Topic: Bitcoin Island in the Philippines, Have you ever been there? - page 3. (Read 590 times)

Good for those who are already rich, and have some numbers of Bitcoin that they are ready to lavish away, I am planning to get retired with Bitcoin and I can't afford to keep wasting my Bitcoin on luxury life style, this idea is definitely not a good one for someone like myself.

I am planning to visit some countries after I achieve my goals, there is no point starting something you can't really afford yet, there is time for everything if you put in the work at the right time, for me this is one of the right times, I need to keep accumulating Bitcoin for now.

My advice is you need to do this if you can afford it, going places is good, but don't end up going broke because you traveling around the world, make the bags of money first.

Well, you should try to visit in the philippines, there's a lot of tourist places, beautiful island and natural resources  which is worth to visit, even some other Asian people loves to visit boracay. Anyway, since this island is accepting bitcoin payment for their offered services and merchants, there's a huge possibility to attract more tourist especially that some foreign people does have bitcoin as their investments, It could attract tourists in the neighboring country too. That's a good suggestion to have marketing ads about boracay island offers bitcoin as a mode of payment, I hope Aklan government officials will make ads so that the entry of many tourists can be improved

I say the Bitcoin Island as they say it is a little more hype than reality really.

I would know cause I've visited that place last year with my girlfriend, and let me tell you that while it definitely prides itself as the only Island in the Philippines where bitcoin can be used to buy items and shit, it's not as prevalent as you might think. For example, there are only a couple stalls and stores in there that actively accept bitcoin as a payment option, shown by the bitcoin signs on their doors when you enter their establishments, local inns and rooms aren't accepting bitcoin and are only accepting money in the form of Gcash or Fiat, and so do their local food hubs.

The island's still far from its dream of being a crypto-centric space in the Philippines but I can see the effort and I applaud them personally. But for people like me who are really interested about the whole bitcoin island shtick it's a little disappointing to see just how different it was from what we envisioned.

If you're going to visit Boracay as a tourist spot you will never be disappointed. It's beautiful and it's got one of the most beautiful beaches on the planet. The people are nice and the night life is crazy cool. However, if you're going to visit Boracay for the sake of its bitcoin island title, I think you should lower your expectations.

I do think that it may definitely impact the economy once Boracay becomes the national BTC island of the Philippines.

Remember that any form of payment that we receive is an additional money in our economy. If BTC transactions were to occur in this island, hundreds of tourists will definitely be maximizing this kind of payment channel. Not to mention, Boracay in itself is a tourist spot- lots of tourists globally visit the island yearly in order to experience its amazing beaches and waters. If tourists were enabled to use BTC on their transactions, this can directly impact the economy as more money would be circulated and added in its finances.

I just hope that the government takes advantage of this set-up given that Boracay has all the tools to be the first BTC island in the country. It already is a popular tourist spot- might as well maximize its potential by adding cryptocurrencies as its payment channel.

I live in neighboring country of Philippines but this is actually the first time I have ever heard of Boracay Island, I have been to Thailand and Vietnam, but I think (at least) for me and my peers we never thought that Philippines as a tourist destination. And if this is actually true that there is an island where most (if not all) of the merchant is accepting Bitcoin, it could attract more tourist, at least from the neighboring country in SEA because from what I know, crypto is huge and keep growing in this area. And this could be a marketing material, since there is not much marketing and ads about Philippines tourism.

Well, it is quite effective in generating noise to attract tourists I guess, so it kind of somehow works? It remains to be seen whether tourists who actually can use Bitcoin will visit the country and whether said tourists differ from their usual expected tourist group, both of which are questions that I can't really answer.

In general, though I think it's good enough just based on the fact that it can create articles about it being this "Bitcoin Island" as they say, and if they attract even a small group of crypto users that they usually wouldn't be able to, I think it would work out well enough.

Luckily enough you can take a vacation to the island of Boracay, it becomes an extraordinary experience when it is called the title of Bitcoin Island in the Philippines.

You may not be ready with your Bitcoin wallet, and using regular wallet payments will require long confirmation times as well as expensive fees.

Do you see how Bitcoin transactions there are conducted?
Using the Lightning Network or not?

Perhaps the third-party services provided are already regulated by the government and Bitcoin is just a bridge to eventually becoming Fiat.
And this is also possible to keep costs down to make it easier and faster.

Same here! The last time we visited Boracay, I saw that there are other businesses and hotels that accept bitcoin payment for the services they offer, Since it is popular and many are aware of bitcoin investment, especially many tourists loves to visit Boracay, so they put bitcoin/ crypto payment in their payment options which in fact is a good goal so that somehow the country gradually adopts this payment set up.

Any news when it comes to integration or adoption will be always a good news, doesnt matter on what are those notable effects or it might be that relevant or not but most of the time it is.

Regarding on the question, Economic growth? For sure to those establishments or business that do accepts Bitcoin or crypto payments then they are really that obliged to pay up taxes
which we do know that government doesnt really like to let it skip if there would really be those significant numbers if we do speak about to those people who are really that
making such payment but the question is, how they would really be able to tally it out or would be able to know or trace it up?

Doesnt matter on how they would be doing it, as long it would really be that be applied or integrated as some sort of payment option then this is what most important.

