‘Bitcoin Valley’ Launches in Honduras – 60 Businesses Accept BTC to Boost Crypto Tourism – Featured Bitcoin News

Bitcoin Valley, the first bitcoin city in Honduras, has launched in Santa Lucia. Businesses in the area will accept bitcoin for payments. “In Santa Lucia, we are all going to participate in this project … Accepting bitcoin will open us to another market and win more customers,” said a local business owner.

Bitcoin Valley: First Bitcoin City in Honduras

Bitcoin Valley, the first bitcoin city in Honduras, has launched in the small Honduran tourist town of Santa Lucia, located 20 minutes from the capital Tegucigalpa.

The initiative was jointly developed by Blockchain Honduras, the Guatemalan cryptocurrency exchange Coincaex, the Technological University of Honduras, the Decentral Academy and the Municipality of Santa Lucia. Blockchain Honduras announced the launch of Bitcoin Valley on Thursday.

Cesar Andino, owner of the Los Robles shopping plaza in Santa Lucia where several commercial businesses operate, will accept bitcoin in addition to US dollars and Honduran lempiras. He told the La Prensa publication last week that he is waiting to receive a POS device that will allow him to accept the cryptocurrency, adding:

In Santa Lucia, we are all going to participate in this project … Accepting bitcoin will open us to another market and win more customers.

– We must globalise. We cannot close ourselves off from technology and we cannot be left behind when other countries are already doing it, he added.

Carlos Leonardo Paguada Velasquez, founder of Blockchain Honduras and a representative of the Central American Association of Cryptocurrency Users (Acucrip), told the publication a few days before the official launch of Bitcoin Valley:

Around 60 businesses will start with the Bitcoin Valley project.

He noted that owners of these businesses have been trained by the Decentral Academy on the use of bitcoin and the technology behind it.

Coincaex provides POS devices to merchants to allow them to accept BTC. Regarding the volatility of bitcoin, Paguada explained that Coincaex “takes all the risk.”

For example, he said, if a family buys pupusas at a restaurant in Santa Lucia and pays with bitcoin, the equivalent purchase price in lempiras will be deducted from the family’s bitcoin wallet. Coincaex will receive the BTC and transfer the payment in lempiras to the restaurant. “Business owners will not receive bitcoin. They will receive lempiras from Coincaex,” he explained.

Ruben Carbajal Velazquez, a professor at the Technological University, was quoted by Reuters as saying: “Santa Lucia’s community will be educated to use and manage cryptocurrencies, implement them in different businesses in the region and generate crypto-tourism.”

What do you think of the Bitcoin Valley initiative in Honduras? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

A student of Austrian economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects and the intersection of finance and cryptography.