Bitcoin, for the first time, has been adopted as a legal tender at a national level. Despite the volatility and speculative nature of Bitcoin, El Salvador on Tuesday chose to adopt the cryptocurrency, which President Nayib Bukele believes will saves Salvadorans $400 million a year.
Bukele called users to download the government-backed app and to test whether it is working properly. On Tuesday, Carlos Garcia and other users went to a mall to learn how transactions work. Garcia was amazed by the opportunities Bitcoin presented.
Though many opportunities are being presented by Bitcoin, many Salvadors are poor. They struggle to access the internet or the technology needed for Bitcoin to work.
Other fear that Bitcoin will fuel money laundering, which will cause financial instability and also ruin the possibility of the country securing a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Every Salvadoran who downloads the Chivo digital wallet has been promised $30 of Bitcoin. The App was however unavailable on app stores after the government unplugged it to connect to more servers.
Mr. Bukele had also criticized Apple, Google, and Huawei app download platforms for the delay. On his Twitter account, Bukele called on the companies to release Chivo, later the wallet was available on Huawei. Google and Apple are yet to respond to the request.
