The Adopting Bitcoin Pod

Today we’re speaking about Bitcoin adoption in Ghana. We have Kumi from Bitcoin Cowries, and Mawufemor of Bitcoin Dua, who have been sharing non-stop progress from their community building efforts, including a mobile bitcoin street store, soccer games, education center and more. Their latest video featured a gentleman buying a live chicken with bitcoin, which is currently going viral across bitcoin twitter. 

In this episode, we chat with Rich and Vali from Motiv Peru who have been educating communities about health and life skills to create a foundation for Motiv to introduce programs that will support a Bitcoin self-sustaining circular economy. (00:00:00) Intro and advertisement (00:02:46) Introduction Motiv (00:09:00) How are the communities founded? (00:23:13) How to find a leader? (00:31:16) What are the indicators for success (00:47:14) What can tourists expect? (00:55:20) How about the stability of Peru? (00:59:47) Open mic season (01:05:48) Final words and outro ⁠Adopting Bitcoin⁠⁠ - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 ⁠⁠Blink⁠⁠ - the everday bitcoin wallet ⁠⁠Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town⁠⁠ - Jan 26-28 2024

This week we have a team of bitcoiners based in El Salvador who have recently launched a new circular economy project in the town of Berlin. The project has attracted expats from other countries and has been driving local adoption in recent months within the town – we are excited to hear how things are going and how they are doing it. Adopting Bitcoin⁠ - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 ⁠Blink⁠ - the everday bitcoin wallet ⁠Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town⁠ - Jan 26-28 2024 (00:00:00) Intro (00:00:43) Welcome words (00:02:29) Sponsoring (00:04:33) Introduction Bitcoin Berlin (00:15:05) Why Bitcoin? (00:18:28) How Bitcoin Berlin started? (00:25:13) Merchants in Berlin (00:37:57) Build a sustainable community (00:43:01) Bringing Bitcoin to the people (00:50:59) How important is education? (00:57:47) Salvas Story (00:59:50) Open mic season (01:04:44) Last words and outro

This week we have Bitcoiners from Argentina on the pod - Argentina has been wrestling with chronic inflation of their local currency the Argentinian Peso for decades and recently made headlines when a libertarian outsider called Javier Milei who is also said to be bitcoin-friendly won the Presidential primaries by surprise. Part of Milei’s platform was a very hostile stance against central banks and not surprisingly this has made Bitcoiners pay attention and get excited about this candidate. In this episode we learn from Argentinian Bitcoiners Ariel and Adam how much is true of these rumours - is maybe a second bitcoin president in the making? And what else is going on around Bitcoin in Argentina.

Bitcoin Ekasi is a circular economy project based in Mossel Bay, built after the model of Bitcoin Beach. Together with a Machankura, a project aiming to give people without an internet-connected device a way to send and receive Bitcoin payments, they will be hosting the Adopting Bitcoin conference in Cape Town in January 2024. The Bitcoin conference will convene experts, advocates and innovators from around the world to dive into the topics of Bitcoin, self-sovereignty and parallel institutions. We chat with Hermann and Kgothatso about bitcoin in Africa, the various initiatives to further its adoption and the upcoming conference. Adopting Bitcoin⁠ - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 ⁠Blink⁠ - the everday bitcoin wallet ⁠Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town⁠ - Jan 26-28 2024

We talk with Bitcoiners Eliazar, Rudy and Reyna working on the Bitcoin Lake project at Lake Panachajel in Guatelama and the progress they are making with Mi Primer Bitcoin classes to educate about Bitcoin. Adopting Bitcoin⁠ - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 ⁠Blink⁠ - the everday bitcoin wallet ⁠Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town⁠ - Jan 26-28 2024

Did you know that the town of Rovereto⁠ in the autonomous Province of Trento got bitcoinized back in 2014, with plenty of merchants accepting bitcoin payments? We got a hold of Marco Amadori whose presentation about Open Source Software in which he mentioned Bitcoin as an example sparked the interest of the locals and marked the starting point of a whole town's bitcoin adventure that has been going on for almost a decade. Adopting Bitcoin⁠ - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 ⁠Blink⁠ - the everday bitcoin wallet ⁠Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town⁠ - Jan 26-28 2024

