You can earn Bitcoin every time you buy electrolytes from Salt of the Earth. It's one of the few health and wellness brands offering Bitcoin rewards on every purchase — and the story behind how it got there starts in an Airbnb in El Salvador.

Sean McDonnell was sitting in that Airbnb when Bukele's brother walked through the door. It was August 2021, weeks before Bitcoin would become legal tender, and Sean had flown in on a day's notice to help the Athena Bitcoin team prepare for the national rollout. He didn't have a job title. He didn't really have a job at all. But he was in the room.

"It was like a war room," Sean said on TFTC. "Like 12 dudes in this Airbnb. We're making this happen with Bitcoin. We got to get Walmart to accept Bitcoin here, and the McDonald's. Everything is going to have to accept Bitcoin in four weeks."

Two years later, he'd channel that same restless energy into launching an electrolyte company from a surf town in Indonesia.

Who Is Sean McDonnell?

Sean McDonnell is the founder of Salt of the Earth, a premium electrolyte brand based in Miami Beach. He grew up in Barrington, Illinois, played lacrosse at DePaul University, and has the kind of resume that doesn't fit neatly into any one category.

A sixth concussion ended his playing career in 2010. That sent him into economics, then sales at Groupon, then a pirate snowboard lesson operation at Beaver Creek that accidentally turned into a gig with an NFL player's family office in South Beach. He built a Bitcoin dollar-cost-averaging app called Cabbage Patch at a coding boot camp in 2017. None of it was planned. But all of it led somewhere.

How Did Salt of the Earth Start?

Salt of the Earth was founded in Bali in 2023, during a two-month surf sabbatical that wasn't supposed to become a business.

Sean was surfing three to four hours every morning, working out at a local training center, doing sauna and ice baths, and completely crashing by midday. Drinking water wasn't enough. Caffeine wasn't enough. He was sweating through four or five liters a day in the tropical heat and couldn't recover.

Then he tried something simple: pink Himalayan salt in his water.

"It changed everything," he said. "I was totally a different person. I was able to push through and recover and get up and just keep going."

That wasn't a random guess. Sean had spent a decade as a test subject at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute near his high school in Barrington, getting his sweat analyzed, trying new formulations, testing products alongside professional athletes. He knew sports hydration science. He just hadn't built a product with it yet.

In Bali, he started visiting suppliers, tweaking formulas, working on packaging with designers in the Philippines and Sri Lanka, and taking pre-orders before the product was even finished. He studied LMNT and Liquid IV, figured out what they did well and where they fell short, and built something he thought was better.

What Makes Salt of the Earth Different?

Salt of the Earth is a premium electrolyte stick pack with 3,300mg of electrolytes per serving. The formula uses sodium from Pink Himalayan Salt, potassium chloride, a dual magnesium blend (glycinate for muscle recovery, L-threonate for brain health), and calcium lactate. Zero sugar, sweetened with allulose, the same natural sweetener Liquid IV landed on after two years of R&D.

Seven flavors: Grapefruit, Orange, Pink Lemonade, Strawberry Kiwi, Watermelon, Chocolate, and Unflavored. The unflavored version has zero additives, which makes it a clean option for fasting.

What Sean talks about most is the sodium: "They have 800mg of electrolytes, but 790 of them are potassium. That's not hydrating you. You don't sweat potassium. You sweat salt. That's what Salt of the Earth does. Gets you the salt."

Olympic gold medalist Caroline Marks uses Salt of the Earth. Pink Lemonade and Strawberry Kiwi have each accumulated nearly 1,000 customer reviews on drinksote.com.

Why Does Salt of the Earth Accept Bitcoin?

Because Sean's been in the Bitcoin world longer than he's been in the electrolyte world.

He fell down the Bitcoin rabbit hole in college, built Cabbage Patch in 2017, traveled to El Salvador to buy pupusas with Lightning payments at Bitcoin Beach, and personally delivered a Bitcoin Beach t-shirt to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez at City Hall after cold-DMing him on Instagram.

For Sean, accepting Bitcoin and giving Bitcoin rewards aren't marketing tactics. They're extensions of who he already is. Salt of the Earth accepts Bitcoin via Lightning at checkout for one-time purchases, and through Oshi, every customer earns Bitcoin rewards automatically on every order.

How Do You Earn Bitcoin at Salt of the Earth?

You earn Bitcoin at Salt of the Earth through the Bitcoin Rewards platform on every purchase. Here's how it works:

1. Shop at drinksote.com and pick your electrolytes.
2. Claim your Bitcoin rewards. You can either opt into marketing during checkout to receive your rewards by email, or look for the claim link on the Thank You page or order details page after your purchase.
3. Refer friends for a bonus. Share your referral link and you both earn on each purchase.

You don't need to pay with Bitcoin to earn rewards. Any payment method works. Salt of the Earth is one of many brands on the Bitcoin Rewards marketplace where you can stack sats just by shopping.

Sean McDonnell went from Groupon sales floors to Beaver Creek ski slopes to an Airbnb war room in El Salvador to a surf break in Bali. Salt of the Earth is what happens when all of those threads finally converge into one thing.

"Stay humble and stay hydrated."

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