Blockchain.com Exec Bashes El Salvador’s Bitcoin Adoption

Full article by Scott Chipolina found here.

• Nicolas Cary, the co-founder and vice chairman of Blockchain.com, has condemned El Salvador’s approach to making Bitcoin a legal tender.

• Cary voiced his criticisms on the forced approach by the government today at the Token 2049 conference in London, stating “I think there’s some valid criticisms of how the program is rolled out in El Salvador in terms of being top down. One of the main ethos of crypto is that there’s really grassroots adoption, and people are doing it voluntarily.”

• El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, first declared that the nation would adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in May during the annual Bitcoin Conference in Miami this year.

• The basis of El Salvador’s decision is entrenched in the the fact that the nation is one of the most remittance reliant economies in the world. Implementing Bitcoin as legal tender reduces fees for Salvadoran and circumvents the nation’s reliance on the U.S. dollar.

• The nation state has seen a series of protests opposing the country’s Bitcoin law forcing businesses to accept BTC as payment as long as they possess the technology to do so. Multiple surveys based in the country show that a majority of Salvadorans are not in favor of Bitcoin added as legal tender.

• A local businessperson spoke out against the law, saying that “it crushes my soul to see Bitcoin maximalists around the world cheering this when, if they actually sat down and read the law and regulations, it is complete opposite to everything they preach.”