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What Are the Oldest Continuing Bitcoin Circular Economies?
343 sats \ 10 comments \ @spiderman 11 Oct bitcoin
Is the concept real and are there Bitcoin circular economies (BCE)? Or is it like some YouTube vlogger bought a pizza with Bitcoin somewhere to conclude that the whole town/province/country is BCE?
In particular, I am also interested to hear how sustainable are they without regular Bitcoin injection (as charity, not trade surplus) from some outside party (donor)? And do they usually survive a brutal bear market or just rise during bull runs like flash in the pan and then liquidate at a 50% drawdown?
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26 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Oct
Rovereto, a village in North of Italy, is the oldest one with a lot of small merchants and locals using Bitcoin. They started back in 2013 or something like that.
https://bitcoinvalley.eu
There are more like this but not all wants to have publicity.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatbad 11 Oct
I'm planning a trip to the area and I have to choose between Rovereto and Lugano. I do not have time to go to both, even though they aren't far from one another.
Which one should I choose?
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12 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Oct
Rovereto. Lugano is more tether crap territory
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 14h
Rolante -Rs and Jericoacara-Ce same in brazil
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0 sats \ 5 replies \ @fiatbad 11 Oct
I think Bitcoin-Jungle and Bitcoin-Beach are going to be the two most prominent examples. I've been to both, and I was pretty impressed by how much Bitcoin was being accepted and used. I haven't been to them recently, but just judging by how many MORE merchants there are on BTCmap.org in these two places, I think it's probably even more awesome now. I want to go back and see how they've changed in the past couple years.
Madiera and Roatan have potential, but when I went to each of them recently, they're not even close to being a BCE. They just have a decent number of merchants accepting Bitcoin, but the general public is still clueless.
Also, places like Bitcoin-Island in the Philippines, and Lugano Switzerland, I have not been to. But they look to be similar to Madiera... in other words, not even close to BCE status.
I'd love to hear from other Bitcoiners who have been to Bitcoin-Beach and Bitcoin-Jungle and can name a region with even more adoption than these. I'll book a flight immediately. But, for now, I think these are the only serious contenders. The rest don't even come close.
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @spiderman OP 11 Oct
When did you go to the jungle and beaches? As in, has there been a substantial bear drawdown since then? To me, it seems unless a BCE survives a prolonged bear market, it has not proved itself.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatbad 11 Oct
These communities started before the last major bear market, and thrived through it. I went to Bitcoin Jungle in 2022, and Bitcoin Beach in 2023.
The problem for these communities is that many of their supply chains are not accepting Bitcoin, so they have to convert to dollars at some point. What we need to see happen is complete supply chain loops using Bitcoin. This way, price discovery can happen without taking fiat into account whatsoever. I believe this only happens when enough people stop accepting fiat because of how poor it is as money. And I believe this happens when enough people who already know get loud enough and lead by example. (which isn't really happening in the Bitcoin community. Here, it's just NGU maximalists pretending to hate fiat, but gladly using and accepting it daily)
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @spiderman OP 15h
I spoke about the perceived pain of real adoption and also reasons for hope in here. Yes, I agree, the statement, which is also why the best metric of adoption is not necessarily the small and humble circular economies (running in some idyllic tropical resort or forest), but the big guys with serious warchest (capital) to influence the rest of the commercial world.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatbad 11 Oct
Holy shit!
It's been a while since I checked BTCmap.org for Lugano, and it's blown up recently!
Tons of merchants accepting Lightning payments there!!
I'm going, and I'll report back.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @spiderman OP 15h
Would look forward to your trip report, do you vlog on YouTube or share elsewhere on the internet, by any chance?
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