Yes and no.

I am in direct contact with some guys from SV and things are good and became easier every day. Is just a matter of time and education. You can't change a whole fiat system in 1month/year... takes time and most important: users education.

I'd take "move fast break things" over "move slow break things" any day of the week. I have seen lots of complaints and haters but never anything to indicate the people of El Salvador are worse off. Would appreciate a correction if I am off base there.

I understand the counterarguments, but so much of humanity is held back by boring dusty people in boring dusty buildings moving as slowly as possible. It is ironic to me that the most useful stuff government does requires some sense of immediacy. Fire service, law enforcement, disaster relief.

Hoping to go down and see for myself soon, but honestly I am most attracted to the simple fact that they are trying new things.

No doubt El Salvador is paying the price for btc's recent price action, but most currencies have suffered against the US dollar as the end of the fiat system accelerates. Look at the Turkish Lira or even the euro. It also did not help that this was not an organic, from the ground up adoption, but rather a command from a centralized government. Enemies of bitcoin will portray this as a failure until the halvening in 2024, when Bukele will look like a genius.

Are they, today, free to use bitcoin for cross-border remittance (inbound and outbound), in commerce, and in personal transactions?

If the answer is yes, then El Salvador was not too early. And nowhere else that has either informally or formally recognized the right to use bitcoin is not too early.

El Salvador is doing absolutely great. The media and its backers (at least the IMF) are obviously wanting the experiment to fail, and they'll tell any lie they think might have a chance of happening to convince people it has failed. That won't be possible for much longer.

The fact is that tourism is WAY up in El Salvador, the national debt is rapidly being paid off, and all of the biggest companies down there (including McDonalds and lots of chains you use) find BTC easy to use and preferable to accepting dollars.

But if you watch the world media you'll only hear about the first few days a year ago when the Chivo wallet was having issues.

Greetings friends, I am @marvincha01 from El Salvador, Central America, I started in Bitcoin in the year 2020 by a friend of mine who is an accountant where I work and may he rest in peace, He encouraged me to buy my first BTC in an Exchange, where he appreciated and saw future in BTC as he had seen the magic in Bitcoin when its price increased rapidly, I began to investigate and I tried some Exchange because I still did not know what the wallets were and the first obstacle that I had to face was the language in which they are built. I managed to find a very interesting Blixt Wallet which has very good support and great guides. Where I met a character called in cyberspace DarthCoin who speaks very good Spanish and who has been my mentor so far, given my personal vision of having my own financial freedom, I try to induce others in my country to save in Bitcoin, to buy in Bitcoin, and as I was taught through LNTXBOT and configure it with a BlueWallet, I try to educate them that BTC is market value because some even with fear of fluctuation, we are the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. There is still a lot of work to build with respect to education, as the government is still not doing much to bring financial education in Bitcoin to schools or public institutions to cash in Bitcoin and Lightning Network. Yes there is Bitcoin Beach at the Zonte and the Bitcoin house which do their work from their trenches. By the way, great job guys.

Thanks to DarthCoin's guides and other masters that one finds on Twitter I started to learn more about Bitcoin and Lightning Network, giving start to my own node with a raspberrypi and umbrel. With my wife we have started our family project with https://buymesv.com/ an online store in which we intend to sell products of our artisans and salvadoran products among others, being an online store that accepts Bitcoin and Lightning Network payments. In El Salvador.

let's take a look if they can get over the current bear cycle, their bond market will be the biggest tell

I dont think El Salvador was early. And its not a failed experiment either. Some country had to give us all a start and El Salvador did. Infact, its just a matter of time and education, people there will consume like no other thing. And because of El Salvador, there have been so many learnings for all our countries.

Bloomberg is shameless.

Only time will tell how early or on time El Salvador was. I suspect we'll know within five years.

"It would be considered as a failure the implementation of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador". When in truth its use and management already existed in El Zonte beach where small merchants and natural persons began to give movement to a social project, where foreign tourists motivated by the ease of use and how easy it is to find small businesses where they can spend their Bitcoin began to empower themselves in that area. Our country being the first to adopt Bitcoin, is still in diapers with the adoption of it, even the fear persists in some by the fluctuations of Bitcoin, there are few who understand market value, it is a great challenge for the Salvadoran on foot, where even our language is a dialect, where just beginning to know the technologies, we come from a shitty political system that sank our countries in LATAM in an impoverished literacy, in El Salvador we want to get to make the first world, get ahead of the technologies but we need your help. To improve our knowledge and free ourselves from an enslaved economic system. Soon we will see an "Adopting Bitcoin returns to El Salvador in 2022": We expect more openness from bitcoiner we invite you to meet our warm and friendly people of our people of El Salvador. where you can teach about the use of Bitcoin / Lightning Network , few know about Non Custodial wallets and much less the use of Lightning. WELCOME. We need Bitcoin to be not only at the level of our government but also to show our people the true financial freedom that can be generated through bitcoin. It will take time to move away from the dirty Fiat.

From G20 CBDC report:

So it wasn't. El Salvador just fine. Even CBDC could show better numbers only in places like China.

It looks a bit that way in hindsight.

But if you look at GDP & the amount of interest in El Salvador because of this move it will turn around in a few years.