Bitcoin payments appear to have fallen sharply in El Zonte, the Salvadoran coastal community known worldwide as Bitcoin Beach, according to Bitcoin Core contributor Jon Atack.
Atack said staff at a restaurant told him his transaction was the first payment made in bitcoin there for an entire month. The observation has renewed debate over the limited day-to-day use of bitcoin in El Salvador, despite the country’s international reputation as the world’s first “Bitcoin Country” after it passed its bitcoin law in 2021.
Atack, who has contributed to Bitcoin Core since 2019, has lived in El Salvador since 2022. He was also temporarily arrested last year.
Sharing his experience on social media, Atack described paying for lunch in El Zonte, which is also known as Bitcoin Beach and has traditionally been viewed as one of the main centres of bitcoin adoption in the country.
“Lunched in El Zonte (Bitcoin Beach) today. After I paid, they told me it was the first bitcoin payment there all month, going on to describe how before, they used to see many payments in bitcoin, and that now it’s practically non existent. Pretty depressing,” Atack declared.
He said he then asked how most customers paid and was told that almost everyone used a card instead.
Atack also offered to leave a tip in satoshis, the smallest denomination of bitcoin. However, he said the employee had forgotten how to use her bitcoin application and was not particularly interested in receiving the tip.
“I then asked if she wanted a tip in sats, but she had forgotten how to use her bitcoin app and didn’t really want any: ‘It’s dead,’” he said.
Atack acknowledged that his account was anecdotal. He added, however, that the employee had worked at the establishment for three years and had witnessed how payment habits in the area had changed over time.
His comments prompted both support and criticism online. Bitcoin reporter Juan Galt said the situation reflected “an economics problem at hand and no one seems to be taking it seriously”. He argued that a degree of altruism was required for bitcoin payments to help create a circular economy, but said that expecting the value of bitcoin to rise made such behaviour “counter-economic” at its core.
Another user disputed the suggestion that bitcoin payments were no longer readily available in the area, saying she had recently returned from El Zonte and had paid with bitcoin without difficulty.
“We paid by card to our hotel, but there were signs everywhere that they accept bitcoin, so I assume they do,” she declared.
Despite his concerns, Atack said El Salvador remained well ahead of many other countries in terms of bitcoin adoption and legislation.
“Sometimes I begin to take for granted what we have in El Salvador and forget that it is a pioneering frontier and how far ahead it is of other places in adoption and forward-thinking legislation,” Atack concluded.
Separately, the material about the El Zonte experiment includes a reference to Satnotes dispensing 500 satoshi-denominated banknotes through a community ATM pilot on 1 January 2026. The initiative is identified as the “Satnotes El Zonte Experiment”.
