El Salvador is still struggling to accept cryptocurrencies
2 min read
The first country to officially adopt BTC as legal tender, El Salvador, sees its cryptocurrency dreams shatter. Recent survey the Salvadoran Chamber of Commerce and Industry has yielded interesting results.
The vast majority of businesses in El Salvador do not use BTC
According to the report, “91.7% of participants said that implementing BTC was indifferent to their business; and 86% say they have never sold or bought with this crypto asset.” Of the companies surveyed, 71% were classified as micro or small, 13% as medium and 16% as large companies.
Many Salvadoran citizens, economists and technology developers have reportedly uncovered cracks in the BTC adoption project. The project was hampered by technical failures, along with ongoing tensions between Bukele’s authoritarian government and decentralized BTC technology.
At the time of the bill, President Nayib Bukele received critical reactions from the international community. For example, International Monetary Fund (IMF) spokesman Gerry Rice said:
“The adoption of BTC as legal tender raises a number of macroeconomic, financial and legal problems that require very careful analysis.”
The World Bank was much more critical, and its spokesman said at the time:
“Although the government has approached us for help with BTC, it is not something the World Bank can support given the shortcomings in environmental protection and transparency.”
Bukele lacks support
In addition, Alex Gladstein, chief strategic director of the Human Rights Foundation, said: “Why did he do it? It’s kind of obvious to me. He did it for his own interest and to become famous. ”
President Bukele clearly has no support from the larger international community. There is a great wave of resistance against him. And the future of BTC in El Salvador looks bleak, at least according to a survey by the El Salvador Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
In the recent past. the president also announced that he would build “Bitcoin City” at the foot of the volcano with so-called BTC-covered volcanic bonds to fund a project whose planned release has been postponed for the time being. This is an ambitious project that is still provoking many mixed reactions around the world and a wave of solidarity and applause from the BTC maximalists. But does it have a chance of success without the support of local businesses?
