Part Three: WE ACCEPT BITCOIN (sort of)

This is Part Three of the eight-part series: Can I Pay With This: A stablecoin experiment in Buenos Aires.

Thank you to the Ethereum Foundation and the EV Mavericks for their support, without which this experiment could never have happened.

Part One: Decentralized or Destitute
Money, monkeys and mild terror

Part Two: First Contact with Reality
KYC on a hostel bunk bed

Part Three: WE ACCEPT BITCOIN (sort of) <-- you are here
My first on-chain candy

The more I dig through the smoldering ruins of Argentina's last thirty years of fiscal misadventure, the clearer it gets.

Stablecoins aren't a tech flex, they are life rafts. People aren't clinging to centralized exchanges like Binance and Bybit because they don't understand DeFi. They are doing it because they've already lived through hyperinflation, default,and enough broken promises to wallpaper the presidential suite in the Casa Rosada. Decentralization sounds like a luxury item when your savings are vaporizing during your morning commute.

As I enter the pedestrian streets of Calles Florida and Lavalle, the chorus of shouts offering to exchange dollars for pesos underscores my thoughts. People don't trust banks and for good reason. In 2001, the government froze bank accounts. Overnight, everyone lost access to their life savings.

In most of the world, we're still trying to explain what a stablecoin is. Here, trust has already migrated away from governments and banks, to USDT, USDC, DAI, and whatever else has a shot at holding its value overnight. The challenge isn't crypto adoption; it's building trustless tools that are as easy and reliable as the rickety-but-working systems they already rely on.

I'm halfway through congratulating myself on this insight when the view through a large shop stops me cold. La Golosinería is a brightly lit hellscape of Halloween kitsch with boxes of candies piled high among displays of plastic pumpkins in nuclear-orange and pitch-black. But what stops me is a paper print out near the check-out with the words WE ACCEPT BITCOIN with the Bitcoin Cash symbol lurking underneath.

Bitcoin split in 2017 in a public meltdown with no chance of reconciliation. BTC promised security by staying with smaller blocks and slower speeds. BCH stormed off in a huff to develop bigger blocks to lower fees and speed up transactions, which would make it actually viable to use it on a day-to-day basis. Both are very clear that they represent Satoshi's actual vision. Both call themselves Bitcoin.

Funnily enough, I own exactly two Bitcoin Cash tokens, as the person who got me into crypto insisted it was technically superior. BTC is trading over $100,000 per token. BCH? About $500. I've kept the tokens for sentimental reasons.

That evening, out of some sort of mix of curiosity and masochism, I set up a Bitcoin.com wallet on my burner phone and move a twentieth of a Bitcoin Cash token over, around $25. I'm not sure how much Halloween candy I need to buy to avoid looking like I am trying to launder digital money in a candy store.

The next morning, I lose my way in the Buenos Aires subway system for over an hour, long enough to wonder if I might never surface again, living below the surface on churros and dread. After several laps of confusion, I emerge into daylight and find my way back to La Golosinería. I rifle through the sugar bombs and gummy worms looking for something vaguely healthy and get into line.Argentines, God bless them, are absolute professionals at standing in line.

One queue. Three tills. Nobody cuts. No chaos.

Except for me.

There are three clerks working the tills: two women looking like they've seen too many candy seasons and one disturbingly enthusiastic kid who looks much too happy to be working in a Halloween shop the day before Halloween. He is stationed nearest the WE ACCEPT BITCOIN sign. Target acquired.

I step in and out of the line, pretending to suddenly care deeply about boxed nougat imported from Spain, ignoring the dirty looks from the rest of the queue.

It works.

The kid smiles like he's won a prize for just existing and scans my candy. “Dos mil setecientos pesos.” 2,700 pesos.

I tap the curling printout taped to the wall. "Is it true that I can pay with Bitcoin cash?"

"Yes, you can!" He looks very proud until he realizes that I actually intend to do so. "Of course, of course you can, no problem." Each repetition a little less convincing.

He ducks behind the counter to fiddle with something unseen, probably to generate a BCH QR code. Whatever he's trying to do, it's not happening.

He turns to the woman at the next till to ask for help, pointing to the unseen device. She doesn't even look at it. She has no idea and she doesn't care.

She turns to me. "Can't you just pay with Mercado Pago?"

"Yes," I say, smiling my most sincere smile. "But I want to try this."

She sighs and goes back to her customer, her patience exhausted.

But the kid, bless him, is invested. He's in too deep to give up now. He calls someone, breathlessly explaining that he has a customer that wants to pay with Bitcoin and what the hell does he do?

He listens, nods, looks at me with renewed purpose. He tells me to scan the QR code on the Bitcoin sign. It opens a confirmation screen asking me if I'd like to transact with a completely different business name and how much I want to to transfer.

Oh god, it's in US dollars.

"How much is it in dollars?"

He has no idea and no way is he asking the woman for help again.

"OK. Give me a sec." I find the currency selector. Argentina is at the top. I type in 2,700 ARS.

"Wait, wait wait!" He stops me. "Don't send it yet."

He's back on the phone, talking it through. I hover, tapping my screen to keep it from fading.

More conversation and then he's back. "Now. Now, yes. Now you can send it."

He leans in to watch as I press the button. I turn the phone to him to show him that the transaction is successful.

He's back on the phone. "She sent it! Did you get it?" A pause and he hands over the candy like I'm some overaged trick-or-treater at his door. "He got it!"

We have achieved a successful blockchain transaction.

My BCH haul:

• Pipas mini crack fuego
• Bull Dog regaliz, sabor sandia
• Spicy honey roasted maní desde el campo

I have proven that if I have to live off of crypto alone in Buenos Aires, I will not starve.

As I step out into the street, I consider that this still doesn't quite fit my objective of a decentralised purchase without a middle man. Because ... the kid was clearly on the phone speaking to the person with the Bitcoin Cash wallet. Three people are needed to buy 2,700 worth of snacks: me, the BCH person and the kid in the middle.

I cross the massive Avenida 9 de Julio, passing under the shadow of the Obelisk. The texture of the neighborhood changes. The shops thin out. There are people but very few tourists. It doesn't feel dangerous but definitely quieter. Grittier.

I stop to take a photo of a crumbling building with ivy crawling over the cracks. Behind me, I hear someone stumble to a halt. A man, too close, turns and leans against the wall, staring across the street, like there is something very important over there.

I look across the street to see what caught his interest. A shuttered shop front. A parked car. A plastic bag flutters in the gutter.

My half-mumbled apology for stopping in front of him dies on my lips. If he were just some random pedestrian, he would've kept walking. Or glared. Or grunted and sidestepped. Not...stopped.

I look back at the man but he's gone.

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Up next is Part Four: Eighteen Ways to Pay for Ice Cream (Stablecoins, FX hell and a missing keyboard).