Close to Merida, the capital of Yucatan, there are seven so-called Pueblos Magicos – Sisal, Mani, Valladolid and Izamal and recently also Motul, Espita and Tecax. These are located on the tourist route through the state and receive a lot of support from the Mexican government to promote themselves. Here Daniel wants to work on Bitcoin adoption, as a starting point for 'his' country Mexico, just like it all started in El Salvador with Bitcoin Beach. We chat with Mercedes, Amanda and Daniel, the folks behind the Bitcoin Yucatan project about their plans to build a bitcoin economy around these places, using the principles of the Bitcoin Beach whitepaper and adapted for the local culture. Sponsors: ⁠Adopting Bitcoin⁠ - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 ⁠Blink⁠ - the everday bitcoin wallet ⁠Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town⁠ - Jan 26-28 2024

We chat with Okin from Easysats in Namibia - their mission is to find ways that allow anyone to easily purchase Bitcoin, while using their accumulated expertise & technical knowledge to ensure that not only can Namibians purchase Bitcoin, but they are made aware of how they can accept it for their goods & services as well as securely store it themselves, without the need for continued interaction with others. Okin shares his recipe for getting merchants onboard to accept bitcoin payments - a crucial challenge in the bootstrapping of circular economies - and we talk Bitcoin in Namibia and Africa in general. Sponsors: Adopting Bitcoin - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 Blink - the everday bitcoin wallet Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town - Jan 26-28 2024

In this episode, we talk to bitcoin community builders in Brazil. Fernando Motolese, the initiator of Praia Bitcoin in Jericocoara, started onboarding merchants in his beautiful beach village in September 2021 after he saw the impact a circular economy could have when El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender. Not only did his efforts spawn bitcoin adoption in his village, but also helped other Bitcoiners like Jeff and Vinicius find him and even inspired similar projects in other parts of Brazil, like Montanha Bitcoin in São Thomé das Letras initiated by Lucas Leiva. This discussion illustrates the power of initiative and the accelerating effect of joining forces with other Bitcoiners determined to bring sound money to Brazil. Sponsors: Adopting Bitcoin - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 Blink - the everday bitcoin wallet Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town - Jan 26-28 2024

In this episode, we talk to Dušan Matuška and Zussel Ramos of Amityage, the very first Bitcoin Education Center in Honduras, on a beautiful island of Roatan, located inside of Próspera jurisdiction. Próspera is a private charter city and special economic zone on the island of Roatan in Honduras. A governance platform and a place where you can do business freely and easily. A place where you can pay in Bitcoin with no capital gains on your bitcoin transactions. This former pirate hideout seems to be the perfect spot for Amityage's mission to accelerate bitcoinization and to make Roatan the Bitcoin island of Caribbean. Sponsors: Adopting Bitcoin - A Lightning Summit in El Salvador, Nov 7-9 2023 Blink - the everday bitcoin wallet Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town - Jan 26-28 2024

In Season 3 of ABP, hosts Andrew and Kemal are exploring bitcoin adoption in different parts of the world. For episode 1, they are joined by Ethan Rose of Pouch and Bitcoin Islands to talk about bitcoin usage and adoption on the beautiful island of Boracay in the Philippines. Website: adoptingbitcoin.org Tickets: pretix.eu Twitter: @AdoptingBTC Instagram: AdoptingBTC Youtube: @adoptingbitcoin Telegram: AdoptingBTC

Laws can help in the adoption of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin Law in El Salvador certainly brought a lot of attention to the peer to peer electronic cash system and removed obstacles for its use as a Medium of Exchange. Without a financially literate population that is proficient in the fundamentals of using Bitcoin, however, real adoption can hardly happen. It requires education, not just decree. Mi Primer Bitcoin is a grassroots Bitcoin education initiative in El Salvador that is bringing Bitcoin education to schools and villages. And recently, they have graduated the first cohort of students from their novel Bitcoin curriculum. We are joined by Gloriana and Raul, two Bitcoin educators, who have been working with Mi Primer Bitcoin since its inception, and talk about achievements and what their plans for the future are.

