Imagine a beach somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Azur blue and green waters. An occasional boat passing by. Cute little palapas to provide you some shade. And a beach shack on the beach where you would be happy to get a cold drink after you had hit the water for some snorkling.
Often these kinds of beach shacks don't have the option to pay by card with, because beaches and electricity and sand and connection is often..yeah troubling. So I am always triggered to have a couple of bucks with me for just in case.
But then I this by the cashier here. 'Bitcoin accepted here' and with the adress of btc.aw on it which means it is about Aruba.
So I decided to pay the website a visit to not only find there are more restaurants accepting payments in BTC here, but also there is even a bitcoin ATM here on the island. I am very much pleasantly surprised honestly!
Ofcourse El Salvador is the first country to have BTC accepted as a legal payment, on these types of islands this is also a really good idea. Even if it is oy for the fast transactions.
See here in Aruba you have the US dollar and the NAF (Antillian Florin) here as legal payment. On the island of Sint Martin for instance you have the US dollar, the Euro and the Florin as legal payment. And all of these all have their own exchange rate to one and another.
From what I remember these exchange rate were often really bogus and sending money abroad was tedious and would shift you over to the mercy on the transaction rate from your bank (I always had to pay $60 transaction costs regardless of the sended amount) but also for instance moneygram is only opened office hours.
An absolute disaster and these ATMs could actually bring a solution in this. Needless to say that having these kinds of options in more remote places are actually really nice.
Now what I do wonder is who will spend their BTC for a cold beer somewhere on a beach in the Caribbean. How idyllic as it may sound, you don’t want to end up being the pizza guy from crypto pizza day, would you?
Or when you look on it from another angle....maybe there is no better way to spend your BTC then sipping on a beer in the Caribbean from your earnings.
You tell me?