How many businesses are actually accepting Bitcoin payments in El Salvador? In this article, we are going to discuss the progress of consumer adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador, based on my own experience living here. We will cover some new locations that accept it, places that have stopped accepting it, and others that say they do but often cannot.
A few days ago I was at the Cascadas shopping center in San Salvador and stumbled upon a new cafe that had a sign up indicating that they accept Bitcoin. These signs are less common than one might think in "Bitcoin country", where BTC was made legal tender in 2021. After ordering my drink, I had a chat with the owner, who said he was more than happy to accept Bitcoin payments.
Not everyone here is happy accepting Bitcoin, though. On the other side of the spectrum we have businesses, such as Denny's, that used to have signs up saying "pay with your Bitcoins here", but have since taken them down, and will tell you that they no longer accept that payment method.
We can speculate as to the reasons why some stores have eliminated Bitcoin as a payment method, but my intuition tells me that not enough customers were requesting it, training all the employees was too time-consuming, or there were too many technical issues with the device and/or wallet.
With that said, there has been progress. For example, the government's custodial Bitcoin wallet "Chivo" works much better now than it did when it was first rolled out in 2021. Athena Bitcoin has also updated their wallet to accept on-chain, lightning and Chivo payments. The large department store Siman, where you can buy a variety of household items, has implemented it at one of their check-out stands.
IBEX is another common Bitcoin wallet found here, especially at all the Starbucks locations. Back in 2021, when all citizens received $30 of free Bitcoin, the employees quickly learned how to accept it. However, these days, the number of customers using Bitcoin is dwindling, and the staff often have trouble finding the right device, or it might not even be charged. The McDonalds self-service machines still accept Bitcoin too, but the payment remains stuck in "processing" status until the staff bring your food.
Despite the low usage, awareness of Bitcoin is high in El Salvador. I've never been met with a blank stare when asking an employee if they accept Bitcoin. This is most likely due to the aforementioned government airdrop, which garnered a lot of news at the time. At least the population will be relatively prepared to adopt Bitcoin as an alternative payment system if the US dollar suffers an untimely fate.
In spite of the technical progress in terms of wallets, I think the lack of usage is more evidence that people are perceiving Bitcoin as more of an investment, rather than peer-to-peer cash, as it was originally engineered to be. Also, as long as the US dollar continues to serve as a relatively stable currency, the people will not actively look for alternatives, especially volatile ones.
As we await the next fiat financial crisis, a lot of alternative blockchain projects have been innovating throughout the bear market of 2022/2023, and have been gaining adoption in other parts of the world. If Bitcoin loses its first mover advantage due to this lack of real-world adoption, it will no doubt lose even more market share to other cryptocurrencies.
If you learned something new from this article, be sure to check out my other posts on crypto and finance here on the HIVE blockchain. You can also follow me on InLeo for more frequent updates.
Until next time...
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