Bring smiles back to the neighbourhood
In 2021, one call about Bitcoin in El Zonte became a global effort to fund free dental care. 2,971 people donated, while volunteers and companies across the Bitcoin community helped build and share the fundraiser. Nearly five years later, their support is still bringing neighbours into the dentist's chair.
El Zonte under the world's spotlight
Bitcoin Beach had already spent two years showing how Bitcoin could work in daily life. When El Salvador passed a law in June 2021 to make Bitcoin legal tender, the world looked to El Zonte to understand what adoption meant. Beyond the headlines, many local families still could not afford basic dental care.
Enrique had treated neighbours since 2005
Enrique Berrios had already spent sixteen years treating neighbours who could not pay. A dental internship brought him to the mountains above El Zonte around 2005. He stayed and opened the area's first dental office in a six-by-four-metre room surrounded by jungle. Bitcoin Smiles did not create his mission. It gave a global community a way to join it.
From Bitcoin adoption to dental care
In 2021, Enrique took a call from Pavlenex, an open-source Bitcoin contributor who wanted to understand how people in El Salvador were using Bitcoin. They had never met. Enrique explained that many neighbours still could not afford dental care. The call ended with a simple idea: put the clinic's need online and let anyone, anywhere, help with Bitcoin.
2,971 donors funded years of care
The call became an open invitation. People around the world sent bitcoin. Volunteers helped build and share the fundraiser, while companies across the Bitcoin space backed the effort. Together, 2,971 donors turned one clinic's need into years of free dental care for neighbours who otherwise could not afford treatment.
2,971 people
from all over the internet funded it
1.9 BTC
received by 31 December 2021 through self-hosted BTCPay Server
250+
patients treated in Enrique's chair, free of charge
66
neighbours who had lost every tooth, with 132 complete dentures built from scratch
200
children given preventive check-ups before the damage starts
The hands that did the work
Enrique Berrios
"Surrounded by colourful birds, mango trees, snakes and insects, and of course the blue sky and ocean."
Every treatment documented here happened in Enrique's chair. The work is patient and practical: consultations, extractions, healing, fittings, adjustments and follow-up. Bitcoin changed who could help fund the care. It did not change the hands doing it or the trust built in the community over years.
What's next · Santa Ana
From one chair to two
Bitcoin Smiles began in Enrique's small clinic in El Zonte. Now the team is preparing a second treatment room 163 kilometres away in Santa Ana, bringing the model closer to communities in western El Salvador.
Families in El Ranchador and Ashuquema live far from regular health services, and much of the available work follows the seasonal coffee harvest. Community outreach has identified 64 families for the initial plan. Local volunteers plan to transport patients. A treatment room has been identified and a dental chair acquired. The next step is to install and equip it for care.
Supported by
Written about in
