A Week of Failing to Pay with Bitcoin in El Salvador
El Salvador's bitcoin integration faces challenges, with 92% of citizens not using it, most businesses refusing acceptance, and concerns over privacy and technical issues with the Chivo wallet.
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El Salvador's ambitious plan to integrate bitcoin as legal tender has faced significant challenges since its implementation in September 2021. Despite President Nayib Bukele's vision of a crypto-driven economy, a recent visit revealed that most businesses do not accept bitcoin, contradicting the law mandating its acceptance. A survey indicated that 92% of Salvadorans do not use bitcoin, a rise from 88% the previous year. Many locals expressed reluctance to adopt the cryptocurrency due to concerns over privacy, lack of understanding, and technical issues with the government-backed Chivo wallet, which only about 20% of citizens downloaded. While Bukele continues to invest in bitcoin, the International Monetary Fund has raised concerns about the sustainability of this approach, suggesting a need for regulatory improvements. The gap between the government's aspirations and the public's acceptance highlights the difficulties in transitioning to a cryptocurrency-based economy, with many Salvadorans still relying on traditional financial systems.
- El Salvador's bitcoin adoption has not met expectations, with most businesses refusing to accept it.
- A survey shows 92% of Salvadorans do not use bitcoin, indicating growing skepticism.
- Concerns over privacy and technical issues with the Chivo wallet hinder adoption.
- The International Monetary Fund has expressed concerns about the country's bitcoin strategy.
- Bukele's vision of a crypto economy remains largely unfulfilled for the majority of citizens.
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9 commentsOf the businesses in El Salvador marked on a map as supposedly accepting bitcoin (in bitcoin hotpots like Bitcoin beach), ~1/3 wouldn’t actually accept it for some reason or another.
That said, Bitcoin acceptance in El Salvador was still much better than I expected (perhaps my expectations were too low).
With a bit of planning, patience and persistence it is possible to have an entire trip in El Salvador using only Bitcoin
There were protests around this back in 2022. See https://moneyontheleft.org/2022/07/16/bitcoin-in-el-salvador...
There is usually an "international company" selling the "core technology" at a very inflated price, then there is the required middleman who is THE friend of the government and is in practice the one anointing the "tech company", and finally a government which has No Idea what problem they want to solve.
Remember since launch Chivo had high downtime, bugs and even easy system abuse like stealing people's entry bonuses. And the local Chivo network was an already more reliable than its integration with bitcoin.
The main feature for the target population was to streamline receiving money from their relatives who worked abroad.
The few transactions I've used BTC for have had some hefty transaction fees.. and order of magnitude higher than CC/EFTPOS etc and yes I tend to choose the slowest transaction speed to lower the costs.
For online service.. a $80 purchase costs at least $2.00
For a online purchase for computer hardware I paid over $45 for a $2k purchase.
BTC fails hard in the real world as far as I'm concerned. The little I have left from mining while the sun was up, I'll use for just silly purchases online.
So I'm going to dismiss this "anecdote" because the plural of reality is not data.
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