El Salvador’s Slums Need Bitcoin – Bitcoin Magazine

[ad_1]

This is an opinion piece by Rikki, author and co-host of the “Bitcoin Italia” and “Stupefatti” podcasts. He is one half of the bitcoin explorers, along with Laura, who chronicles the adoption of bitcoin around the world, one country at a time.

A few days before writing these lines, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele announced a huge police operation. The satellite town of San Salvador, Soyapango, was surrounded by 8,500 soldiers and 1,500 police, who went house to house to search for gang members still hiding in the area. More than 150 arrests were counted.

Soyapango represents one of the most difficult realities for the country. With 300,000 inhabitants, it is home to several “comunidades”, the name used locally to define slums or “favelas”, if you prefer.

The news of the police operation hit me hard because, two days earlier, I had visited two different neighborhoods of this same city: the very poor Ciudad de Dios, which stands on a former dump, and the violent Santa Lucia , one of the historical haunts of criminal gangs.

My visit was carefully planned well in advance and the only reason I was able to even enter these places was because the “pandilleros”, the gangsters, have been hit hard by government repression lately. months, a direct result of the upsurge in clashes between rival gangs that once again bloodied the country earlier this year.

If I had tried to enter a year ago, my own life would probably have been in danger. However, as a precaution, I had a local driver, I was only rarely allowed to get out of the car, and we were escorted by a known person in the neighborhood who preceded us on a motorbike. Our guide was from these streets, had lived under a bridge for five years and had a history of drug addiction, which he recovered with the help of the community.

It was an enlightening and necessary day for me.

Solve extreme poverty

My reason for visiting these places to report on it comes from a conversation I had recently with a fairly famous Bitcoiner: a developer who is well-educated and very smart and has been in the industry for many, many years. Well, his thesis is that El Salvador is not really as poor as people would have you believe, but rather an economically backward country where the incidence of extreme poverty is not unlike that of countries much more developed.

This view, frankly, left me in shock.

According to official data in El Salvador, 26% of the population lives below the poverty line. This represents 1.7 million people.

Yet it is true that many Bitcoiner tourists who come here believe that it is the pupusa vendor around the corner who is poor. She is not. This lady is an entrepreneur. She has a store, a business. The lady, despite the plainclothes wrinkled from hard work, is from the lower middle class in El Salvador. The real poverty is hidden in huge neighborhoods made of sheet metal houses, without running water, sewers or electricity. Invisible cities, where no one goes and no one talks about.

This is a serious mistake.

If we want Bitcoin to succeed here, we also need to improve the living conditions of these people. Because they are the ones who need it the most and because it is their poverty, as the police operation of recent days has shown us, which directly fuels delinquency.

Bitcoiners who come to El Salvador dreaming of a nation freer than the one from which they escape, entrepreneurs who want to invest here, must understand that among their priorities must be the inclusion of those who live in the slums of Soyapango, otherwise it is their very future here, it is their very investments that are in danger. Indeed, the military solution to the gang problem can only be a temporary palliative. Crime thrives on slums. This is where the bosses recruit new thugs, this is where they sell drugs and make profits, this is where they live, rule and hide. If we do not solve the problem of extreme poverty in El Salvador, the gangs will continue to return, more dangerous and better organized than before, and El Salvador will never be a truly safe country.

The images I shot in the slums of Soyapango are heartbreaking. But I think we also had to show our community this facet of El Salvador that is too often forgotten.

My last days in El Salvador

I am writing this during my last days in El Salvador – soon I will be moving to Guatemala to report on a different nation, with a completely different attitude towards bitcoin and many local communities trying to use this technology to improve their lives. It is therefore time to take stock.

As I have extensively documented, Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador is slowing. Many merchants have stopped accepting BTC as a form of payment. The reasons they always give are twofold: Bitcoin is too complicated and there is a lack of volume. Very few want to pay this way.

If we have already shown how too much complexity is at the origin of the defects of the Chivo wallet, the second problem is much more serious and delicate. On the one hand, there are the citizens of El Salvador who earn and spend dollars – a hard currency, not suffering from severe inflation – and they view digital payments with suspicion. On the other hand, however, there is the encouraging data that speaks of a strong increase in tourism in this country, also linked to the many Bitcoiners who come here to visit the country of legal tender BTC.

But if there are thousands of Bitcoiners coming to visit, how is it possible that the volume of BTC transactions on the streets is not increasing? Perhaps we are not numerically sufficient?

Maybe. But I think the problem is also another.

Let me give you an example: a few weeks ago, outside of the Mi Primer Bitcoin graduation ceremony in the small town of Ataco, I met a Spanish gentleman who had come to the country specifically to Bitcoin. Tall and grizzled, in his forties, he helped this association which educates very young Salvadorans about Bitcoin. He was an examiner, one of the “experts” called upon to assess the children’s readiness. Wearing a Bitcoin Beach cap and a Bitcoin t-shirt, with a lean, tanned physique, he seemed like a typical fanboy, in appearance.

We lingered outside of school talking and I happened, almost by accident, to mention how a little disappointed I was with the worsening bitcoin adoption among the folks there. -down.

That’s when he started telling me how he himself, loudly, in perfect Spanish, always asks every time he buys something if he can pay in bitcoin. But when he gets an affirmative answer, he begins to inquire with the merchant to find out exactly what he is going to do with the satoshis he will send him. Basically, it’s an interrogation. If the poor merchant replied that he wants to save the sats for the future, he will receive some from the experienced Western Bitcoiner via a Lightning transaction. But if he admits instead wanting to exchange or receive bitcoin directly in dollars, then this Westerner gives up using bitcoin and pays directly in fiat.

Can you see how silly that is? It does not mean anything.

I thought our mission in El Salvador was to encourage adoption as much as possible, to help these people through a new and alternative economic system. But no! Now we even require them to be HODLers. Otherwise, they are not worthy of our bitcoin. It’s a scary mindset and pure selfishness.

When I pointed out to him that the future of these people also depends on the success of bitcoin in the country and that his attitude is perhaps a little selfish – because after all, one can sacrifice a few thousand satoshi to incite adoption, even if they are converted into dollars – he went wild and started shouting that he lives in El Zonte and that all his friends are the poor people of the village and that he cares about all of them.

Obviously, however, not enough to sacrifice a few bucks in sats.

And, beware, there are many other people who think like that. I’ve seen a lot of Bitcoiners here paying in cash or with their flaming credit cards. We all know the story behind this gesture: “Bitcoins should not be spent. HODL to death. Bitcoins will be worth billions, it’s not like they were spent today. We wouldn’t want to end up like that fool Laszlo!”

Too bad that the success of Bitcoin in El Salvador is also linked to the volume of transactions and that if we win our battle in this country, the value on the bitcoin markets will be positively affected, to the benefit of our entire community. So obviously we all want bitcoin to gain in value, but only a few are willing to sacrifice a handful of satoshis to really contribute to the ultimate win. How boorish and selfish.

I say this in no uncertain terms: at the risk of angering anyone, if you come to visit this country for bitcoin and you are not ready to pay in bitcoin, do El Salvador a favor, stay at home.

PS

I saw him again a few weeks later in El Zonte, comfortably seated, eating a shrimp cocktail, peering out to sea at Palo Verde, one of the most exclusive resorts in the village. It’s one of those places his “so many poor friends” can’t even afford to see from afar.

PPS

Laszlo Hanyencz is a hero and has gone down in the history books, unlike anyone who considers him a fool.

This is a guest post by Rikki. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

[ad_2]