El Zonte is no longer the rustic beach hideout it once was. The paved road leading down from the coastal highway is lined with colourful casas with thatched roofs and surfboard signposts, interspersed with whitewashed hotels with scandi aesthetics and adjacent wellness centres, advertising saunas, cold plunges and an extensive menu of spa treatments. Traffic wardens seem to be a permanent fixture, blowing whistles and waving arms in an effort to manage the congestion which risks overwhelming the once quiet town, marshalling open-top trucks carrying fresh fruit and thick blue cylinders of potable water, alongside minivans and four wheel drives.
But El Zonte’s rapid rise is no ordinary gentrification story, and this is marked clearly on businesses throughout the town, from traditional tiendas to surf boutiques and modern coffee shop, which bear the bright orange bitcoin logo. Some are accompanied by the phrase and philosophy ‘Fix the money, fix the world.’
Back in 2019 when Californian expat, Mike Peterson, allegedly received a large, anonymous bitcoin donation to spend on community projects — which could be transferred back into US dollars — he partnered with local real estate enthusiast Román Martínez Centeno to create the Bitcoin Beach project. The project aimed to create a sustainable, circular bitcoin economy, enabling El Zonte’s population of roughly 3,000 residents — 90% who were unbanked and financially excluded — to earn, save and spend in bitcoin without relying on banks or government institutions.
At this time, when El Salvador was still considered too unsafe for mass tourism to take hold, El Zonte had a purely surf-driven tourism economy. Between dirt roads and black-sand beaches, the town had only a few local guesthouses, comedores, and basic surfhouses. When locals and visitors alike began using the Bitcoin Beach Wallet app (now Blink) to pay for goods and services in bitcoin, the first-of-its-kind project attracted significant international attention and became a catalyst for investment and development.
At the same time, the project has also led to rising living costs and contributed to growing inequalities in the town. Beyond El Zonte’s now bustling town centre, many homes are modest wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs and dry, dusty yards. It raises questions about whether the economic benefits are being felt across the wider community or whether the town risks pricing out the people the initiative intended to support. Property prices have increased exponentially, new accommodation is reshaping the coastline, and the town is attracting a new wave of visitors, from digital nomads and crypto-enthusiasts to business owners and tech founders.
Chris, a New York-based lifeguard and surf enthusiast has been visiting El Zonte for ten years. Unfortunately, a recent surfing accident left him with a broken ankle and a sizable cast wrapped around his lower leg, meaning he is now observing from an ocean-side restaurant terrace. Bella Luna has been here for years, Chris tells me. In fact, he rents a room in the guesthouse behind it, though prices have started to creep up. I had thought this may be the case, having ordered what I would describe as a gourmet version of a Salvadoran cena tipica (typical dinner) consisting of refried bean hash, avocado, boiled eggs, cheese, garlic sautéed vegetables and fried tortillas, for a punchy $10.
‘The Bitcoin project has attracted some very weird people who are obsessed with bitcoin,’ he says. ‘Tech bros, crypto guys, yogis…there used to be surfers and backpackers here.’
Though Chris’s reservations about El Zonte’s new clientele do not extend to cryptocurrency.
‘I do have about $2000 in bitcoin,’ he says. ‘Better to be in the game.’
As I browse the souvenir and surf shops in El Zonte, I begin to build a picture of the new travellers Chris referred to. Zonteños Souvenirs, which has an offering of locally made crafts, also sells bitcoin merchandise ranging from ‘Bukele’ caps to ‘Satoshi Runners’ club t-shirts. The run club, named after Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, connects discipline in endurance sport to the discipline required to build wealth. Blanca, the young Salvadorian woman manning the front desk, confirms that many people who visit this store do indeed pay with bitcoin. I later learned that Zonteños is the former community hub of the Hope House, the local NGO that helped to implement the bitcoin project back in 2019.
Inside another local business, a tour agency which doubles up as a surf boutique, I meet 18-year-old Oscar, who grew up in El Zonte. Four years ago, Oscar was one of the first people in his community to set up the Bitcoin Beach Wallet app, and helped others to do the same.
‘I was a bitcoin connoisseur,’ he smiles. ‘I worked with Hope House to help other people get set up on Bitcoin Beach Wallet. The app is very easy to use. People of all ages use it, though most people still pay in USD.’
