₿ is for BOSA

As I travel around the world, I take every opportunity to meet and discuss with local bitcoiners. These are some of the the most interesting and forward-thinking people you can meet. So I was happy to meet with with a bitcoiner here who has a vision for his town of Bosa to become the bitcoin center of Sardinia and even Italy - rather like Lugano is for Switzerland. The goal is to create an active circular bitcoin economy that everyone is welcome to participate in.

We had a most enjoyable chat in the beautiful surroundings of Bosa town, brainstorming some ideas. Learning from others it seems useful to work top-down and bottom-up, noting that bitcoin spreads best bottom-up. What do you think? What suggestions can you give?

Top-down: You can learn a lot from how Paolo and his team worked with Lugano town and the mayor to get the project up and running. Listen to this interview of Paolo by Stephan and read more here.

Bottom-up: You can learn also from how Bitcoin Beach grew in El Salvador to the level of national adoption and legal currency. For example imagine you produce beer that you sell to the tourists who visit and in the local market. You can simply start accepting bitcoin as payment and advertise that you accept bitcoin with the "Bitcoin Welcome Here" logo. This will trigger interest among other sellers who will see this generating extra business and providing the other benefits of bitcoin as better cash. You can also work with your suppliers and offer to pay them in bitcoin instead of cash. Another useful tool can be Lightning cards - these are an easy way to get people up and running with some bitcoin that they can immediately use and they are easy to top-up any time.

Peer-to-Peer: One of the important aspects of circular economies is that there be ready convertibility between local cash and bitcoin; there are many reasons why people may need or prefer cash or vice versa. The easiest way to do that is with a person to person swap - just as you would ask someone to give you change for a €100 note. I have shared with you previously guidelines that help with bitcoin cash swaps:

So - what other ideas do you have? Let me know and if you are interested to participate or support this project in any way, let's discuss further.