El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment turns 5: ‘It was for us, not them’

Five years after El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, the experiment has fallen short of its original promises for locals, but it’s been great for Bitcoin’s global profile.

It’s been five years since El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

President Nayib Bukele announced the plan at the Bitcoin conference in Miami on June 5, 2021, to the jubilant cries and applause of the Bitcoin community, who hailed the tiny Central American nation as living proof that BTC could be sovereign money.

Bukele sold the experiment as a way to bank the unbanked, slash remittance costs, and attract investment to the impoverished nation.

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