Why create a Bitcoin Economy in Jericoacoara?
From the early days, Bitcoin has promised to allow us to bankroll the unbanked and return the power of governments and financial institutions to the individual. However, until recently, this promise has remained elusive.
Jericoacoara is a Small village inside a National Park, 300 km from Fortaleza, on the west coast of Ceará, northeast of Brazil.
Despite being one of the most popular tourist destinations on the planet, we do not have a single ATM, and most natives are excluded from the traditional financial system.
We were forgotten by the banks, but now we have Bitcoin.
About the Praia Bitcoin Experiment
Praia Bitcoin is an independent movement, inspired by the original Bitcoin Beach experiment in El Zonte, to ensure that Bitcoin's true potential is realized and that those excluded from the banking system are the main beneficiaries. We believe if a local economy is created with Bitcoin's support, new opportunities will open up for the community members.
We are following the ideas of the Bitcoin Beach whitepaper as much as we can. Our mission is to use Bitcoin as money and a reserve of value by integrating education, spirituality, recreation, and technology, the 4 pillars of a Bitcoin Beach-Like Effort.
How did the experiment get started?
Using an initial donation of 0.02 BTC from our founder Fernando Motolese, Praia Bitcoin started to create Jericoacoara's Bitcoin Circular Economy by helping more than 120 users (local workers, artisans, fishermen, and street artists) to create Lightning and OnChain wallets. Then, we helped 10 local businesses to accept Bitcoin as payment,
providing training and promotional material.
Here is a full list of what you can buy with Bitcoin at Jericoacoara Village and a map of the businesses where you can use Bitcoin as payment.
Thanks to multiple donation matches from Galoy Money, we translated the Bitcoin Beach Wallet to Brazilian Portuguese, we started to test the Galoy Money infrastructure in a self-hosting environment, and we created a guide to replicate our Lightning implementation.
Thanks to a donation of 0.1 BTC from Bitcoin Beach, our founder has fixed the computers of the Public School with new
power supplies, mouse pads, and headsets. Furthermore, he has installed a switch for the local network, Linux Mint on all computers as the operating system, and managed a partnership with the local internet provider to offer an Internet connection of 400Mb for the lab. Now, the kids are having regular classes there, and they love it!
With a second 0.1 BTC donation from Bitcoin Beach, on August 13th, 2022, we did the first Bitcoin activation in the school by giving away piggy banks, squeezes, T-shirts, and 408 mnemonic paper wallets for all students and teachers. Using the paper wallets, they'll be able to receive rewards for their voluntary work and hold BTC. The funding transaction of all wallets destined to the school is here.
To generate the paper wallets, mainly to onboard the students without mobile phones, we created our tools to do it. Different from all available Paper Wallets (who use private keys of one address only), we are using the powerful Mnemonic Phrases to create a Segwit Bip84 wallet generated by Ian Coleman Bip 39 (version 0.5.4). Running on an offline computer with all security measures possible, after printing the wallet with instructions on how to use it, they were cut, bent, stamped, packed, and sealed. Our method to safely generate the wallets and the code are available here.
The results of the first activation were incredible. The students started to use the t-shirt and squeeze at school, and also sell groceries on the streets using the paper wallet to receive and hold SATs.
On the "Piggybanks bailout by Bitcoin #1" on August 31, around 9 volunteers received 5000 SATs each and 46 kids converted fiat coins into Bitcoin with our help. The paper wallet effect on the students was impressive, and all collected coins were donated to the School. During the conversion, they received instructions to keep their seeds safe and a 10% reward in Bitcoin. The transactions of the Piggybanks bailout are here and here.
A new stage begins
Finally, we received a third donation of 0.1 BTC from Bitcoin Beach, and a donation of 0.21 BTC from the channel Palavra de Satoshi at the beginning of September 2022, and we started a new stage in our development.
First, we donated to the school 0.012 BTC to start the project "Quem Planta, Colhe" written by our founder to build an organic vegetable garden in the School's backyard with help of the students. We will support them with donations until the garden is ready.
To improve our local server infrastructure, we bought 3 new mini-computers, 2 no break, 5 power strips, and 3 surveillance cameras
Collaborating with Lee Salminen founder of Bitcoin Jungle Costa Rica, we developed the Bulk Bolt Cards script to create an LNBits wallet with several features activated attached to an NFC Card (NTAG 424DNA). With just one command, it generates 4 pages with QR codes, and instructions to use the card and the wallet features.
