Mike Peterson was a California surfer whose search for the perfect wave led him to this sleepy beach town in El Salvador.
Citing the town as inspiration, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele pushed a law through congress this month that will make his country the first in the world to adopt the cryptocurrency as legal tender.
But critics say Bitcoin’s extreme volatility could devastate El Salvador’s economy, further impoverishing communities that are already among the poorest in the hemisphere.
Peterson, 47, had moved his family to El Zonte in 2005.
Their new organization, Bitcoin Beach, started to pay teenagers in bitcoin to work as lifeguards or pick up trash along the shore.
He was ankle deep in the ocean, dressed in board shorts and a Bitcoin Beach rash guard, helping give surf lessons to a group of local kids.
Customers can pay using a variety of smartphone apps created for small bitcoin transactions.
Most importantly, she said, Bitcoin has allowed her to invest for the first time.
Then billionaire Elon Musk announced that his Tesla electric car company would no longer accept bitcoin because of the environmental toll of creating the cryptocurrency and processing transactions — an operation known as mining that eats up an immense amount of energy powering huge banks of computers around the world.
His small, sky blue church sits next to the town’s Bitcoin ATM, where people can exchange the digital currency for real dollars for around a 5% fee.
Arriving in late February was Jack Mallers, a 27-year-old who was born into the world of finance.
Back in his hometown of Chicago, Mallers had founded Zap, a company that facilitates bitcoin payments.
They hit it off, both showing up in hoodies to their meeting, where they discussed everything from anime to the impact of central bank monetary inflation on El Salvador’s economy.
It was approved in the wee hours of the following day despite protest from opposition lawmakers who complained that there had been no real debate or testimony from economic experts.
He said the new law will make the country a magnet for cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, whom he has promised immediate permanent residency and a break from paying capital gains taxes.
Economists say the Bitcoin plan could derail El Salvador’s negotiation of a more than $1-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, which economists say will be necessary by the end of this year.
Many people in El Salvador had never heard of cryptocurrency before the president’s announcement, in English, in Miami.
Peterson claimed he doesn’t know, though some have speculated that it might even be him.