These journalists just can’t not add their snarky takes and pepper what could be a good article with those buzzwords so oft used in “journalism” these days. I personally thought just the fact there IS a Bitcoin themed bar in Mexico City was pretty cool in and of itself so here it is:

Future Tense Newsletter: What I Learned After Three Beers at a Bitcoin Bar

It’s 7 p.m. on a Thursday, and I’m drinking a beer next to a Bitcoin ATM.

On the wall in front of me is an illustration of a masked Satoshi Nakamoto: “Don’t Delay—Be Your Own Bank,” it announces. It’s one of several portraits of Satoshi, including one that features him taking off from a dollar bill as if he were a superhero. (The portraits are particularly creative, since no one knows who Satoshi—a pseudonym—really is.) A TV is mounted above the bar, displaying the current values of hundreds of cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin occupies the biggest space on the screen, followed by Ethereum and Binance Coin, and then other coins, many with squares so tiny that they’re imperceptible. The numbers on the screen fluctuate steadily: A Bitcoin is worth $21,163.64, then $21,112.75, then $21,101.05. Behind me is a case full of Bitcoin memorabilia for sale: mugs, T-shirts, rings.

This is Bitcoin Embassy Bar, a hip two-story establishment in Mexico City’s Roma Norte neighborhood. It’s a place where you can use Bitcoin to pay for a hot doge (Doge Coind, Multidoge, or Dogechain, depending on your liking), or exchange pesos to reload your Bitcoin wallet. It also hopes to be a gathering place for the Bitcoin community in Latin America. As it does so, it weaves a sort of tension: creating a physical gathering space for a community that is, in its DNA, digital.

Latin America is arguably the most important testing ground for building physical infrastructure and community around digital currencies—from El Salvador to Puerto Rico to Guatemala. Depending on how you feel about crypto, this is either incredibly exciting or incredibly problematic. According to a report by Americas Society/Council of the Americas, the use of cryptocurrencies in Latin America rose 1,370 percent between 2019 and 2021.

Full article here: https://slate.com/technology/2023/02/mexico-city-bitcoin-bar-crypto-community.html