At the beginning of the week, the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced that the government had bought 200 bitcoins as the country prepared for using the cryptocurrency as a legal form of payment. Then, he bought 150 more, and the country now has 550 bitcoins. El Salvador is the first country to use cryptocurrency, and many experts believe it is a bold move as there are many economic risks involved. The idea to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender came back in June, and the financial company Strike was used for the logistics. El Salvador also uses the U.S dollar as an official currency.
Salvadorians are not fans of banks or internet banking
Jack Mallers, Strike’s CEO, mentioned in the past that the logistics of implementing Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador has been difficult. More than 70% of the country from Central America does not have a bank account, and to use Bitcoins, they also need digital wallets. After the first day using Bitcoin as payment, the cryptocurrency crashed, and on Tuesday, it was even under $43,000.
Many people from El Salvador were not happy with the decision
Many protesters took to the streets of San Salvador to protest against using Bitcoin as payment. At the same time, the government used a digital wallet, Chivo, which could not face so many user registrations at the same time. However, shops such as Starbucks and McDonalds in El Salvador are accepting crypto coins as payment.
Nayib Bukele believes that this is his country’s chance to develop and emerge further. The government in El Salvador gave each citizen 30 Bitcoins to help them get started. While some believe it is good to use virtual wallets to pay for things, especially during the pandemic, others are scared of the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies.
