Bitcoiners - Live From Bitcoin Beach

What happens when a nightclub bouncer from Santa Barbara, California sells everything he owns and opens a restaurant in El Zonte?

You’ve probably seen Max Keiser posting from a beach restaurant and wondered how it got there. The posts show the finished version. They don’t show the ten years before it, or the little box it started in.

Mike sits down with Antoine Allain, owner of La Cajita, born in Brittany, France, raised in California from age 13, and a former competitive surfer who first came to El Zonte about 10 years ago on a surf trip.

He fell for the town in half an hour, surfed, and went home. Three years ago he came back with his dad for a birthday trip and found a different place, with more energy and more room to start something. On the first day they were already talking about what they could open here. Antoine called his wife and told her he thought they were moving to El Salvador. Her answer wasn’t yes. He tells you how she came around, and which part of living in El Salvador was hardest for her to get used to.

They sold everything in France and California and opened in a tiny box on the sand, serving the crepes and galettes his dad cooks at home. The risk sat on Antoine alone. One ingredient is hard to find in the country, so friends bring it in by the bag.

Then a smash burger went on the menu and the little box filled up. Then Max came to eat, became a partner, and the move upstairs that followed brought a crowd that still fills the place every night of rainy season. Antoine is clear about one thing: Max checks in on the numbers like a businessman, and the growth came bigger than they’d expected.

Antoine knew nothing about Bitcoin when he opened. Hear what accepting it has done for his customer count and for the kind of people who walk through the door.

He and Mike also get into El Salvador surf from a local’s view: the two peaks he rotates through on the El Zonte surf calendar, and La Cajita Express, the contest he runs where 20 men and five women competed for $1,250.

If you’re one of the El Salvador expats wondering how the town treats a foreigner opening a business, Mike asks him directly. His answer is short and worth hearing from him.

A family bet everything on a small box on the beach and El Zonte showed up for them!

Whether you’re weighing a business of your own in El Salvador or you want to know what’s behind the burger Mike keeps ordering, listen to this one.

—Bitcoin Beach Team

Learn more about Antoine Allain:
X: https://x.com/LaCajitaKitchen
IG: https://www.instagram.com/lacajitakitchen

Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
X: https://www.twitter.com/BitcoinBeach
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com

STAY AT BITCOIN BEACH:
https://www.stayatbitcoinbeach.com/punta-mango-villas

Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00 Intro
01:02 Why did Antoine Allain move from Santa Barbara to El Zonte, El Salvador?
03:27 How do you start a restaurant on Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte with no experience in El Salvador?
05:39 What is Max Keiser’s restaurant in El Salvador and how did he become a partner in La Cajita?
10:13 How much does Max Keiser’s promotion help a small business in El Zonte?
13:40 Can a foreigner start a business in El Salvador and how do locals treat expats?
17:39 How hard are taxes and permits for starting a business in El Salvador?
19:59 Can you pay with Bitcoin in El Zonte and does it bring businesses more customers?
21:56 What is living in El Salvador like after moving from the US with your family?
25:14 What is the La Cajita Express surf contest in El Zonte and when is the next one?
Live From Bitcoin Beach

What happens to your Bitcoin if you die tomorrow? In El Zonte, one builder’s answer is a dead man switch and an encrypted seed phrase.
If you practice self custody, your 12 or 24 words are stored somewhere safe. How your family would ever reach them is the question Eric Summers set out to solve.
Mike first met Eric as the math tutor for one of his son’s friends.
Eric’s story of moving to El Salvador begins in Texas in 2023, when a Salvadoran friend told him to come look. He stayed 10 days with his friend’s parents in San Salvador and flew home sure the country checked all his boxes. Then he loaded everything he owned into a Toyota Tacoma and drove to El Salvador, a month down the Pacific coast through Mexico and Guatemala. Border agents took his drone headset for night vision goggles. What they took his telescope for, you’ll have to hear from him.
He found El Zonte, started working at the Bitcoin hardware store, and saw what was missing. He’d venture to say 90 to 95% of Bitcoiners have no recovery method for their families.
So he built two free, open source tools. One encrypts your seed phrase so thoroughly that he says you could post it on Twitter. The other is the dead man switch, an email check-in that sends your beneficiary the final key if you stop clicking for three months, six months, or a year.
Then Mike asked about the weak point. If your heir loses their key, the Bitcoin is gone. Eric’s answer is in the episode.
Living in El Salvador gave Eric a second job too. For expats living in El Salvador on the coast, the bilingual college prep schools are in the capital, so he tutors homeschool families one on one.
This is why El Salvador is such a good place to build!
Whether you hold your own keys with no plan for your family, or you’re weighing a move to El Zonte, listen to this one.

