- A Reddit user in El Salvador has offered an insight into the protests behind the country’s Bitcoin adoption
- Sam-Sung explained how the money to build the Bitcoin infrastructure has come from healthcare and education budgets
- He also says that most of the citizenry won’t know how to use the Bitcoin payment network
Protests over the adoption of Bitcoin as a form of currency by the El Salvador government have been well documented, even if their size has been blown somewhat out of proportion. However, the actual reasons behind the protests, other than the fact that Bitcoin is famously volatile, aren’t well known. One El Salvadoran Reddit user however has explained in detail why Bitcoin adoption is a bad move, and it is an eye-opening account from someone one the ground that may give Bitcoiners pause for thought as they continue to celebrate Bitcoin Day.
President Bukele is “Trump-wannabe”
The user, named Sam-Sung, begins by calling president Nayib Bukele a “Trump-wannabe” who “uses people’s ignorance to stay popular”, blaming famous financier George Soros for the ills of the country and accusing him of financing a Human Rights Watch director, journalists, and a U.S. congresswoman.
He then moves onto the adoption of Bitcoin, which he says was intentionally “done very late at night” and that some congressmen admitted that they “didn’t even know what they were voting for”. Worse is to come, with Sam-Sung saying that the Bitcoin being purchased by the government, which now stands at 550, and the infrastructure needed to build the payment network is being funded with money taken out of the education and the health budget, right when the country is trying to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Regarding the infrastructure itself, Sam-Sung says that citizens are being kept in the dark over that, too:
All of the information regarding the construction of Chivo ATMs, purchasing Chivo ATMs, purchasing Bitcoins, and the USD $30 bonus is NOW classified information. There you have it, we don’t know who was awarded the lucrative contracts to build and equipt (sic) the Chivo ATMs.
El Salvador Citizens “Don’t Know What an Email Is”
Sam-sung also calls into question the efficacy of rolling out a new digital payment network when “people can take pictures with a smartphone or upload videos but don’t know what an email is or how to reply to one” and that “old people cannot even understand what a password is”. He signs off by saying that the El Salvador people “are against using Bitcoin as legal tender” and getting to the point where the populace can understand what cryptocurrencies are and how to use them will take “at least two years of educating people”.
Such insight certainly gives those who have been cheering the adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador something to consider before they cheer on El Salvador’s actions.
