The cryptocurrency has come to symbolize financial freedom from governments. Many Salvadorans are unhappy about the way it was made an official currency.
would become legal tender in the country, he said—a global first that would elevate it to the same legal status as the US dollar, El Salvador’s national currency since 2001. This would help the jobless, he added, and those left behind by banks. But for a plan meant to help struggling Salvadorans, they were conspicuously absent; Bukele wasn’t even speaking Spanish. Instead, the message was played for a cheering crowd of international Bitcoin enthusiasts at a conference in Miami.
El Salvador’s authoritarian turn has brought warnings from the US, which has sanctioned close Bukele allies for corruption and said it will shift aid from the government to civil society groups. But within El Salvador, Bukele remains popular, with polls putting his approval rating at more than 80 percent. For a time he changed his Twitter bio to “World’s coolest dictator.
“I think he’s betting on something bigger,” says Jose Luis Magaña, an El Salvador–based economist who teaches at Universidad Centroamericana. El Salvador has staggering public debt and has sought a $1.3 billion relief measure from the International Monetary Fund to cover it. Otherwise, it may default, putting at risk programs that are key to Bukele’s popularity.
“Bukele adopted Bitcoin out of self-interest, not out of altruism. I don’t believe he did it to help his people. But it doesn’t matter, because it will help his people.”A few months later, Mallers found himself onstage at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami, wiping tears from his eyes as he unveiled Bukele’s video message about legal tender.
On the eve of the September launch, Mallers, sitting in Chicago in a trucker hat and a tie-dye hoodie, was feeling optimistic about the prospects for Salvadorans. “They have not had a fair opportunity, and through the beauty of Bitcoin they’ll get it,” he says. But he, too, had grown wary of some aspects of the government’s approach. The law did not look like a draft he had seen. Gone was the highfalutin language he had suggested about enshrining financial freedoms.
“I honestly still haven’t used it, but I have the application ready in case anyone wants to pay with bitcoins.”Some in El Salvador have suggested those numbers may be inflated. Some people may have used the app just to claim the $30 credit and then dropped it. “A lot of businesses use Bitcoin here, but I don’t know if it will ultimately be the application that the government made.
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