On Bitcoin Economics radio, May 2023: 70 merchants, 8.85 BTC and the first savers

A local show about a local project

Episode 39 of the Guatemalan podcast Bitcoin Economics, hosted by Cesar Tanchez with Mario Lopez Salguero and Diego Villeda, was about the lake. The guests were Patrick Melder, who started the project, and Rudy Gallardo, who had moved to Panajachel about four months earlier and translated for Patrick during the show. It was uploaded on May 11, 2023, a few days after the Lago Summit, so everything here is a snapshot from early May 2023.

What they are trying to build

Patrick described three pillars: educate the community about bitcoin as a technology, build a bitcoin circular economy where visitors spend and locals save, and bring bitcoin mining to the lake so the benefit returns to the community. Rudy added the everyday case: anyone can start by saving one quetzal and be their own bank.

The numbers

They said more than 70 businesses accepted bitcoin, which Patrick put at about 10 percent of the businesses in Panajachel. Rudy said doubling that would be a success. They shared one figure that surprised the team: in about a year and two months, a volume of 8.85 bitcoin and more than 5,000 transactions. It came from only one payment provider, so the full total was likely higher.

The Lago Summit, held the Friday before the recording, was described as the first bitcoin only event at Lake Atitlán. It took place in San Antonio Palopó with more than 45 attendees, local and foreign, plus national and international companies.

Are merchants keeping their bitcoin?

Patrick said that in the 2022 bear market many merchants cashed out right away, which he called human psychology. He expected more to hold as the price recovered and the 2024 halving approached. Rudy listed early signs: staff now accept tips in bitcoin and prefer to save them, and some merchants keep part of their salary or sales as their own bitcoin. It was also noted that profits are what stay in bitcoin, while supplier costs are paid in quetzales. Payments between businesses, they said, were still minimal.

Patrick told the story of a young coffee shop owner who accepted bitcoin from his first day. At first about 40 percent of his income came in bitcoin, and later about 20 percent, because the business had grown. Rudy added that the owner's parents had warned him against it, and that, as he tells it, bitcoin saved his life.

Kaboom and the school

Asked about Kaboom, the used cooking oil mining project, Patrick said it could not run efficiently at that scale, and Rudy added that it was still there as a proof of concept. Visiting bitcoiners tour it, and the children of Centro Educativo Josué were taken to see how it works. Rudy, who taught the first My First Bitcoin class in Guatemala there, said the first graduating class had just finished.

What came next

Goals for the coming year: a chance to educate around 350 municipal workers, San Juan as the next target town, and the first Lightning bitcoin ATM at the lake. They announced a bitcoin tour for June 10 and 11, a bus trip between Guatemala and El Salvador around Adopting Bitcoin in November, and another Lago Summit in 2024. My First Bitcoin in Guatemala City would wait, they said, because the focus was Panajachel.

In their words

The thing about bitcoin is that it gives anyone the chance to start saving one quetzal, being their own bank.

Businesses now have employees who accept tips in bitcoin, which is an interesting change.

A volume of 8.85 bitcoin and more than 5,000 transactions completed.

When we see the halving next year, it is most likely that merchants will start retaining more and more of their bitcoin.

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