If we talk about the economic impact, of course this has a big impact. from several media that I read, even now almost all local businesses on the island accept digital asset payments on Boracay Bitcoin Island. That way, of course economic growth there will increase due to higher monthly transactions. This is something innovative in the future, because Pouch as a wallet application there will also continue to increase the number of local businesses that accept Bitcoin payments.

Apart from improving the economy, Boracay Bitcoin Island will also be a real example of how transactions work when crypto assets are used as the main means of payment in everyday life, of course this will also be a motivation for other Asian countries to implement transactions using bitcoin. However, what is certain is that Boracay Bitcoin Island was inspired by the country of El Salvador which has accepted Bitcoin as a legal means of payment in its country.

Bitcoin payment implementing at the Bitcoin Island(BORACAY)
Bitcoin island in the Philippines?

@0t3p0t, Be careful that someone doesn't accuse you of plagiarizing the title


I wouldn't say that Bitcoin won't have some kind of impact on that island, because every additional form of payment is only something positive for the local population, and the fact that a popular tourist destination accepts Bitcoin at hundreds of locations on the island must have attracted some people over the years who wanted to pay for their vacation with Bitcoin.

Of course, the "problem" with Bitcoin is that most people consider it only as an investment and not as a currency to pay for something.

        -   Boracay in the Philippines is one of the tourist hot spots that foreigners can really go to when it comes to really beautiful scenery. Then the good thing about this island is that since most of the people who came here are tourists, there are many merchants on that island who accept Bitcoin payments via the Pouch app wallet.

So even those who can't really be said to have an idea or knowledge of bitcoin or crypto know how to process payments through bitcoin or cryptocurrency. So, over time, they gradually familiarize themselves with this thing, as long as they don't always have problems with the bitcoin network when there is congestion in the network.

Does the Philippines Gov there allowed it? I mean its legal there? A few years ago here in Bali (Indonesia) we can use crypto for payments on any merchants or services which accept crypto.
But last year the Gov started to crack down on crypto payments for goods and services, due to the taxes.

Of course there must be an impact on economic growth, it can be studied based on tourists who treat Bitcoin as a source of transactions, this can be assessed from the total number of visits per year, as long as Bitcoin is implemented as a payment method for tourism increases or decreases and vice versa, on the one hand bitcoin can make it easier for those who visit there, without carrying too much fiat money.

It depends, firstly on the internet signal, secondly how much costs are incurred during the transaction, whether there is an error or not depends on the situation.

Of course, what is worried about is the costs and expenses incurred, if the costs are greater than the price of the product, of course that is a real worry for users who carry out Bitcoin method transactions.

I don't think so.

First of, the government here in the Philippines is way too corrupt for them to prioritize economic growth. They can't even support local farmers, if you're always watching the news, plenty of vegetables and fruits in Baguio and in other regions are always thrown out by the farmers since they can't even sell it in a very cheap price. The irony of that is the government chose imported goods instead of buying locally goods.

And in terms of cryptocurrency, all they wanted is to control it, probably going to put an insane taxes on those who owns it and accepts it as a payment in their businesses. They are even planning to ban binance, lol, what a joke.

This step could attract tourist that wants to enjoy their vacation using only Bitcoin. These tourists could help increase the revenue of these businesses and this will definitely increase the tax they pay to the government. More tourists will also mean employment opportunities since businesses will prosper due to high patronage. This kind of policy has great potential in the future when Bitcoin adoption has increased in different countries. It will be very possible when people begin to use Bitcoin as a currency and not just for investment. Before now Bitcoin was a good means of sending money to loved ones in different parts of the world because of its cheap transaction fees and privacy. But with the current high transaction fee Bitcoin is not a fantastic option anymore.

They have mentioned their wallet https://www.pouch.ph/

Although I don't have experience with the wallet, but it seems the wallet is centralized and they use lightning network, so the transactions would be quick and cheap. I don't think they have "local token" their CBDC is under development and it's no longer Bitcoin Island if they promoting their own token instead of Bitcoin.

I can't even remember how many of these crypto islands there were planned since 2014, and maybe before it. There were even several icos trying to fund them, but everyone of these ideas collapsed as people were overestimating the need for it. And the problems for retailers when it's converted to cash. I guess this could work in some places, but it just makes me think that these people haven't thought this trough. There's a reason why advertising mixers was banned in here and regulations are getting so much tighter on centralized exchanges. That's because people don't want / can't escape these regulations for much longer.

If some major power shift doesn't happen in finance regulatory, it doesn't take too much time before crypto spend on these kind of islands need a kyc as well. Even if they were outside of FATF regulatory regions, at some point that btc needs to turned into fiat money. Even if we would remove the fiat money out of the picture, the regulations would most likely stay. So i can't really see any difference of spending btc with debit cards to paying directly with crypto.

Do you think the speed and cost of Btc transactions is prohibitive to daily spending use?

It would be more convenient for the users to arrive at the resort and exchange Btc for a local token that is quicker & cheaper.

I honestly think that it is a good idea

there are already lots of tourists entering the Philippines ever since particularly in Boracay but ever since the pandemic we can’t help but notice the hardships or challenges the tourism sector faces for foreigners to use bitcoin as a mode of payment is very inclusive and progressive not only foreigners can benefit from the use of cryptocurrency but most especially the young ones who also visit boracay