Publish date:
The success or failure of Bitcoin’s adoption in El Salvador, at the current moment, is largely defined by your expectations.
Author:
The success or failure of Bitcoin’s adoption in El Salvador, at the current moment, is largely defined by your expectations.
This is the second installment in Okcoin[2]’s “I am Satoshi” series, profiles of Salvadorans during the transition to bitcoin as legal tender. Read the first about Elina Marchenko’s visit with Enrique Barrios of Bitcoin Smiles.
One of my favorite things to do in the midst of the craziness unleashed by the passing of[3] “Ley Bitcoin” has been to get an off-the-record moment with journalists or Bitcoiners who are visiting El Salvador and ask them their honest impressions of the state of Bitcoin here. Rarely do they need much time to reflect.
Their responses often fall into two camps: “It is mind blowing to see what has happened here, I still cannot believe it has come so far so fast.” Or, “To be honest it has been very disappointing, I was expecting things to be so much further along.”
While it’s normal for two travelers to have very different experiences — possibly due to where they stay or who they meet — I’ve also found that two people who had the exact same experience could often leave with completely different takeaways.
The difference in opinions is usually not the experiences, but how the experiences matched their expectations. I find that long-time Bitcoiners are most likely to be positively surprised, while those relatively new to Bitcoin are most likely to be disappointed. It is hard to truly appreciate how far and how fast El Salvador has come without the trials and tribulations of those trying
