At the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, a panel titled “Is Panama Next? El Salvador Leading The Region For Bitcoin Adoption” brought renewed attention to the role Panama could play in the next phase of Bitcoin adoption in Central America. The discussion featured Bitcoin Beach Director Mike Peterson, El Salvador presidential advisors from Building Bitcoin Country, Max and Stacy, and Panama City Mayor Mayer Mizrachi. Together, they explored not only whether Panama is open to Bitcoin, but also how regional governments might turn Bitcoin from a political slogan into a practical economic tool.
The panel was notable because it moved beyond generic pro-Bitcoin talking points. Instead, the speakers discussed concrete issues: how a city can accept Bitcoin while still settling in dollars, how a government can draw a legal line between bitcoin and other crypto assets, why financial education matters for long-term adoption, and how neighboring countries might reinforce one another if they pursue similar strategies. In that sense, the conversation offered a compact but revealing snapshot of how Bitcoin policy is increasingly being framed in Central America.
How Panama City is handling Bitcoin payments
Mayor Mayer Mizrachi opened with a clear statement: “We accept Bitcoin.” He explained that Panama City gets paid in Bitcoin, but through an intermediary payment processor, so the city actually receives dollars. That distinction matters. It suggests that public-sector Bitcoin adoption in Panama City is not being implemented as a full treasury conversion into BTC, but rather as a payment rail that allows Bitcoin users to transact while the municipality continues operating within a dollar-based accounting framework.
This kind of arrangement can be seen as a pragmatic model for jurisdictions that want to support Bitcoin payments without immediately exposing public finances to direct volatility. By using a processor in the middle, the city can offer optional Bitcoin payments while preserving a familiar settlement process. Mizrachi then added the line that defined the tone of his remarks: “Bitcoin is not just safe. It’s prosperous.” That phrasing framed Bitcoin not merely as a defensive technology or a hedge, but as a tool that could contribute to economic growth and a more dynamic financial environment.
El Salvador’s approach to scams and legal clarity
Max focused on a persistent challenge in the wider crypto industry: scammers. He explained that El Salvador took a couple of important steps early on. One was the creation of The Bitcoin Office, an institution that reports directly to the president. That reporting structure implies that Bitcoin policy is not being treated as a marginal experiment, but as an issue with top-level political relevance and direct executive oversight.
The second step was legal. According to Max, El Salvador passed a law stating that “bitcoin is money and everything else is an unregistered security.” Whether or not every observer agrees with that framing, the quote is important because it shows how sharply El Salvador has tried to distinguish bitcoin from the broader crypto sector. In a market often crowded with speculative tokens, questionable projects, and misleading narratives, such a framework is intended to simplify the message for the public: bitcoin occupies one category, while other assets fall into a different and more restricted one.
The broader implication is that Bitcoin adoption is not just about enabling transactions. It also requires reducing confusion. For everyday people, the biggest barrier is often not the technical complexity of Bitcoin itself, but the inability to tell the difference between Bitcoin and fraudulent “crypto” schemes. By setting a clear policy line, El Salvador appears to be trying to reduce room for abuse while making its Bitcoin strategy easier to understand at the national level.
Bitcoin as a regional project in Central America
Mike Peterson widened the discussion from individual countries to the regional level. He said that access to Bitcoin in Central America is part of a struggle against globalists who have long viewed the region as their backyard. His language was politically charged, but the underlying idea was straightforward: Bitcoin is being positioned not only as a financial technology, but also as an instrument of regional autonomy and self-determination.
Mizrachi built on that theme with a more forward-looking vision. He asked the audience to imagine “an economic block powered by El Salvador, supported by Panama and the rest will come.” That line suggested a model in which Bitcoin adoption does not remain isolated within one national experiment. Instead, the benefits could compound if multiple countries in the region align around compatible policies, payment infrastructure, and public narratives. In that vision, El Salvador serves as an engine, Panama as a strategic supporter, and other countries as future participants.
This regional framing is one of the most significant aspects of the panel. It implies that Bitcoin adoption in Central America may increasingly be discussed in terms of network effects among states, not just isolated legal reforms. If so, the next stage of Bitcoin policy in the region may be less about one country copying another and more about complementary roles emerging across borders.
Financial literacy from age 7 in El Salvador’s schools
Stacy directed attention to a different but equally important layer of adoption: education. She reminded the audience about El Salvador’s school system and said, “El Salvador is the first country in the world to have a comprehensive public school financial literacy education program from 7 years old.” She emphasized that these are very young children learning financial literacy, not university students or market professionals.
That point matters because durable Bitcoin adoption depends on more than favorable laws or payment apps. It also depends on whether citizens understand money, savings, risk, and long-term planning. A population with weak financial literacy may still gain access to digital assets, but it is less likely to use them wisely. By integrating financial literacy into public education from age 7, El Salvador is presenting Bitcoin adoption as part of a wider effort to reshape economic culture from the ground up.
The contrast with many crypto discussions elsewhere is striking. In many markets, “education” often means trading tutorials, market commentary, or explanations of price cycles. Stacy’s remarks described something different: teaching children the basics of money before expecting them to navigate digital assets. That sequencing may prove critical for any country that wants Bitcoin adoption to become socially durable rather than merely speculative.
Game theory, state demand, and a shift from spending to saving
Max closed the panel by invoking game theory. He argued that if the United States wants to buy a lot of Bitcoin, then Panama wanting to buy a lot of bitcoin also helps everyone in the U.S. In his telling, this is a beautiful expression of game theory aligned within the protocol itself. Different actors pursue their own interests, but the structure of the network encourages outcomes that reinforce one another.
He then moved from national strategy to everyday life. At the street level, he said, Bitcoin changes the population by moving people from a spending mentality to a saving mentality. This is a recurring theme in Bitcoin discourse, but in the Central American context it carries added weight. In countries where access to reliable savings tools may be uneven, and where monetary trust can be fragile, Bitcoin is being framed not only as a technological innovation but also as a mechanism for changing household financial behavior.
Overall, the panel did not announce a new law or a new national Bitcoin strategy for Panama. What it did provide was a set of meaningful signals. Panama City already accepts Bitcoin through an intermediary processor that converts payments into dollars. El Salvador has used institutions such as The Bitcoin Office and legal distinctions around bitcoin to address scams and clarify its approach. The country also claims to be running the world’s first comprehensive public-school financial literacy program starting at age 7. At the same time, speakers are now openly imagining a Bitcoin-linked economic bloc in Central America, with El Salvador and Panama playing complementary roles.
The original report also noted that viewers can watch the full panel discussion, along with the rest of Day 3 of the Bitcoin 2025 Conference. For anyone tracking Bitcoin adoption in Latin America and Central America, discussions like this are valuable because they reveal more than slogans. They show what policymakers and advocates are prioritizing in practice: payment infrastructure, legal categorization, scam prevention, public education, and the possibility of regional coordination as the next phase of adoption.