Bitcoin in El Salvador #3: Shopping for Hats, Electronics and Seafood

Hello fellow Hivers and LEOFinancers, I hope you're doing well.

This will be my third update on the Bitcoin situation in El Salvador, where Bitcoin was adopted like a boss by the El Salvadorean government as legal tender last September. Today I decided to go shopping in the seaside town of La Libertad.

There's an outdoor market here that extends for blocks and blocks where street vendors are selling everything from candies to clothes to shampoo, etc. I was specifically looking for shop owners who advertise they accept Bitcoin and I ran into a gentleman who was selling hats. He had a hand written sign saying he accepted Bitcoin.

I found a snazzy hat, and paid him with Bitcoin over the lightning network to his Chivo wallet. The transaction only took a few seconds. He specifically mentioned that "I always converts USD payments into Bitcoin" because he's HOLDing for better days guys. Out of the corner of my eye I caught an electronics shop.

Inside the store they were selling not only appliances and TVs, but bicycles too. I took a look around inside and noticed a sign by the cash register saying they accepted Bitcoin as payment. I brought some wireless earbuds to the front and the cashier took out a tablet with the XPay Bitcoin wallet on it. We had a few technical difficulties, but in the end I got my earbuds and they should have their Bitcoin.

After all that troubleshooting I was a feeling a little hungry so I went into the seafood market by the ocean, where they have a Chivo Bitcoin ATM installed. I saw a man there stuffing filthy US dollars into the machine, trying to get rid of those hyperinflating bills as quickly as possible!

There were a dozen or so seafood restaurants in the market. Only two of the ones I asked accepted Bitcoin, and I ended up choosing the one that had a Bitcoin sign on their counter. The owner received my Bitcoin payment over the lightning network and it took about 20 seconds to show up in his wallet.

So far it seems that larger businesses are the first to implement Bitcoin payments and the small street vendors are still trailing behind. Once the technical issues have been ironed out I bet more merchants will be willing to accept it and there will be a snowball effect of shop keepers adopting it.

This is all for today's update guys. I will keep you posted. All the best in 2022...

And let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below.

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