This article is part of a series of four pieces on El Salvador. You can find the previous shipment, a story about Bitcoin Berlin, here.
Bitcoin City sounds like a modern El Dorado, a dream enclave in the jungle, a utopia of the 21st century.
Announced by the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, in 2021, the metropolis will allegedly be raised at the base of the Conchagua volcano. The representations of the project since May 2022 show a circular shape, such as the Bitcoin logo and a gold -painted structure.
Visiting El Salvador this month, I was curious to see Bitcoin City for me, or at least try to detect construction signals.
It is a four and a half hours trip from San Salvador to Conchagua. The volcano is located on the easternmost side in the country, on the coast, by the Gulf of Fonseca. You can see Nicaragua and Honduras from above, as well as small islands such as Tiger Island, Conchagüita and Meanguera Island. It is a beautiful, but terribly humid and hot place. There were 35 degrees Celsius (95 ° F) when I arrived at noon at the end of January.
The city of Bitcoin faces southeast according to the plans shared by Bukele, which means that it should look towards the water. But Google Maps shows no paths on that side of the volcano, only the shell forest and the Virgin beaches such as El Flor Playa (Beach Flower). So I drove the small town of Conchagua, on the north side.
What I found in Conchagua
Conchagua is a small town, and it is adorable. My immediate impression was that I had fallen in time, as Portugal in the 1950s, maybe. Children’s drugs at school with white uniforms ran through the streets, returning home to lunch after being left by colorful buses.
As in most Latin American cities, the central square showed the name of the city in bright block letters: Conchagua. There is a white source behind, and Christmas decorations were still active despite the fact that the festivities ended a lot.
In front of the square is a beautiful white colonial church. His holy patron is Santiago Apupus; The villagers also refer to the parish with that name. It is difficult to know when construction began, but ended in 1693, which makes it the oldest church in El Salvador, and a precious tourist attraction.
Be that as it may, there were no other foreigners when I arrived, and my presence attracted some looks. It is a quiet city; The strangers stand out. It is difficult to say how many people live there: the mayor’s office did not have access to the census taken in 2023 by the Salvadoran Central Bank, but I would be surprised if it were more than a couple of thousands.
Wikipedia says that 37,400, based on a 2007 survey, but that figure is for the entire municipality of Conchagua, which takes half a dozen of other villages around the volcano, and even then, feels like an overestimation.
In the mayor’s office, Margarito García received me politely, who has worked for the office for 15 years. When I asked about Bukele’s plans to build Bitcoin City in the volcano, Garcia shook his head.
“These are just words,” he said.
There have been no construction signs, he added, or government officials have been seen. I was not the first person to ask. Tourists, French and Slovak, recalled, had come to look for the city of Bitcoin in recent months. But he saw attention brought to Conchagua as positive for the local economy.
Garcia mentioned that an airport was developing near Loma Larga, about 30 minutes to the southwest of Conchagua. He referred to the “Pacific Airport”, an initiative proposed by Bukele since 2019 to boost tourism in the east region of El Salvador and relieve the existing international airport in the country on the part of its congestion.
The Legislative Assembly approved the construction of the airport in 2022. The project will cost $ 328 million and initially the service between 300,000 and 500,000 passengers per year. Construction is expected to begin in 2025.
Plans for Bitcoin City
The project is remarkable because Bukele’s plans for Bitcoin City include an airport, as well as a port, railway services, commercial and residential areas, restaurants and entertainment places. Could Pacific airport be a first step to build the metropolis?
Probably.
“In the city of Bitcoin, we will have mining, agriculture, culture and sports. When we leave, this will last, and they can all see the city, ”said Bukele in 2021, when he announced the project.
“We will not have income tax, forever. No income tax, without property tax, without contracting tax, zero municipal taxes and CO2 zero emissions. The only taxes you will have in Bitcoin City is VAT, half of which will be used to pay the municipality’s bonds and the rest for the public infrastructure and the maintenance of the city, “he added.
The geothermal energy of the Conchagua volcano imagined as the main source of energy of Bitcoin City, a good environmental touch considering the environmental reputation of the Bitcoin mining industry.
Bukele said that the construction of Bitcoin City will be financed through a tokenized bonus backed by Bitcoin of $ 1 billion, called the volcano bonus, originally scheduled for the issuance in 2022. The bonus received the regulatory approval in December 2023 and He supposed to be launched in the first quarter of 2024, according to the Bitcoin office of El Salvador. But the Salvadoran government has remained silent on the matter since then.
“I don’t know when we will have some news about it,” said Stacy Herbert, director of the Bitcoin office (which acts as government marketing arm for all things related to cryptography) told me in December when I asked for updates on Bitcoin City and the Bond volcano. “But the base has been placed for everything.”
Leading to the volcano
I was quite determined to climb the volcano and put my eyes on the Gulf of Fonseca. I wanted to have an idea of the opinion that Bitcoin City residents can enjoy in the future.
The villagers did not seem to think that my rental car would achieve it. They were all ground clues; They said they would need a four -wheel drive, or would have to take a transport service there.
I tried it anyway. Slowly advancing in a road full of potholes, I drove east, avoiding the volcano, to another town called AMAPALITA. On both sides of the track there were fields and forests. From time to time I saw the northern side of the volcano cross the foliage.
It did not spend much time before the road became too steep for comfort. I turned around and returned to the town. He could have tried another road, which runs on the western side of the volcano, but the day progressed, and wanted to reach El Zonte, four hours away, before dusk.
Assuming that the Pacific Airport begins to build in 2025 (which seems likely) will have spent six years from the moment Bikele first mentioned the airport and the moment when construction began.
Bitcoin City, being a much larger company, could take much longer than that. There is no guarantee that the initiative will come to fruition. Other planned cities, such as Neom in Saudi Arabia, have faced even greater delays.
Who knows? El Salvador has surprised the world more than once under Bukele. I would not bet on that.