Finally, we designed the Bitcoin Bolt Card - Genesis Block Edition to unlock lightning in the village. We bought 2000 NFC NTAG424 DNA Cards manufactured by a Chinese Supplier, printed on both sides with the unique UID and all cards are under SATOSHI's name.
What is next
Making this effort to bring Bitcoin to the village, requires the full-time job of our founder, who needs to handle several tasks collaborating with suppliers and remote volunteers. We can't depend on donations only, so, we need to establish a corporate layer to serve the community by providing software development, products, and services.
As we did with the Public School, delivering something beneficial with real value for the community, we started to approach Jericoacoara's Official Community Council. In exchange for paying the Council's monthly water and electricity bill, they will provide a great space to store our products, run our new infrastructure and conduct our activities.
This space is needed since the beginning of the experiment, It'll be a great place for to Bitcoiners visit and engage in our activities. As we create the corporate layer integrated with the social initiatives will be possible to feed our Bitcoin Circular Economy using Bitcoin as a tool for social transformation. From there we want to build a business model integrating education, spirituality, recreation, and technology the 4 pillars of the Bitcoin Beach-Like Efforts.
2nd Jericoacoara's Activation
31 October 2022, will be a historical day. We are going to give more than 400 Bitcoin Bolt Cards to the students and teachers of Jericoacoara's Public School pre-charged with 5000 sats each and help them understand how to use it.
Also, 10 merchants will receive PoS Machines, bitcoin stickers, one acrylic display with instructions, and training to receive Bitcoin payments with the NFC cards. All workers of the merchants will receive cards too.
Depending on Donations
Support us
If you're a Bitcoin company, or an individual donor donating or providing services over 1000 USD and would like to have your logo/avatar listed in the Supporters Section, please get in touch via bitcoinbeachbr@pm.me after you make a donation, with an invoice or a transaction ID and a logo/avatar in .png (200 x 200 px)
Supporters
Special Thanks
Experiment Milestones & Roadmap
We will use all Bitcoin donations to onboard new users, maintain an office, hire employees, create educational and promotional materials, buy hardware, develop software, contribute to local social projects and pay expenses for services provided by the local people who participate in the work we do, following the lessons of the Original Bitcoin Beach Experiment.
Q4 2021
OK - Create a website and Social Media Channels (Twitter and Instagram)
OK - Setup wallets for 100 local users,
donate BTC or make small real transactions
OK - Install Local Node 'BitcoinBeachBR - Jericoacoara 01' using MyNode BTC, open
channels and buy inbound Liquidity
OK - Write and
publish the Bitcoin Adoption Guide and suggest Bitcoin as Legal Tender to the Brazilian Congress
Ok - Replace Node
HDD, for a Donated SSD
OK - Setup a Crowdfunding Campaign on BTC Pay Server
Ok - Setup the Domain
Jericoacoara.io with LndHub and subdomain lnbits.jericoacoara.io with LnBits
Ok - Publish the Public IP of the
Local Node to show up in ACINQ Explorer
Ok - Develop BtcPayServer Payment Forward Script to automatic forward
Bitcoin Payments thanks to @libertonho
Ok - Setup BtcPayServer PoS for small businesses and street artists to
receive Bitcoin Payments and automatically donate 1% to Xavi Surf Kids Social Project
OK - Implement lightning in 10 local stores
Q1 - 2022
Ok -
Print QR Codes with instructions to make Payments using BtcPayServer PoS
OK - Buy a Lightning ATM Construction Set from Fulmo Shop @21misenought
OK - Refurbish the Bitcoin Boat - "Jangada da Música
Autoral"
OK - Rewrite Crowdfunding Campaign and Update the Roadmap
[FAILED]- Implement Lightning Payments in the Supermarket Popular [1]
OK - Buy a new machine to run a node with MyNodeBtc
OK - Implement LN Adress capabilities on BtcPayServer Payment Forward script
OK - Helping BitcoinNatal.org follow the Praia Bitcoin Standards to create a Public Lightning Network Infrastructure
[FAILED] - Buy some audio equipment, battery, and cables for the Bitcoin Boat [no donations enough]
