JAKARTA- A small town in the mountains in the Honduras region, 20 minutes from the capital city of Tegucigalpa, has become a bitcoin city.
Here people can pay for snacks with crypto on the streets of “Bitcoin Valley", a project in Honduras' tourist enclave of Santa Lucia where the country has entered the digital currency trend.
Business owners large and small in Santa Lucia are adapting to handling cryptocurrencies as legal payments. They also hope to attract more tourism because of this digital money.
"This will open up more opportunities and attract more people who want to use this currency", said Cesar Andino, manager of the Los Robles shopping square.
The “Bitcoin Valley" project targets 60 businesses to initially train and adopt cryptocurrency to market their products and services. They also hope to spread this practice to more companies and nearby areas.
The initiative was jointly developed by the Honduran Blockchain organization, the consortium of Guatemalan cryptocurrency exchange Coincaex, the Honduran University of Technology, and the municipal government of Santa Lucia.
"The Santa Lucia community will be educated to use and manage cryptocurrencies, apply them in different businesses in the region and generate crypto tourism", said Ruben Carbajal Velazquez, professor at the University of Technology, as quoted by Reuters.
VOIR éGALEMENT:
Currently, several Latin American countries are exploring the potential of cryptocurrencies, despite the high risks involved.
In September 2021, El Salvador adopted bitcoin as a legal tender having its own 'Bitcoin Beach' in the surfing hotspot city of El Zonte.
The Central American nation's bets on bitcoin have been hampered by a downturn in the crypto market and skepticism from multilateral lenders and rating agencies. The publicly disclosed holdings of US $105 million are now worth about US $57 million.
“To counter volatility, Honduras' “Bitcoin Valley" will “enable merchants to accept instant payments in local currency, as well as eliminate the risk of cryptocurrency fluctuations", said Leonardo Paguada, founder of the Honduran Block Chain organization.
Critics of bitcoin's expansion have warned that operations of this kind could fuel money laundering and financial instability while increasing the digital divide, as poorer sections of society may still have to struggle to access the technology.
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