Reuters
- After president Nayib Bukele ushered in the bitcoin legal tender law in June, Salvadorans have waited for months on detailed government rules outlining how exactly adoption will work.
- An opinion poll in July found that three out of four Salvadorans harbored reservations about the imminent bitcoin adoption.
- With one week until bitcoin is set to debut in El Salvador, Bukele is defending the law, calling its critics “liars” and saying anyone with reservations should simply continue using dollars.
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El Salvador’s ambitious attempt to make bitcoin legal tender has run headfirst into confusion and popular unease, with three-fourths of Salvadorans expressing reservations about the country’s decision, according to a new Reuters report.
After president Nayib Bukele ushered in the bitcoin legal tender law in June, Salvadorans have waited for months on detailed government rules outlining how exactly bitcoin adoption will work in the country’s dollarized economy.
But an opinion poll in July found that three out of four Salvadorans harbored reservations about the imminent bitcoin adoption. None of the 18 people interviewed by Reuters in the capital city of San Salvador had heard any official explanation of the new law.
“I prefer the dollar, because we already know it and know it well, there’s no problem,” Jose Guardado, a farmer who lives near San Salvador, told Reuters. “But as we don’t know [bitcoin], we don’t know how it will work.”
Nearly a quarter of 2020 GDP came in the form of remittances, meaning the details of payment technology make a massive difference to daily life. Bitcoin is touted as eliminating the commissions that Salvadorans currently pay on cross-border transfers via outlets like Western Union.
With one week until bitcoin is set to debut in El Salvador, Bukele is defending the law, calling its critics “liars” and saying anyone with reservations should simply continue using dollars – and paying commissions on remittances.
“The clumsy opposition always plays single-move chess,” Bukele tweeted last week in a Spanish-language thread punctuated by the bitcoin hashtag. “They have bet everything on scaring the population about the bitcoin law and maybe they’ll achieve something, but only until September 7.”
Bukele’s government is still rolling out hundreds of bitcoin ATMs across the country, linked to a new electronic wallet called Chivo (meaning “nice”), according to Reuters. Early birds will get around $30 in bitcoin, he boasted on Twitter.
Late last week, protests erupted in San Salvador, led by pensioners who fear bitcoin adoption could erode their payouts. Other protesters said the move would exacerbate money laundering.