El Salvador, the country that became the first in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, is facing a severe outburst of agitation from locals who are protesting against President Nayib Bukele’s recent decisions and policies favoring Bitcoin expansion in the state.
On Wednesday, anti-government marches were organized where thousands of El Salvadorians headed to the central plaza region in the state’s capital city of Sal Salvador. The initial protests were initially peaceful. However, things turned violent when one group attacked a Bitcoin kiosk and set it on fire to protest against the government. People carried boards with slogans like ‘We were defrauded by Bitcoin’ written on them.
Just a week ago, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal form of money in the country with an intention to ease remittance services. The use of Bitcoin was seen as a potent solution for reducing the cost of remittances, time period, and ease of management. El Salvador earns a big portion of its GDP income from remittances sent by the natives living in different parts of the world. Apart from giving lucrative offers to the public to encourage Bitcoin adoption, the government has decided to open kiosks in the state to aid transactions.
Calling the Bitcoin adoption decision illogical, opposition lawmaker Claudia Ortiz stated that the decision was made hastily. She added that the country is going through a financial glitch and requires good economic revamping. Instead of adopting Bitcoin, the government should have looked for other serious solutions, said Claudia.
The locals seemed unhappy with the Bukele government’s decision to include Bitcoin as a legal currency. They criticized the steps taken by the authorities in popularizing the usage of digital currency at large. The Bukele-led government has proposed over 200 alterations in the constitution, including the removal of the ban on presidential re-elections. These decisions appear to have caused an upsetting situation in the country as people are considering it as an imposition of dictatorship on them.
