“Bitcoin didn’t replace the US dollar, El Salvador’s stable currency – it didn’t come close to it – but neither did it bring about the financial collapse that some have warned about. Or at least not yet… Nobody talks about bitcoin here anymore. It’s like they forgot about him.”Carlos Acevedo, former head of the central bank of El Salvador, said. “I don’t know if you can call it a failure, but it certainly wasn’t a success.”.
Acevedo said that most Salvadorans do not invest large sums of money in bitcoin, which has saved many from the recent market crash. The same cannot be said for the government itself, which began purchasing the token last year before launching as legal tender and continues to replenish its holdings. The 2,381 bitcoins purchased by the government with public funds are worth $47.2 million at current prices, less than half of what the government paid for them.
A series of recent surveys showed that only a relatively small minority of respondents continue to use digital wallets, and the Central Bank of El Salvador claimed that only 2% of remittances are sent via cryptocurrency wallets.
But the government still claims victory. In addition to attracting foreign investment and tourism, bitcoin has increased financial access for a largely unbanked population, according to Finance Minister Alejandro Celaya.
Source: Ferra
