In 2019 an early Bitcoin holder offered to fund something useful through an advisor, and Mike Peterson wrote back the same night with a proposal to spend it in one village. The letter, published in the project's own whitepaper, names Agua Fria on El Salvador's coast: poor, isolated by the civil war, and starting to see surf tourism that the locals were not benefiting from. The plan was to pay people in bitcoin and to get local shops accepting it, so the money would circulate instead of being cashed out.
The site lists Mike Peterson, Roman Martinez and Peter DeSoto as co-founders and describes Bitcoin Beach as a locally led Salvadoran initiative. No legal entity is named anywhere in its own materials, so the structure is recorded as undocumented rather than guessed at. Donations are stated to be kept in bitcoin and paid out as stipends to local participants.
What got built: a merchant network in El Zonte, wages paid in bitcoin, utility bills, medical care, food and haircuts payable over the Lightning Network, and the Bitcoin Beach Wallet, later renamed Blink and spun out. Programmes now listed include education, English and business training, a fellowship, and advice to other communities.
The results are worth reading carefully. The adoption figures usually quoted come from the project's own whitepaper and describe the end of 2021: 90% of families having used bitcoin at least once in the previous six months, 50% using it regularly, and 50% of businesses accepting it. Those are self-reported, not independently surveyed, and they are now years old. Forbes reported in September 2025 that the model had spread and that a fellowship connected leaders running 70 projects inspired by it, which measures replication rather than local outcomes.