Apologies if this offends anyone here, I didn't mean it to, but we must really tell ourselves the hard truths and have critical forwarding thoughts that will see our yellow coin move forward even as we progress in adoption and growth. Therefore we must really take a look at what happened with El-Salvador and its btc experiment. Are you ready, alright lets have a conversation; here is my findings based on research and my own POV.
When El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender in 2021, it sparked global headlines and global questions. The idea was both awesome and controversial, depending on which side of the brainwashing you stand: Use btc alongside the U.S. dollar to deliver financial inclusion, boost remittances, and modernize an economy.
But the reality turned out to be messy later on not gonna lie. Roughly 92% of Salvadorans were not using Bitcoin for transactions, and only about 1.3% of remittances passed through BTC wallets.
Many businesses, despite a law requiring them to accept btc, quietly preferred USD, for speed, simplicity, and certainty.
Among the biggest shocks that discouraged a lot Salvadorans and destroyed trust was: BTC’s extreme volatility. When money drops 30% in days, it stops being a reliable store of value. When payments slow and systems crash, it fails as a medium of exchange.
Eventually, by early 2025, El Salvador had to reverse course, making Bitcoin acceptance optional and ending its use for taxes.
Questions I had to ask myself and ask us:
Does this mean btc can’t become money, or that the world just wasn’t ready?
Is the fault in btc, or the timing, infrastructure, and policy execution?
If we reused this experiment with better tech maybe 'Lightning', can btc shine as both value store and payments medium?
For me, I still very much appreciate El-Salvador idea and the courage to execute it, but then adoption isn't a day journey and can be very hard. Also, money isn’t just tech, it is also trust.
When El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender in 2021, it sparked global headlines and global questions. The idea was both awesome and controversial, depending on which side of the brainwashing you stand: Use btc alongside the U.S. dollar to deliver financial inclusion, boost remittances, and modernize an economy.
But the reality turned out to be messy later on not gonna lie. Roughly 92% of Salvadorans were not using Bitcoin for transactions, and only about 1.3% of remittances passed through BTC wallets.
Many businesses, despite a law requiring them to accept btc, quietly preferred USD, for speed, simplicity, and certainty.
Among the biggest shocks that discouraged a lot Salvadorans and destroyed trust was: BTC’s extreme volatility. When money drops 30% in days, it stops being a reliable store of value. When payments slow and systems crash, it fails as a medium of exchange.
Eventually, by early 2025, El Salvador had to reverse course, making Bitcoin acceptance optional and ending its use for taxes.
Questions I had to ask myself and ask us:
Does this mean btc can’t become money, or that the world just wasn’t ready?
Is the fault in btc, or the timing, infrastructure, and policy execution?
If we reused this experiment with better tech maybe 'Lightning', can btc shine as both value store and payments medium?
For me, I still very much appreciate El-Salvador idea and the courage to execute it, but then adoption isn't a day journey and can be very hard. Also, money isn’t just tech, it is also trust.