Key Takeaways
- Napoleon Osorio's success as a taxi driver highlights the potential for individual profit through bitcoin acceptance in El Salvador.
- Osorio credited the founder of the the educational initiative ‘Mi Primer Bitcoin’, John Dennehy, with encouraging him to accept payment in BTC.
- He now has 21 drivers working for his Bit-Driver brand and has made enough profit from the currency’s rise to be able to buy four rental vehicles.
Napoleon Osorio's Rise with Bitcoin
“Before I was unemployed...and now I have my own business,” says Napoleon Osorio, a former taxi driver turned entrepreneur in El Salvador.
Osorio was the first taxi driver in El Salvador to accept bitcoin as payment, leading to his transformation from being unemployed to owning a car rental company.
He now employs 21 drivers under his Bit-Driver brand and has expanded his business by acquiring four rental vehicles.
With his newfound wealth, he can also support his two teenagers' education without struggle.
Role of Mi Primer Bitcoin
Osorio credited the founder of the educational initiative ‘Mi Primer Bitcoin’, John Dennehy, with encouraging him to accept payment in the cryptocurrency.
Luis Contreras, an instructor at Mi Primer Bitcoin, says that many Salvadorans were simply afraid of making the switch.
The organization has taken Bitcoin education to public schools, teaching around 35,000 students to use Bitcoin so far.
Contreras says the hardest thing about teaching people about Bitcoin ‘is their fear of new things, which creates a fear of technology’ as well as ‘the fear of moving from a classic currency in the current economy to one that is totally digital and decentralized.’
[Original Article]
