I'm at a beach bar in El Salvador rn, here are my 'notes from the underground'.

Summarising as the gf keeps telling me to take my head out my phone????. More to follow in a future post ????????

Usage as cash is not as high as the Zonte/Strike gang would have you believe, but consciousness is increasing, especially around the surf zone.

Usage as savings tech is certainly growing, albeit from a zero base, and education continues, although sporadically.

Vast majority of transactions are gueros visiting (and overpaying at) 'Bitcoin Disney land', but educated / internationally minded locals seem to get it and although early, it's seen as something of a 'paso a paso' sorta thing.

It doesn't look like anything directional will change any time soon at least (Bukele just won another term, he's v popular, even tho many calls him a 'bastard' - lovingly. His track record of reducing crime is a MASSIVE positive theme on the ground, even though everyone agrees it's been VERY heavy handed).

Some (DEFINITELY not all, far from it, more like a few) businesses around Zonte accept it, and about 3-5% of businesses in Zonte's state, La Libertad, accept it, but failed transactions are reasonably common (Lightning channel management is still nascent and iffy).

The national big supermarket accepts it, but the cashier told me it's only about 2% of local purchases, and according to her, as high as 10% of purchases made by estranjeros (even tho she seemed to think it was kinda gimmicky). Those stats seemed high to me - the beach club I went to yesterday a few miles from Zonte said they couldn't remember more than 5 transactions last year and said 'no-one really uses it'.

So far everyone who HAS accepted it has been using IbexPay (and possibly instantly converting to dollars, which is the common currency here, but not certain about if/whether they're holding BTC at all).

Critically , since it's deemed to be MONEY here, people seem to like it as a way to get cash from friends and family in places like the USA, as it's 0 tax and 0 commission too, so long as you're using the national Bitcoin app (Chivo). It's seen by those who know anything about it as the most efficient way to perform tax/commission free remittances.

TLDR, 'store of value' consciousness is early but growing in recognition, with small, sporadic, but active education efforts ( mainly localised to one 'county', La Libertad), but still less than I had hoped. Remittances seems to be a strong use case, so long as the gov (tax) and wallet providers (commission) don't try to stick their fingers in the pie, like the twonks in the UK gov do ????????.

Was somewhat disappointed at the start, maybe the whole thing is a little overpromoted. The smartest local I spoke to said the main value of the whole 'Bitcoin project' is that it 'got the attention of the world to our little country'.

Medium of exchange is still a long way off, despite the over-promotion by worshippers of Jack Mallers. It seems we have a mountain to climb yet, and we're still barely in the foothills

???????????????? Peace, love, and hail Satoshi ????????