—Bitcoin Beach Team

Learn more about Eric Summers:
X: https://x.com/ericscalibur
X (store): x.com/tbhs_sv
IG: https://www.instagram.com/ericscalibur/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@ericscalibur
Web: https://ericscalibur.github.io/
Github: https://github.com/ericscalibur

Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
X: https://www.twitter.com/BitcoinBeach
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com

STAY AT BITCOIN BEACH:
https://www.stayatbitcoinbeach.com/punta-mango-villas

Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00 Intro
02:05 Moving to El Salvador from the USA, why did Eric Summers leave Texas?
04:23 Can you drive to El Salvador from Texas, and how long does it take?
10:10 What is El Zonte, El Salvador like for a Bitcoiner living there?
15:33 What happens to your Bitcoin when you die?
18:30 How does a dead man’s switch email work for Bitcoin inheritance planning?
21:19 How do you pay employees in Bitcoin using Lightning payments on Blink?
24:29 How do you encrypt a seed phrase? SeedSigner tutorial, step by step
39:07 Is there a homeschool tutor for expat families living in El Salvador?
45:11 Dead man switch vs multisig, which is the easier self custody backup?
Live From Bitcoin Beach

Is El Salvador safe enough to run a business that takes Bitcoin and go running at night? This Salvadoran entrepreneur says yes!
Mike sits down with Byron Espinoza, a young Salvadoran who opened a car repair shop with his cousin at 23. He grew up in a neighborhood where the gang members were his childhood friends, and he's had guns pointed at him more than once.
So when neighbors warned him that drug dealers would show up at his new shop and pressure him to sell for them, he was afraid. It never happened. The crackdown on El Salvador gangs was underway, the extortion payments that drove many businesses under came to an end, and Byron says business owners finally keep what they earn. Today he feels comfortable running his shop anywhere.
That freedom let the shop grow in a direction he didn't expect. About three months after opening, a Bitcoiner named Richard started bringing him cars to check, on one condition. Byron had to accept Bitcoin. He was nervous, studied it, and said yes. Customers pay him in Bitcoin today, he decides whether to keep it or move it to dollars, and he's encouraging his friends to start accepting it in their businesses too.
Taking Bitcoin brought him customers most local shops never see. For expats living in El Salvador who don't speak Spanish, a mechanic who speaks English and accepts Bitcoin is a big benefit, and 20 to 25% of Byron's customers are foreigners. For anyone browsing cars in El Salvador for sale, his used car inspection checks the VIN history for hidden damage and mileage before they commit. He tells the story of an American couple who skipped a car agency because so few accept Bitcoin, and says that if he ran one, he'd take it without thinking twice.
Byron is honest about what the change has cost. El Salvador crime hasn't disappeared, he has noticed theft that didn't happen before, and two of his friends were arrested without evidence and have spent two years in jail. He sees all of it as a process the country is still working through.
He calls himself a survivor of the old El Salvador who can go out at 11 at night, and Mike calls him one of the success stories of the new one!
If you're thinking about opening a business here or accepting Bitcoin, listen to this one first.

—Bitcoin Beach Team

Learn more about Byron Espinoza:
Mobile #: +503 6863 2519
IG: https://www.instagram.com/tallerexpressx/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/p/Taller-Automotriz-Express-61555288906787/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tallerautomotrizexpress

Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
X: https://www.twitter.com/BitcoinBeach
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com

STAY AT BITCOIN BEACH:
https://www.stayatbitcoinbeach.com/punta-mango-villas

Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00 Intro
01:44 How did a young Salvadoran start a repair shop in El Salvador?
03:39 Why do expats living in El Salvador do car preventive maintenance?
06:50 What's it like starting a business in El Salvador at 23?
10:42 How did a Salvadoran mechanic start accepting Bitcoin payments?
13:39 Can you buy a car with Bitcoin in El Salvador?
15:36 Buying cars in El Salvador, imported used car or agency car?
19:11 Can a used car inspection and VIN check spot odometer fraud?
21:40 Is El Salvador safe after the crackdown on El Salvador gangs?
36:59 Where to find a mechanic in El Salvador that accepts Bitcoin? 
Live From Bitcoin Beach

Is El Salvador the freest country on earth for a Bitcoin business, or the most heavily KYC'd place a Bitcoiner could choose? Anyone who has bought El Salvador real estate lately has an opinion, and so does the lawyer who reads the regulations for a living.

You already know this is Bitcoin Country. What you can't tell from the outside is why the El Salvador banks turned Bitcoin companies away for years, what the digital assets law lets you build here, and who is actually asking the questions at a property closing.

Mike sits down with Jose Rodriguez, a lawyer with Nodeman, a Bitcoin-centric legal firm that helped draft some of these regulations and has followed this since day one.

Jose explains the bank refusals in layers. The first is political and goes back to who owned the banks when the Bitcoin Law passed. The second is the AML KYC pressure that reaches every Salvadoran bank through FATF, GAFILAT and the US correspondent accounts it depends on to move money in and out of the country. Then he explains what changed in the US that finally opened the doors. Three banks now hold licenses, and a Bitcoin bank is on the way.

Then the conversation turns to KYC requirements on property. Jose describes who is asking where a buyer's money came from, and in most cases it isn't the seller. He also says the KYC regulations changed recently, raising the threshold from $1,000 to $25,000, while one government office still hasn't issued the guidelines eight months later. Buying property in El Salvador should look different once that clears.

The second half covers the Digital Assets Law. Jose describes what real estate tokenization means today, which company structure makes it legal, and the two laws still standing between El Salvador and a property title that lives on a token. He's blunt about lawyers who wave through deals they don't understand.

El Salvador has spent five years writing clear rules for Bitcoin businesses, and this is what those rules look like from inside the paperwork!

If you're planning to run a business here, bank here, or buy here, listen to this one before you sign anything.

—Bitcoin Beach Team

Learn more about Jose Rodriguez:
X: https://x.com/nodemanbtc
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nodeman
Website: https://nodeman.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nodemanbtc/
Email: j@nodeman.co

Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
X: https://www.twitter.com/BitcoinBeach
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com

STAY AT BITCOIN BEACH:
https://www.stayatbitcoinbeach.com/punta-mango-villas

Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00 Intro
01:55 Why did El Salvador banks refuse Bitcoin companies after the Bitcoin Law?
04:21 How do FATF and GAFILAT rules apply to Bitcoin in El Salvador?
09:19 How many El Salvador banks work with Bitcoin companies in 2026?
15:15 What are the KYC requirements for buying property in El Salvador?
18:42 Does the bank or the seller do KYC on a Bitcoin real estate purchase in El Salvador?
22:16 Is there no KYC under $25,000 in El Salvador under the new regulations?
23:14 What is El Salvador's Digital Assets Law and is it Bitcoin-only?
35:25 Is real estate tokenization legal in El Salvador?
39:34 What license does a Bitcoin business need to operate in El Salvador?
Live From Bitcoin Beach

Is Bitcoin still legal tender in El Salvador? Plenty of people say it isn't, so Mike put the question to a Salvadoran lawyer who has followed every change to the law.

You've seen the IMF headlines and decided the experiment ended. What you can't see from outside is how the El Salvador economy looks to someone who was born here, practiced law through the worst years, and now builds his firm on Bitcoin.

Mike sat down with Jose Rodriguez, founder of Nodeman, a Bitcoin-centric legal service provider in San Salvador. Jose became a lawyer in 2008, lost money on a taxi app before Uber arrived, got fired in 2016, went surfing at Sunzal to celebrate, and never went back to a job.

Jose has compared more than 15 jurisdictions, and he'll tell you what still makes El Salvador legal tender law different from every one of them, even after the changes cut articles out of it. He and Mike don't fully agree on what El Salvador IMF pressure should have changed about the government's options, and that disagreement is the best part of the conversation.

Then there's El Salvador tax. In 2021 you could pay Ministerio de Hacienda in Bitcoin through Chivo Wallet. Today there's no direct option, and Mike pushes Jose on why the government hasn't set up a third party to convert it the way it already accepts cards. Jose's answer comes down to who carries the risk, and it isn't the answer Mike wanted.

For anyone weighing El Salvador business opportunities, Jose is blunt about what an El Salvador business still runs into: company formation, corporate structure, banking. Nodeman grew from one desk to a 10-person team and has kept adding people since, and he turns clients away when they don't fit.

Living in El Salvador through 2012 and the years since gives Jose a longer memory than most people arguing about this country online. He calls this a renaissance, and he says it while admitting the government still runs a fiat treasury with a Bitcoin treasury off to the side.

A Salvadoran lawyer who reads every Bitcoin book he can find and gives his baby son a self-custody wallet is exactly who this country needed in the room!
If you're deciding whether El Salvador is still a place to build on Bitcoin, listen to this one before you make the call. Part two comes next week.

—Bitcoin Beach Team

Learn more about Jose Rodriguez:
X: https://x.com/nodemanbtc
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nodeman
Website: https://nodeman.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nodemanbtc/
Email: j@nodeman.co

Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
X: https://www.twitter.com/BitcoinBeach
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com

STAY AT BITCOIN BEACH:
https://www.stayatbitcoinbeach.com/punta-mango-villas

Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00 Intro
00:59 Who is Jose Rodriguez, the Bitcoin lawyer in El Salvador?
05:26 What was it like starting a tech business in El Salvador before the Bitcoin Law?
10:09 Are electronic signatures and digital contracts legal in El Salvador?
13:09 How did the pandemic change the legal industry in El Salvador?
16:05 What happened in El Salvador when Bitcoin became legal tender in 2021?
19:01 How do you go from shitcoiner to Bitcoin maxi?
23:43 What is Nodeman, the Bitcoin law firm in El Salvador?
31:29 Is Bitcoin still legal tender in El Salvador after the IMF?
35:04 Can you pay taxes in Bitcoin in El Salvador?
Live From Bitcoin Beach