In this episode, Andrew sits down with Pete Winn to talk about Community Banking on Bitcoin, from microlending to bring foreign investment to entrepreneurs facilitated by a community bank to mitigate credit risk, to synthetic dollar offerings to mitigate exchange rate volatility and Fedimint: a privacy enhancing Chaumian mint that works on Lightning.

The btc++ hackathon brought together Bitcoin and Lightning developers together in Austin for 3 days of hacking in Austin, TX. PlebLab co-founder Kyle Murphy, Hoseki founder and hackathon juror Sam Abbassi and Galoy engineer Nick Theile talk about Austin's vibrant Bitcoin scene, cool projects at the hackathon and many other things. 

A Bitcoin-friendly regulation passed three debates in the congress of Panama unanimously before it was surprisingly vetoed by President Laurentino Cortizo. Where does Bitcoin in Panama go from here? And how does the country's history play into this? We'll talk about this and more with Abelito and Miguel Heilbron who have been following the developments closely.

A delegation of Bitcoiners followed the invitation of President Faustin Touadéra to visit Central African Republic after the country's announcement of Bitcoin adoption. The group around Sebastién Gouspillou and Nicolas Burtey met with merchants, government officials and representatives of civil society to learn about the plans and progress of the Bitcoin journey.  In the livestream episode #23 of Adopting Bitcoin - A Conversation with Galoy, Andrew is joined by Nicolas Burtey, Sebastien Gouspillou, Dr. Yamb Ntimba, Jean Christophe Busnel, David Oren and Noor El Bawab who traveled to Bangui to meet with the president. Video of the talk

Season 2 kick-off and live talk with the advisor team of Adopting Bitcoin 2022 about this year's event. Adopting Bitcoin will take place November 15-17 in San Salvador. Moritz Wietersheim from Specter, Giacomo Zucco, Jeff Gallas from Fulmo, Rodrigo Gomez from Bitrefill, Vlad Costea from BTCTKVR, Alexandre Bussutil from bolt.observer talk about the developments in El Salvador and their expectations for Adopting Bitcoin's second installment. We're also joined by Chimbera of Bitcoin Beach and Nicolas Burtey who spend the week orange-pilling 44 Central Bank representatives who followed the invitation of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion to come to El Salvador for the annual meeting.  More info and tickets for the conference: https://adoptingbitcoin.org Watch the video of this episode on Youtube.

There’s this wealth of knowledge about Bitcoin out there in the form of podcasts, articles, Youtube videos etc and it’s high quality, but it’s only accessible to people who speak English. There are efforts to localize and translate content into local languages, but it’s a lot of work and where should one really be starting? Luckily, we found just the right guys who have already done this with a lot of success: the infamous group of Einundzwanzig around Markus, Dennis and Gigi who have been summoning thousands of German speaking plebs from Switzerland, Austria and Germany under their banner and sending out a really strong signal since 2019. Inspired by the success of Einundzwanzig, forks in other languages emerged like Dvadesedjedan and Yirmibir. To make it even easier to copy the concept, Gigi revealed twentyone.world during the show. We couldn't have asked for a better ending to our first season of 21 episodes! See you in the next season when we proceed to Hyperbitcoinization.

We speak with Rich Swisher of MOTIV about their first steps building a Bitcoin Economy in Peru inspired by the success of Bitcoin Beach El Zonte. The project started when Rich and his partner discovered that the lack of proper footwear in a community was the cause of excess child mortality. After a successful intervention with very low cost, they decided to take it a step further and introduce Bitcoin to the marginalized communities. Again, with success. Links: MOTIV Website Bitcoin Magazine Article