El Salvador is on a mission to increase Bitcoin’s use within the country. It is close to finally achieving it, one citizen at a time. The citizens of the country are increasingly exchanging US dollars for Bitcoin, said their President.
The President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele provided the data on the basis of its in-house wallet service Chivo and mentioned:
“1. People are inserting way more USD (to buy #BTC) than what they are withdrawing from the Chivo ATMs (any media outlet can independently confirm this by visiting the ATMs).”
Talking about Chivo, there are many problems with its wallet services amidst the local population increasingly trading Bitcoin. A user complained to have lost $220 while withdrawing cash from the digital wallet. However, according to the data, the Salvadoran migrants send 2M dollars in bitcoin daily via remittances.
Nearly a fifth of Salvadorans is dependent on remittances. Therefore, the Chivo wallet provides commission-free activities, reducing the net cost of such payments. Moreover, the government also provided $30 for downloading the wallet. Therefore, now over 6M people of El Salvador (half the population) has the wallet, and 2.1M people are actively using it.
The importance of remittance is clear in the tweet of the President:
“2. Today, we received 24,076 remittances, adding up to $3,069,761.05 (in one day).”
As this country’s people embrace digital currency, it is looking to power bitcoin with new renewable energy streams. Where mining bitcoin is an energy-intensive activity all over the world, El Salvador will use hydroelectric, wind, tidal, and solar power projects for mining.
