoin beach, paying for a coffee. And we were super excited about this. But then we thought, I think this is not enough. You know, San Salvador is the biggest economic center of the country. Nobody is showing us what's happening in the small villages, in the rural markets. Is it possible to pay for three tomatoes at the street markets? Nobody was showing it. Everyone came to the country, did their 30 seconds video at MEC McDonald paying their lunch, and then flew back to their comfort zone. We wanted to do more. That's where the idea started. It's not easy. It takes a little preparation. You just find 20, 30, 40 possible hotels. You just call them all, asking in advance, a, do you have a room available? B, do you accept bitcoins? I have a podcast in Italy that is called Bitcoin Italia Podcast. And we asked some of our listeners to help us with the expenses. And we had one very generous Patreon, Marcello, my good friend. So our budget was 0.05 BTC. Back in 2013, I started to live and work in the United States in the cannabis industry, learning how to do legal pot. And I was getting paid in dollars cash. And then I wanted to go and travel in South America, and I didn't want to live in Mexico carrying 20,000 bucks cash. So I went first to west to ask them if it was possible to send this money back to Italy. And I was shocked when I learned that they wanted 20% commission. So I said, let's see if there is an alternative way I can do that. I googled and this magic word appeared.

I was a graphic designer. I started working for a blockchain company in Hong Kong, but I was working from Italy, and they were just sending my salary in bitcoin because it was the easiest way. Then, of course, I got into it. I was a fan of his podcast.

Actually, let me mention one thing. Very important. This country is unbelievable. Everyone has a smartphone. You can buy a cheap Chinese smartphone in the market for $20. So it's crazy cheap. And the connection here is huge. We had LTE connection in the deepest jungle. So this is the perfect country to play the bitcoin experiment. So sometimes you ask a small, rusty restaurant in a corner of a street, guys, do you accept bitcoin? And you expect nothing out of them. And instead losing a client, he's going to say, yeah, let's do it. Most of the time he just hands you the phone, you do it yourself. Because I have no clue how this works. Chivo wallet, it doesn't work well. Very buggy. But at the same time a lot of people has it in their pockets and that's huge. Already we are talking about a totally cash based society. Nobody here accepts credit cards. 99% of the trades are cash. Based on the blog we write that it's not us driving, it's Satoshi that is driving. I badly wanted to see the Maya ruin in Tatsumal. It's a fantastic heritage and for some reason I would love to ask President Bukele. You cannot pay museums with bitcoin. It's unbelievable. So we couldn't see the ruins and it's sticky here still. Sometimes we ended up in the most crazy places just because we were scouting for places that accepted bitcoin. There is this huge volcano. It's a non active volcano, but still, you know, underneath the crust you have magma and there is this huge deposit of water that is constantly boiling by the magma. And they use this hot steam to power the electricity generator. So it's completely renewable. It's a huge gorgeous machine. And they are planning to use all the energy they are producing to mine bitcoin because they actually produce surplus of energy in this country. We are working on a book based on this experience. It's not going to be really a travel guide because it's going to be probably outdated in three weeks. So we're going to write down a list of all the places we have been on our journey that they do accept bitcoin. So who wants to follow our footsteps is going to have a scrapbook or place where to start from? There's a very important point, guys. Come to El Salvador, spend your bitcoin here. Because by spending your bitcoin you teach people the more they transact, the more they learn. The more they learn, the more they're going to get it.