In episode sixteen of Separating Money and the State, Iván Gómez spoke with Isabella Santos, founder of BTC Isla, a grassroots project that builds a circular economy based on Bitcoin in Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Isabella, also a co-founder of Get Based, shared her journey from quitting a traditional media job in Miami, moving to Mexico for love, to planting the seed of real adoption on a Mexican resort island.
Inspired by Peruvian circular economies like those of Motiv (where Bitcoin is used as a practical tool in rural areas without banking access), Isabella started BTC Isla in February 2024 with the goal that the island could “survive” by paying with Bitcoin: rent, gym, food, tours, taxis, markets. Today, around 10% of businesses accept BTC, allowing a visitor to live entire weeks on the island using only sats. The project does not seek forced hyperbitcoinization, but rather organic integration: Bitcoin as an everyday tool, not as a central ideology.
The most relevant:
- The key shift: from theoretical classes paid with SATs (unsustainable) to building personal confidence—opening your own businesses, getting involved in the community and demonstrating zero hidden agenda.
- Game theory in action: Tourist Bitcoiners generate organic demand; locals see that “if I don’t accept BTC, I lose customers in the low season.”
- Volatility is scary: drop from ~100k to ~67k USD makes businesses that are just starting to accept bitcoin want to change sats immediately.
- The frictions of exchanging bitcoin locally make long-term savings easier for some traders.
- You need a simple local wallet, in Spanish, that shows values in Mexican pesos and that is self-custody.
- “Everyone gets bitcoin at the price they deserve” is unfair in contexts of educational/financial poverty; many never had access to the information.
- From below is the path: El Salvador switched to Bitcoin Beach first, not by state decree; Circular economies are mini-laboratories for global tools.
- Bitcoin solves practical problems in Latam: no bank, no ID, no borders; ideal for taxi drivers, instructors, informal sellers.
- Do not force: adapt to the local context; each circular economy is unique.