Bitcoin Island, Boracay Philippines has passed a big round number of 100 businesses on-boarded. These businesses are all accepting bitcoin via pouch.ph lightning wallet. If you have been following these updates, you will notice that the rate of adoption is accelerating.
We have had reports of random bitcoiners following this map as a treasure hunt buying a drink at every venue.
Thank you.
If you do the same, please stop in the office and say hello. We are right in the heart of the island, across the little lake from Dmall. You can not miss the giant Bitcoin sign.
With the addition of more local markets, it is realistic to live only on bitcoin as a local. We make it a point to always shop with our vendors, so our fiat usage is near zero at this point.
Our crew of gig workers are paid in bitcoin, some cash out a little to fiat. However, some sell us fiat to get "pouch money" because it is easier to remit to their family in other cities with bitcoin.
We have:
Coffee houses cafes - 6 Sit down restaurants (not alcohol focused, but can get a drink) - 16 Sit down restaurants (alcohol focused) - 3 Food stalls - 11 Carenderias (locals homemade food/restaurants) - 8
Retail - 8 Services (tattoo, tailoring, salons, cell repair, scooter rental, tours, etc...) - 15 Convenience stores - 4 Fruit, vegetables, meat, fish markets - 11 Sari Sari (tiny local convenience stores) - 23
Hotels - 7
I love to see it. My girlfriend is a Filipina, and she said she visited there before, so maybe we'll go together one day.
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This is ideal for sending money to her family. They can download the app, receive and then send off to the local banking system if they need to. It is instant and no fees. Much better than traditional remittances.
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Oh man yeah you know she bought some Bitcoin, but she didn't even know how to withdraw to a wallet so, yeah I'll show her your particular wallet solution too.
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bitcoinIsland@pouch.ph to arrange help for them. We are happy to call the family and help them get set-up if they need. Tagalog and English help is available.
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Is the app still in beta? I would like to try it
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This is great. One of the biggest challenges for someone who wants use bitcoin/LN for his day to day tasks/needs is to find local businesses that accept it, and in 2022 it still is a bit hard to find those.
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It would be interesting if you could follow the growth, i. e. keep records of number of stores and the tx-volume/day as a function of time. If you can get positive feedback it will be a revolution, if not it will fizzle out. Make sure people prefer to get paid in BTC and it is over. If it is not circular it will not grow.
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I have been using these updates at a rough history. I want exactly that tooling in the database for those reasons. Dev resources are tight though.
They are seeing why it is better when I come through and can pay exact amount easily while they are running around looking for change because someone has a 1000 peso bill (~20 USD) and they do not have the change.
The remittance market and foreign bitcoin tourists are the real killer apps. So much money is lost in frictional losses moving money here.
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THIS IS THE WAY!
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Bitcoin Island is the place to be Stack some sats, sit under a tree You do you, I do me Send some money for a very low fee
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You have heard of Bitcoin beach El Salvador, But have you heard of Bitcoin Island Philippines?
Boracay Island have over 100+ shops, restaurants and hotels accepting #Bitcoin lightning!
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Add it to the BTCMap app
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Hope to see more adoption
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Epic!
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Any new updates as to the progress of this project? Thanks.
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Wow this is amazing 👏 how the people are choosing the money. THE WAY IT SHOULD BE ITS THE PEOPLES MONEY!!
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Bitcoin hotels are so key
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stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.