Testimony has emerged that everyday bitcoin payments have fallen sharply in El Zonte, El Salvador's best-known bitcoin experiment area known as “Bitcoin Beach”. National adoption of bitcoin and its symbolic status continue, but card payments are replacing bitcoin on the ground, the account said.

Cryptopolitan, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Aug. 25 local time that John Attak (존 어택), a Bitcoin Core contributor, said he paid for lunch in bitcoin at a local restaurant and was told by an employee it was the first bitcoin payment there in a month.

Attak, who has participated in Bitcoin Core development since 2019, moved to El Salvador in 2022. He said on social media on Aug. 24 that bitcoin payments used to be common locally but that he was told they now “virtually hardly exist”.

The restaurant employee said most customers now pay by card. When Attak tried to leave a tip in satoshis, the employee was reported to have replied that he had forgotten how to use the bitcoin app.

The local mood was said to go beyond a simple drop in payment frequency. The employee described the bitcoin payment scene as “dead”. Attak said the employee had watched over the past 3 years as a local bitcoin payment culture formed and then disappeared again.

Bitcoin payments have not completely disappeared. Some travellers who visited the same area said they were able to pay in bitcoin without problems, and signs saying bitcoin payments are available were reported to remain around the town. It can therefore be interpreted that the gap between bitcoin’s symbolism and actual usage has widened, rather than a full halt in payments.

In the background is a change in perception that views bitcoin as a savings asset rather than cash. The outlet said bitcoin holders are increasingly inclined to see it less as money to use and more as an asset held in expectation of price gains. Juan Galt, a bitcoin journalist, pointed out that spending bitcoin when price gains are expected could be an economically disadvantageous choice. For a bitcoin circular economy to function, people are needed who expect price gains but still want to use the coins, he said.

There is also a burden for merchants. The value of proceeds received in bitcoin can fall if the price drops before conversion into dollars. The outlet also cited as a factor holding back wider use that for small purchases such as coffee, faster and more familiar card payments are more convenient than bitcoin.

El Zonte is a symbolic place in bitcoin history. An experiment that began in 2019 when an anonymous donor supported the town with bitcoin later became one of the starting points in El Salvador’s move to adopt bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021.

But the gap between national policy and actual use is widening. El Salvador has said it continues to hold bitcoin as national reserve assets, but an International Monetary Fund review found public sector bitcoin holdings were unchanged after approval of the loan programme.

The outlet said the apparent increase was not new purchases but the result of bitcoin transfers between government-controlled wallets. It said a related letter was signed by the central bank governor and the finance minister, and that new purchases have been halted since February 2025. President Nayib Bukele (나이브 부켈레) responded by saying “proof of work > proof of whining,” signalling his position that bitcoin purchases would continue.

Bitcoin policy itself also changed. El Salvador kept bitcoin’s status as legal tender but removed merchants’ obligation to accept bitcoin and changed it to an option. As a result, unlike consumers who want to hold bitcoin, shops have even less incentive to actively accept bitcoin as a payment method. Even so, Attak said El Salvador remains a “frontier” that is still ahead of other countries in terms of adoption and legislation.

Still, the latest testimony from Bitcoin Beach shows there can be a significant gap between national-level bitcoin policy and actual everyday payments. Holding bitcoin as a national asset and using it for routine transactions such as coffee or meals are separate issues, it said.