AFP reports that two years ago, El Salvador ignored warnings and adopted Bitcoin as legal tender to revitalize the economy and improve financial services. But "that didn't work..." economist Cesar Villalona said. "Bitcoin 'doesn't exist in the local economy' because in El Salvador, 'everything' is paid in dollars: wages, services and goods."
Since then, Bitcoin has lost more than half its value, and while Nayib Bukele is popular for his fight against criminal gangs, his big bets on the monetary system have not been equally popular... Economist, former Carlos Acevedo, governor of the Reserve Bank, said that two years after El Salvador became the first country in the world to list Bitcoin as its national currency alongside the U.S. dollar, "the goals pursued... have not been achieved, and people barely use Bitcoin and have little trust in cryptocurrencies." "The experiment didn't work out, and cryptocurrencies themselves are in the cold winter," he said.
There is no data yet on how many Salvadorans use Bitcoin. But a poll conducted in May by Central American University found that 71% of people believed that cryptocurrencies would “do nothing to improve their families’ financial situation.”
On the streets of San Salvador, Bitcoin is being judged harshly. "I don't see the money working, it's just propaganda. What's the benefit? There's no benefit. It's a bad investment," 65-year-old newspaper vendor Juan Antonio Salgado told AFP. "It's just robbery," he added of the currency's volatility. "
Al Jazeera's video report begins by asking: "So was the trial successful? The general conclusion is - at least not yet. They report that although a fifth of El Salvador's gross domestic product comes from remittances, less than 2% have been sent through cryptocurrencies and digital wallets so far this year. The construction of Bitcoin City has not yet begun - and the country has not actually issued a "volcano bond" to fund its construction.
Meanwhile, government purchases of Bitcoin are now down an estimated $45.4 million.
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