For Bitcoiners, all roads lead to Bitcoin Beach. The Bitcoin Italia podcast will get there, but first they need to find the transportation and get credit on their phone. Remember, their mission is to live in El Salvador for a month and a half without touching dirty fiat. Given that Bitcoin is legal tender there, you’d think it would be easier. It seems like Bitcoin Italia’s Podcast Scholars are making it, but at what price? The struggle is what makes her series of blog posts so compelling. That and the prose.
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The Bitcoin Italia Podcast vs. Companies
As a reminder, already the Bitcoin Italia podcast fought the Chivo wallet and found Consolation in the Bitcoin Beach Wallet. However, this time around, they have problems with Uber. Even though they bought a $ 100 credit from Bitrefil, the system still prompts them to register a credit card. Since they would continue to pay with the gift card, “this is not against the rules of our mission”. Bitcoin Italia podcast grantees do and the system tells them “the payment method is invalid”.
Her Analysis of the situation is written so beautifully that we have to quote it in full:
“To pay 15 fled-bitten dollars for a lift, a cumbersome set of redundant international brokers has to be activated. The app has to ask permission from the credit card provider, who has to get the okay from the bank, who has to communicate with Ubers Bank, who has to give the app the green light. All of this in the year 2021, when we were able to cryptographically prove to the system in a flash that our assets were actually owned and carry out an inviolable and mathematically irreversible transaction without the need for a further guarantee from a third party. In order to protect the privilege of a few, we built an unnecessarily complex world around us that is now out of date. “
However, this is an Uber issue. When Bitcoin Italia Podcast Scholars try to pay for phone credit, even with Bitrefil, it works perfectly. The phone company even has a dedicated page for these types of payments:
“At the moment of completing the purchase, you have access to a new screen that summarizes the data and allows you to select the type of wallet that we have installed on the smartphone and that we want to use. With a click on Confirm, the wallet opens automatically and sets the flash payment directly, the FaceID of the iPhone is activated, recognizes our face and that’s it. After a few seconds, an SMS from Claro informs us that the credit has been topped up. “
That FaceID part sounds even worse than KYC measures, but this is the iPhone for you.
BTC price chart for 12/30/2021 on Bittrex | Source: BTC / USD on TradingView.com
The way to the Bitcoin beach
on Pilgrimage day, the Bitcoin Italia podcast has to take a normal taxi. This time the driver is familiar with the Chivo Wallet and has no problems. “He’s already had passengers pay him in bitcoin, and he has no intention of converting what he has accumulated into dollars. He realized that over time they would appreciate a lot. ”The plan works. After a while, our heroes achieve their goal, and their prose makes another stellar appearance.
“Literally everything on the bumpy streets of El Zonte has the Bitcoin logo on it. Toyland madness. Every sign, every business, every flag, every t-shirt. It is everywhere. The landmark of the settlement. We’re hungry and find a small restaurant right on the beach. The sun is burning and the sand, dark and volcanic, is hot. “
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You will immediately feel the difference to San Salvador. There are the locals, lots of surfers and of course bitcoiners. For example, the Bitcoin Italia podcast scholars meet “an American entrepreneur who invested in Bitcoin years ago and wants to buy a large piece of land here on which he wants to build a citadel, a kind of compound for Bitcoiners”. And he’s not the only one. Before closing your first night in Bitcoin Beach, leave us with this reflection:
“In El Zonte it only took a few hours to understand that we will meet strange people in this place and that it is a kind of bubble that is completely detached from the rest of the country. For some strange reason, this is a geographic area that has drawn people like us for years and is able to be the first to realize that this thing is meant to change everything. Forever and irreversible. “
Forever and irreversible.
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