Bitcoin Core contributor Jon Atack, who lives in El Zonte, the coastal town known for Bitcoin Beach, says his lunch payment this week was the first bitcoin transaction the town had seen in a month. Atack called the situation 'pretty depressing.'
One lunch in a month
Atack, who has been based in El Zonte since 2022, said he was told at a lunch that his payment was the first made in BTC in a whole month. He didn't say who gave him that news, but the comment stuck with him. He described the state of things as 'pretty depressing.'
The developer's view
Atack is one of a handful of people who maintain Bitcoin Core, the software that runs the network. He's a developer who sees bitcoin from the code side and now from the street side. His comment suggests that even in a town that was a centerpiece for bitcoin adoption, the currency is not changing hands much day to day.
What the comment says about adoption
El Zonte is the pilot for El Salvador's bitcoin adoption, a place where the government and volunteers have tried to make bitcoin a part of everyday business. If the town is going a month without a bitcoin payment, the gap between the idea and the reality on the ground is hard to ignore. Atack's report is a single data point, but it comes from a person who lives there and works on the technology itself. It raises a clear question about whether bitcoin is actually becoming money in the place meant to show it can be.
Atack didn't say if he plans to stay in El Zonte or whether he expects things to pick up. His words leave the outlook open.
