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From the article: > More than 91 percent of Salvadorans want dollars, not bitcoins. The official Chivo payment system was unreliable at launch in September—the

From the article: > More than 91 percent of Salvadorans want dollars, not bitcoins. The official Chivo payment system was unreliable at launch in September—the kiss of death for a new system. Users joined for the $30 signup bonus, spent it or cashed it out, then didn’t use Chivo again.

nkuttler 5y ago
9% of the population of an entire country wanting bitcoin sounds like a decent win to me. It's not clear to me where that optimistic number comes from though.
- MaxDPS 5y ago
  *less than 5% want Bitcoin
- GracefullyBlind 5y ago
  Wait this is far from a decent win! In such a fragmented societies as the ones from Latin America, I wouldn't be surprised if this <9% is actually part of the population that benefits from this the most
  - davidgerard 5y ago
    This is why I'm disappointed that Chivo seems to be a wasted opportunity - there's a lot of businesses in El Salvador that would really like a widely-accepted form of electronic money, and would like Chivo to actually work reliably, which it absolutely doesn't. I think a lot of them are the ones in that 9%, because they want electronic money that much. In a country where only 30% of the population have bank accounts - and that's with a national ID card, and you can get a basic bank account for the asking with your ID - a government-backed electronic payment system that was reliable and trustworthy could have been a game-changer. Instead, they got a dysfunctional system written by political cronies and plagued with fraud. It is possible they'll fix Chivo. But that's the bit I talked about as a failure, 'cos it is. When your system is so bad that people start setting fire to stuff in the streets, I'd be hard put to call that a success. (The headline was written by the editor, but I'd agree that bitcoin has failed with the populace. Anyone asserting "it's early days yet!" has to account for what's happened so far, and explain why this volatile nonsense would work as actual currency, and not just for the few local Chivo bitcoin day-traders.)
xiphias2 5y ago
9% adoption rate in 2 months for something optional is amazing. It takes time for people to learn to use it, as it's very different from the traditional banking system.
- audessuscest 5y ago
  it doesn't mean 9% adoption though. I bet a large part of these 9% are still using $, maybe even exclusively.
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    Sure, and it's fine. The optionality of getting rid of the USD which totally failed and destroyed latin american countries is in itself a great thing. IMF was an asshole with El Salvador during the pandemic, and it was not the first time.
    - el-salvador 5y ago
      I've seen more countries in Latin America destroyed by their own countries devaluing countries than by the USD. IMF loaned the El Salvador government 389 million during the pandemic https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/04/14/pr20155-el-salvador-imf-executive-board-approves-a-us-389-million-disbursement-to-address-covid-19 https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/04/14/pr20155-el-s...
      - xiphias2 5y ago
        Why loan? US printed trillions of dollars and put into its own markets and helped its own people, but didn’t think at all of giving checks to other countries that use the USD. Sure, other currencies have problems as well, that’s why it’s probably better to use the dominant open standard that has already shown that it can’t be easily inflated…it just makes sense.
- GracefullyBlind 5y ago
  There were also incentives to join the system, which is what (most of the) people go for.

nkuttler 5y ago

9% of the population of an entire country wanting bitcoin sounds like a decent win to me. It's not clear to me where that optimistic number comes from though.

MaxDPS 5y ago
*less than 5% want Bitcoin
GracefullyBlind 5y ago
Wait this is far from a decent win! In such a fragmented societies as the ones from Latin America, I wouldn't be surprised if this <9% is actually part of the population that benefits from this the most
- davidgerard 5y ago
  This is why I'm disappointed that Chivo seems to be a wasted opportunity - there's a lot of businesses in El Salvador that would really like a widely-accepted form of electronic money, and would like Chivo to actually work reliably, which it absolutely doesn't. I think a lot of them are the ones in that 9%, because they want electronic money that much. In a country where only 30% of the population have bank accounts - and that's with a national ID card, and you can get a basic bank account for the asking with your ID - a government-backed electronic payment system that was reliable and trustworthy could have been a game-changer. Instead, they got a dysfunctional system written by political cronies and plagued with fraud. It is possible they'll fix Chivo. But that's the bit I talked about as a failure, 'cos it is. When your system is so bad that people start setting fire to stuff in the streets, I'd be hard put to call that a success. (The headline was written by the editor, but I'd agree that bitcoin has failed with the populace. Anyone asserting "it's early days yet!" has to account for what's happened so far, and explain why this volatile nonsense would work as actual currency, and not just for the few local Chivo bitcoin day-traders.)

xiphias2 5y ago

9% adoption rate in 2 months for something optional is amazing. It takes time for people to learn to use it, as it's very different from the traditional banking system.

audessuscest 5y ago
it doesn't mean 9% adoption though. I bet a large part of these 9% are still using $, maybe even exclusively.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Sure, and it's fine. The optionality of getting rid of the USD which totally failed and destroyed latin american countries is in itself a great thing. IMF was an asshole with El Salvador during the pandemic, and it was not the first time.
  - el-salvador 5y ago
    I've seen more countries in Latin America destroyed by their own countries devaluing countries than by the USD. IMF loaned the El Salvador government 389 million during the pandemic https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/04/14/pr20155-el-salvador-imf-executive-board-approves-a-us-389-million-disbursement-to-address-covid-19 https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/04/14/pr20155-el-s...
    - xiphias2 5y ago
      Why loan? US printed trillions of dollars and put into its own markets and helped its own people, but didn’t think at all of giving checks to other countries that use the USD. Sure, other currencies have problems as well, that’s why it’s probably better to use the dominant open standard that has already shown that it can’t be easily inflated…it just makes sense.
GracefullyBlind 5y ago
There were also incentives to join the system, which is what (most of the) people go for.