People can pay for a slushie with cryptocurrency in the streets of “bitcoin valley,” a project in the Honduran tourist enclave of Santa Lucia, through which the country has entered the digital currency trend.
The small town in the mountains, 20 minutes from the capital, Tegucigalpa, has become a bitcoin city.
Owners of businesses big and small are adapting to handle cryptocurrencies as payment, hoping to attract more tourism.
Photo: Reuters
“It will open more opportunities and attract more people who want to use this currency,” said Cesar Andino, manager of the Los Robles shopping square.
The bitcoin valley project targets 60 businesses to initially get trained and adopt cryptocurrencies to market their products and services, expecting to spread these practices to more enterprises and nearby areas.
The initiative was jointly developed by the Blockchain Honduras organization, Guatemalan cryptocurrency exchange consortium Coincaex, the Technological University of Honduras and the Santa Lucia City Government.
“Santa Lucia’s community will be educated to use and manage cryptocurrencies, implementing them in different businesses in the region and generating cryptotourism,” said Ruben Carbajal Velazquez, a professor at the Technological University.
While some Latin American countries are exploring cryptocurrencies’ potential, there are risks.
In September last year, El Salvador adopted bitcoin as legal tender after introducing its own “bitcoin beach” in the surfing hot spot town of El Zonte.
The Central American country’s bet on bitcoin was hampered by a cryptomarket downturn, and skepticism from multilateral lenders and ratings agencies. Its publicly disclosed holdings of US$105 million are now worth about US$57 million.
To deal with volatility, the bitcoin valley project would “enable merchants to receive instant payments in the local currency, eliminating cryptocurrencies fluctuation risks,” Blockchain Honduras founder Leonardo Paguada said.
Critics of bitcoin’s expansion have warned that these kinds of operations might fuel money laundering and financial instability while enhancing the digital gap, as poorer residents might struggle to access the technology.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS