Yura Yokoyama

I conducted long-term ethnographic research in a small coastal town of El Zonte, El Savador, where the world’s first bitcoin-based financial inclusion project was launched in 2019 by a local NGO. The project intends to “bank the unbanked” locals with bitcoin and establish it as a payment infrastructure that efficiently connects locals to foreign tourists without a middleman. By doing so, the project seeks to create more economic opportunities especially for local youth to prevent the long-standing issue of migration to the U.S. As a central theme, my research explored the emergence of stayhood in El Zonte – which is a condition of staying and trying to thrive in one’s locality for their upward economic mobility among local youth. My research found that stayhood among local youths who engage in the bitcoin project in the town is shaped not only by the financial goals of the project but by their evengelical world-views and particular biblical understanding of money which justifies bitcoin as a communal project.