123 sats \ 3 replies \ @keeftronics OP 24 Jul 2022 freebie \ on: El Salvador’s Embrace of Bitcoin Didn’t Bring Prosperity — It Rode in With... bitcoin
Take this article with a grain of salt as it comes from a left-leaning publication, interesting nonetheless. They link to another article saying only 2% of remittances are coming in via BTC.
"Despite a reported $425 million spent by the Salvadoran government, the bitcoin project has not gone according to plan: After a botched rollout, bitcoin adoption is exceedingly low. The vast majority of merchants prefer cash, not only because it’s easier to make transactions, but also because many of them don’t understand how cryptocurrency functions, the bitcoin point-of-sale systems don’t always work, or they have no internet access."
Thanks for sharing! It's good for us to be intellectually honest. I was stunned that El Salvador made the move in 2021. I wasn't really expecting a nation state to get involved until later this decade. We need to build tools and educate faster, especially in the Spanish language. We've gotten started on the wrong foot, but I guess we had to start somewhere?
reply
It went from 0 to 2% and the big question is how they count it.
reply
The article given as the source for that 2% number says the figure comes from the "Central Reserve Bank (BCR)" showing that $96.3 million entered the country via “digital cryptocurrency wallets". Presumably, that means through Chivo -- the only bitcoin remittance method operating there, I believe. Unless BCR also has visibility into Strike accounts.
reply