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.
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
NVIDIA PLATFORM: Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and a Taiwan site is to enter production next month, Nvidia wrote on its blog Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, yesterday said it is expanding production capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) servers based on Nvidia Corp’s Blackwell chips in Taiwan, the US and Mexico to cope with rising demand. Hon Hai’s new AI-enabled factories are to use Nvidia’s Omnivores platform to create 3D digital twins to plan and simulate automated production lines at a factory in Hsinchu, the company said in a statement. Nvidia’s Omnivores platform is for developing industrial AI simulation applications and helps bring facilities online faster. Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and the
AVIATION BOOM: CAL is to renew its passenger and cargo fleets starting next year on record profits as aviation continues to return to pre-pandemic levels China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday said it is optimistic about next year’s business outlook, as the airline continues to renew its fleet on expectations that global passenger traffic would maintain steady growth and air cargo demand would remain strong. From next year to 2028, the airline is to welcome a new Boeing Co 787 fleet — 18 787-9 and six 787-10 passenger aircraft — to cover regional and medium to long-haul destinations, CAL chairman Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) said at an investors’ conference in Taipei. The airline would also continue to introduce Airbus SE 321neo passenger planes and Boeing 777F cargo jets,
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
RSS