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(Reuters) – People can afford a slushie with cryptocurrencies on the streets of “Bitcoin Valley,” an allowance in the Honduran tourist enclave of St. Lucia, where the country has entered the trend of virtual currencies.
The small town in the mountains, 20 minutes from the capital Tegucigalpa, has a bitcoin city.
Business owners, large and small, in St. Lucia are adapting to manage cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, hoping to attract more tourists.
“This will open up more opportunities and attract more people who need to use this currency,” said Cesar Andino, director of the Los Robles mall.
The “Bitcoin Valley” allocation aims for 60 corporations to first shape and adopt cryptocurrencies to market their products and services, hoping to extend those practices to more businesses and nearby areas.
The initiative evolved together through the Blockchain Honduras organization, the Guatemalan cryptocurrency exchange consortium Coincaex, the Technological University of Honduras and the Municipality of Santa Lucia.
Rubén Carbajal Velázquez, a professor at the Technological University, said that “the Community of Santa Lucía will be trained in the use and control of cryptocurrencies, implementing them in other corporations in the region and generating crypto tourism. “
While some Latin American countries are exploring the use of cryptocurrencies, there are risks.
In September 2021, El Salvador followed bitcoin as its legal tender with its own ‘Bitcoin Beach’ in the surf town of El Zonte.
The Central American country’s bet on bitcoin has been hampered by the slowdown in the cryptocurrency market and skepticism from multilateral lenders and scoring agencies. Its publicly disclosed assets of $105 million now amount to about $57 million.
To cope with volatility, Honduras’ “Bitcoin Valley” will “allow traders to get instant bills in the local currency, eliminating the dangers of cryptocurrency fluctuations,” said Leonardo Paguada, founder of the organization Block Chain Honduras.
Critics of bitcoin’s expansion have warned that such operations can also fuel cash laundering and monetary instability while widening the virtual divide, as poorer layers of society would likely struggle with the technology.
(Report by Rodolfo Peñaroja and Aida Peláez-Fernández; Editing through David Gregorio)