Bitcoin plunge did not dampen enthusiasm for new policies; El Salvador's president personally "promotes" digital wallet applications

Although the price of Bitcoin plummeted in the evening after El Salvador officially listed Bitcoin as legal tender on Tuesday, this has not dampened the Salvadoran government's enthusiasm for embracing Bitcoin.
On Wednesday local time, the President of El Salvador personally promoted the country's Bitcoin digital wallet application on Twitter, making the digital wallet application the most downloaded app in the Apple Store in El Salvador that day. However, the final result of this "grand experiment" remains to be tested by time.
The president personally promoted the sale. After Bitcoin plunged on Tuesday, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele purchased an additional 150 bitcoins to show his confidence in Bitcoin.
Subsequently, Bukele posted several tweets on Twitter, teaching citizens step by step how to download and use the Chivo application, a digital wallet application supported by the Salvadoran government that enables digital payments without commission. The Salvadoran government hopes to promote the application among people without bank accounts.

The President of El Salvador personally promoted Chivo Wallet on Twitter. As a cash-based economy, about 70% of people in El Salvador do not have bank accounts or credit cards. At the same time, El Salvador's economy is heavily dependent on remittances from immigrants, and the money remitted by immigrants to their country accounts for more than 20% of El Salvador's GDP. It is reported that there are more than 2 million Salvadorans living abroad, but they still maintain contact with their hometown, and remittances exceed 4 billion US dollars each year.
This is also the important reason why the Salvadoran government chose Bitcoin as its legal tender. Because Bitcoin has the characteristics of decentralization and global circulation, it can provide Salvadorans with a more convenient way to send money home and avoid high service fees.
Driven by the president’s personal promotion, Chivo became the most downloaded app in the El Salvador market on the Apple Store that day.

Many Salvadorans reported some problems encountered during downloading and installation in the comments section of Bukele's Twitter account, and Bukele responded directly on Twitter, teaching people how to exit and restart the Chivo app when an error occurs. In addition, Chivo is currently only available for download and use on a small number of Android phone models in the Google Play Store. Bukele said that in the future, the app will be gradually promoted to be applicable to more phone models, but not too many new accounts can be registered at the same time "to avoid saturation of the server."
JPMorgan said in a report on Wednesday that some technical obstacles in El Salvador's bitcoin legalization process are to be expected. "Given that El Salvador has only three months to prepare for this grand experiment, these technical issues should not be surprising."
Bitcoin adoption still takes time For El Salvador, a small country with a population of less than 7 million, using Bitcoin as legal tender is a bold attempt, and there may still be great uncertainty as to whether the consequences of this attempt will be bitter or sweet.
El Salvador’s central bank president, Douglas Rodriguez, said “the eyes of the world” were on his country and that bitcoin adoption was a process that would take time to mature.
In response to concerns that Bitcoin could encourage illegal activity, Rodriguez said the rules for using Bitcoin set by the Central Bank of El Salvador are designed to meet regulatory money laundering standards and are well received by international authorities.
El Salvador's Bitcoin law states that the exchange rate between the cryptocurrency and the country's other legal currency, the U.S. dollar, will be determined by the market. In El Salvador, all commodity prices can be expressed in Bitcoin, tax contributions can be paid in digital currency, and monetary transactions made with Bitcoin are not subject to capital gains tax.
According to the President of El Salvador’s tweet, department stores, Starbucks, fast food restaurants, etc. in El Salvador now support Bitcoin payments. According to foreign media reports, companies that refuse to use Bitcoin for transactions in El Salvador will face sanctions.
However, many companies and people in El Salvador are still skeptical about the legalization of Bitcoin. It is reported that Javier Siman, the leader of the National Association of Private Enterprises of El Salvador and a lawyer, criticized the volatility of Bitcoin on Twitter. At the same time, he also expressed dissatisfaction with President Bukele's requirement to force companies to accept Bitcoin, which caught them off guard. (NetEase)