The Digital Payments Workshop and Vendor Market last week led to a wider understanding of fintech after the US dollar stablecoins airdropped to Bermuda residents, and a broader adoption of digital financial literacy by small businesses.

The retail technology event was at the tail end of the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club.

Inclement weather threatened to put a damper on the vendor market effort, but the show was extended from Thursday evening to Friday evening, allowing local residents to receive and spend digital assets in the form of USDC at the “vendor village”.

With help from the Bermuda Government, the week of events was hosted by Bermuda-based Penrose Partners and the global investment platform Salt, with support from sponsors including Coinbase, Circle, Stellar, and Kraken, major companies and networks operating within the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.

The market event offered residents a unique, hands-on introduction to digital assets and the evolving landscape of digital finance.

Vendors were mostly enthusiastic and excited by the opportunity.

Razia Danish, founder of aRDee, the Bermudian-based clothing brand commented: “I participated with Penrose today for the digital payments and I think it was really good. The transactions were smooth. People really want (more of) this in Bermuda. We appreciate that they have done this in Bermuda. And we did really good today.”

The market event was underwritten by Penrose Partners, who provided small business vendors with point-of-sale machines to accept the USDC distributed to residents.

At the end of it, they gifted the POS machines to the vendors so they could continue accepting cryptocurrency payments in their shops.

The vendor market was a repeat of last year, when stablecoin grassroots activations made international headlines, as Penrose coordinated one of the world's first regulatory-compliant grassroots stablecoin airdrops in partnership with Coinbase and Circle on Community Day.

Kerem Kolcuoglu, Penrose managing partner and cofounder, who also acts as a digital finance adviser to the Government of Bermuda's Ministry of Finance, said the vendor’s market faced challenges.

He said: “We were supposed to do this event up on the terrace [of Pier 6 on Thursday] and our tent was blown off. It was all messed up and everyone thought we would cancel.

“But we pivoted. We moved the vendor activation inside. A few of our vendors couldn’t make it and some of our attendees couldn’t make it because of the storm.

“But half the vendors came and we all banded together. We pivoted and did it inside. We wanted to make sure that we gave everyone an opportunity to get the digital dollars and the giveaways and participate.

“So we did a bonus session today [Friday] and more of the vendors came in and more attendees came in and we were able to cover more education and give away more digital dollars to the community.”