Bitcoin Money

Plato’s #BitcoinRoadtrip has arrived in L.A.

A journey that started two months and more than 6,000 miles ago, Plato’s #BitcoinRoadTrip has reached Los Angeles.

With the announcement of his arrival, Plato (@TheRealPlato) has accomplished his goal to travel a route that took him from Hartford CT to Los Angeles spending only the digital currency Bitcoin — and not a single U.S. dollar, neither currency nor coin.

Along the route Plato has accomplished much, including:

• Provided interviews with local media
• Helped with cleanup following tornadoes
• Had speaking engagements (e.g,. Univ Alabama Huntsville parts 1 and 2)
• Met with supporters from the Bitcoin community
• Discussed Bitcoin with Penn and Teller, startup entrepreneurs and many others who hadn’t known of Bitcoin previously

When Plato started his trip, Bitcoin was obscure and his trek involved some tricky logistics — if you couldn’t use cash from your wallet to buy food, gas, or to pay for lodging, traveling became a little more complicated.  Just recently he is finding a warmer reception, and that is not just because of the weather.

With Bitcoins being a familiar topic to many now, he no longer needs to come up with a convincing argument to get a stranger to accept bitcoins in exchange for a gallon of gas to get him to the next city where the assistance from a fellow Bitcoiner awaits.

When Plato began his trip, he was paying about 4 BTC per gallon of gas.  Even though the price of gas in dollars has risen since that time, Plato pays, today, about 0.20 BTC per gallon.  That is mainly because the value of the currency has appreciated against the dollar more than twenty times since his journey began.

Plato will take a little break in L.A. but has extended his travel plans to continue up the coast with stops in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, then Portland and Vancouver.

At the time the road trip idea was formed, using only bitcoins as payment during travel was a brave and difficult-to-accomplish move.  Going forward paying for travel with bitcoins will become a daily occurrence.  For example, there is a group on AirBNB for Bitcoiners allowing members to easily find other Bitcoiners with a room for rent.

We can thank Plato though for being a trailblazer — the pioneer who proved that bitcoins have value in the physical world too.

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