[FAILED] - Develop and Deploy LND to Onchain script [developer abandoned the project]
[FAILED] - Plan the viability to run and deploy a wallet (the technology is expensive and very difficult to deploy)
[FAILED] - Promote a weekly meetup with a Live Music Presentation at Jangada da Música Autoral
[FAILED] - Create a YouTube channel and publish one educational video per week (no sponsorship)
Q2 - 2022
OK - Started to help Galoy open-source Banking platform run in a self-hosted environment. [1]
OK - Rebrand from BitcoinBeachBR to Praia Bitcoin
OK - Buy equipment parts to fix the Public School Computers Room [1] [2]
Ok - Translate the BitcoinBeach Wallet into Brazilian Portuguese
OK - Migrate the full node to the cloud to increase the availability
Ok - Help BitcoinNatal to setup BtcPayServer Payment Forward Script [First Public Transaction]
Ok - Donate an old computer to BitcoinPantanal and help to set up a full node with Raspiblitz Amd64 [1]
Ok - Buy a pizza on Bitcoin Pizza Day [1]
Ok - Fix the Public School computers room and connect all computers to Internet [1]
Ok - Fix the Computers Lab at the Public School and install a switch for the local network
Ok - Install an Internet connection on the Computers Lab donated by Cyber Info
Ok - New Headsets delivery
[FAILED] Install Lightning ATM Pocket Edition somewhere in the Village [Parts Arrival]
[FAILED] Install LPoS device
Q3 - 2022
Ok - Guide to replicate our lightning implementation to serve the community as a Local Bitcoin Bank
Ok - Test Ibex Pay in a local merchant [1]
Ok - Update the Crowdfunding campaign, milestones and roadmap
OK - Buy a printer, paper, void stickers and waterproof bags to make paper wallets
OK - Make 400 t-shirts, 400 squeezes, 400 piggy banks, and 400 onchain paper wallets [1] [2]
OK - Onboard 400 students by donating a paper wallet, a t-shirt, a squeeze, a piggy bank and 1000 SATs to each
OK - Translate Crowdfunding Campaign into Portuguese
OK - Distribute 192 paper wallets with 1000 SATs each to the merchants, local workers and volunteers.
Q4 - 2022
OK - Buy new equipment for the node [transaction]
OK August, 31th - Convert the collected coins on the piggy banks into BTC with a 10% reward.
[FAILED] Reward 19 teachers with 21k SATs each (only 2 teachers bring the paper wallet)
[FAILED] Run nodl.it node on the cloud with Lnbits wallet for the Bolt Card users
[FAILED] 09-31-2022 PiggyBanks bailout by Bitcoin #2 - Convert the amount collected into the piggy banks with a 10% reward. [Now kids can convert every day at the community Council]
OK - Finish the layout of the Bitcoin Bolt card
OK - Buy 2000 NFC Cards in China, 2000 a6 zip bags, and 2000 RFID card sleeve
OK - Buy and install 2 no breaks and 3 IP Cameras
Ok - Migrate Routing Node & PoS from DigitalOcean to Local
OK - Install the new node and the no break at the school
OK - Install Lnbits Chatbot at the development node
OK - Buy 10 PoS Machines with customized Boot animation and Bitcoin Apps
OK - Open a company and establish a team
OK - Register business that accepts BTC at BTCMap.org, BitcoinFood.org and CoinMap.org
[Ok] Close the deal with the community Council and get the keys to our new office
[Partially FAILED] 31/10/2022: 2nd Jericoacoara activation: Giveaway 400 cards for the kids and teachers of the Public School (Only 127 cards are delivered in the first day, and we are delivering the cards yet)
[WORKING ON THIS] - Implement Lightning NFC payments in 10 local stores.
[WORKING ON THIS] - Re-implement BTCPayServer in the 10 Local Merchants connected with PoS machines
- Find a solution for the seaweed [info]
- Make 10 big stickers and 10 Acrylic displays to giveaway to the merchants
- Hire a remote developer and a local manager
- Establish a business model to feed our Bitcoin Circular Economy
- Develop a new script to automate the backups
- Provide free training for natives and local workers.
Q1 - 2023 [Under review]
- Implement Blockstream Sattelite kit
- Implement Solar Energy OFF GRID
- Develop and deploy PraiaBitcoin Wallet using GaloyMoney open-source solution.
- Establish the World Record of Bitcoin Lightning payments made by one person to 40 people in the shortest time possible.
- Sponsor local athletes and artists
- Replicate the BitcoinSmiles.org initiative in Brazil
