Bitcoin Lake or Bitcoin Lake is the name of the project that wants to replicate in Guatemala the experience of El Zonte in El Salvador, a small fishing village located on the coast of the country that was cited by Nayib Bukele as inspiration for his Bitcoin Law.
Patrick Melder is the name of the founder of Bitcoin Lake. He believes that Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention is the perfect tool to alleviate povertycreate green energy, promote financial education and bring hope to the communities surrounding Lake Atitlán, located in the mountainous area of southwestern Guatemala.
His plan is for school children to learn about bitcoin as an additional subject. Its pilot is the Josué Educational Center in the city of Panajachel, as detailed in a Article published in medium in which he outlines his project.
Melder points to El Salvador’s Bitcoin Beach as his inspiration, so following his model, he has already begun to add allies.
IBEX, the Guatemalan bitcoin trading platform, has promised to run a network node in the area. idea is power develop a bitcoin wallet and Lightning Network for residents of local communities. Running your own node will allow you to reduce dependency on others by using third party servers.
As founder of the Melder project aspires that, with bitcoin, each small local merchant can make and accept payments in BTC in a practical and simple waysomething that will surely move the economy of a region that depends on tourism, as he explains.
“To start the circular economy young people can be paid in sats [la unidad más pequeña de bitcoin] for performing some tasks, as they did in Bitcoin Beach. In this case, the cleaning of Lake Atitlán would be the initial objective.
Only bitcoin is missing in one of the most beautiful lakes in the world
Patrick Melder is an American who has vacationed in Guatemala for years. Now, he feels like one more local and believes that Bitcoin has the potential to improve the quality of life of the 300,000 people who live around Lake Atitlán.
What I want is to model what the El Zonte community in El Salvador did with Bitcoin Beach. I want this for several reasons: one is to help people who live in a country that lacks government measures to combat poverty efficiently. I also believe that learning about bitcoin offers opportunities for Guatemalan children and youth who would begin to prepare for the hiring boom that Spanish-speaking bitcoiners could have.
Patrick Melder, founder of Bitcoin Lake.
He adds that money is the base layer of society, although in his view that base layer has been corrupted under the fiat system. “The good thing is that now we have Bitcoin that helps us fix that base layer that holds a lot of things because it promotes equality and fairness,” said the founder of the project during a interview recent.
For Melder, Lake Atitlán is among the 10 most beautiful large bodies of fresh water in the world. And now with bitcoin in citizens’ digital wallets, the site has the potential to be much betterboth for its inhabitants and for its visitors.
Bitcoin is the purest form of monetary energy that we can hold, and because it is digital, we can hold onto it forever. I believe that this cryptocurrency transforms the ability of people to possess wealth, generate wealth and pass on that wealth.
Patrick Melder, founder of Bitcoin Lake.
Bitcoin Lake is not the first project to be inspired by Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador. As reported by CriptoNoticias, a similar initiative called Bitcoin Jungle has also emerged in Costa Rica, as in Brazil, where they seek to return to citizens the power that governments and banks have taken from them.