‘El Zonte has changed a lot,’ he continues. ‘It is famous now and it’s very busy, but local people have benefitted from investment in the area. There are jobs for young people now.’
Oscar recommended I visit the Bitcoin Beach House, though it was closed for Semana Santa (Holy Week) at the time of my visit. Aptly, the organisation’s digital footprint offered up some insights into how Bitcoin Beach now operates. Its Instagram describes the project as ‘driving circular economies for a sustainable future’, while advertising startup meet-ups, Bitcoin workshops for university students and beach gatherings for entrepreneurs and surfers alike. The organisation hosts a rotating cast of external speakers, from the non-profit My First Bitcoin — which promotes financial autonomy through crypto education — to start-ups pitching El Zonte as ‘the Hollywood of AI.’
This influx of visitors has inevitably transformed the property market in El Zonte, where estate agents are now among the newest additions to the town centre. Goodlife Real Estate channels the aspirational hustle of Bitcoin Beach with signs that read: ‘the only bad time to buy real estate is later.’
Inside, it is a small space with blacked out windows, air conditioning and Condé Nast Traveller magazines spread out on coffee tables, giving away the property market’s target consumer. I spoke with Oma, a polished and eloquent property consultant, who explained there has been a boom in property since the genesis of the Bitcoin Beach project. Although there has been a mix of national and foreign buyers, local people are getting priced out.
‘It’s an inevitable part of development,’ Oma tells me. ‘A beachfront house could sell for $800,000, while a one-bedroom apartment suitable for Airbnb might cost between $300,000 and $340,000.’
‘In more remote areas, land can still go for as little as $150,000,’ she adds, putting figures to El Zonte’s growing bubble of crypto-gentrification.
‘Property is only going up,’ she says reassuringly, misinterpreting my pensiveness and she signs me up to a newsletter. ‘So don’t worry about that.’
Having already noted the much higher than average rental premiums in El Zonte, I opted to stay in nearby El Parmacito, a black-sand cove, around 4km east of the town. At only $13 per night for a dorm room, Hammock Plantation was a rare budget option for this spot on the Pacific Coast. It was opened eight years ago by Marc and Xenia, a Deutsch-Salvadoran couple, who live on the property with their two daughters.
‘There was an influx of people who came to visit Bitcoin Beach, but this has calmed down in the last two years,’ Marc says. ‘One in twenty guests used to pay with bitcoin; now it’s more like one in a hundred. The novelty has worn off.’
Despite this, Marc explains how bitcoin has had a positive impact on the local community.
‘[Learning about cryptocurrency] has helped to shift the mindset of local people who have been living weekly from paycheck to paycheck to think about money in a more long-term way. It has been educational and also given people more agency as such a high percentage was unbanked.’
He continues, ‘A downside is that Bitcoin is currently volatile because it is still a relatively small market, and ‘whales’ — people or organisations that hold large amounts of Bitcoin — can disproportionately affect the market through large buy and sell orders. However, it is still a good long-term investment.’
Bitcoin Beach has clearly had its benefits. For many local people, young Salvadorans in particular, the project has created employment opportunities, exposure to new industries and greater financial literacy in a community where access to banking and economic opportunity was previously limited.
Still, there remains a striking contradiction at the centre of Bitcoin Beach: while bitcoin branding is everywhere, everyday transactions are largely carried out in US dollars. As conversations in El Zonte highlight, bitcoin appears to function more powerfully as a novelty, or even a marketing tool, than as everyday economic infrastructure. The original initiative addressed genuine problems, from financial exclusion to expensive remittance systems, and introduced digital payment systems to an unbanked community. But the larger transformation — at local level — seems to have come less from bitcoin itself than from the speculative and symbolic economy that formed around it.
Today, El Zonte exists somewhere between a surf town, crypto showcase and startup playground. Bitcoin has brought visibility, jobs, infrastructure and international attention, but it has also accelerated inequalities, as seen in tourism-driven economies around the world. It might have fixed the money but it hasn’t fixed the world.
Although Bitcoin Beach begun as a local financial experiment, its transformation, alongside the emergence of similar projects elsewhere — from Costa Rica’s Bitcoin Jungle to Bitcoin Island in the Philippines — raises wider questions about how marginalised communities can be supported to navigate rapid outside investment and tech-driven development without compromising their livelihoods, communities, and identity.
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