I thought that Strike was also popular in El Salvador, ...
Jack Maller was involved in getting BTC adopted as legal tender. But NOBODY uses strike nor do they hold their own keys.
I personally have not even used the lightning network ... but sure they are custody wallets too from my understanding.
Yes. It is difficult to setup. To custody your own watchtower you need to (a) fund it and (b) have other people fund it. It tends toward money transmitters like Bitfinex who have the most liquid channels. I had to give my keys to two other organizations to try to pay my Internet bill over $LBTC. Neither worked and I paid $10 in fees to add and remove from their watchtower.
I wonder if any El Salvadoreans are using any of those wallets?
No. There is not one Lightning channel in El Salvador; it appears the closest are in Mexico and Panama:
https://explorer.acinq.co/Everyone uses the "Chivo" wallet, which is sort of like Tik-Tok biometrics meets WeChatPay in China. There is an option to pay with
Lightning but there is no verification. I am convinced what they call
Lightning is simply a database on the Bitso exchange. Chivo is the only regulated way to buy Bitcoin in El Salvador. There were a few BTM providers at popular spots, but the government took over the BTM business by placing them all over the country and adding a 2% spread. You need to have a +503 (Salvadoran) phone number, DUI (their state ID) or passport registered with the government to buy Bitcoin from Chivo vending machines (BTMs). Signs at stores says, "Chivo accepted here" not "Bitcoin accepted here," except Pizza Hut which prices in satoshis.
Very few understand keys, blockchain or fees. Most receive Bitcoin and immediately convert it to $USD. I hope it changes, poco a poco.
Regarding your AirBnb.. I would imagine that there is more demand for various hotels and Airbnb.
Yes, there are MANY more AirBnbs offered.
I'll keep trying to educate my friends on the difference between a government database and Bitcoin. It's a slow go. People will eventually catch on (when they have a Chivo wallet frozen). While SV (El Salvador) has its issues in implementation, it is f***ing sweet to have as legal tender. It makes life so much easier on many fronts.
For sure, if you have boots on the ground in El Salvador, then you will have more ideas regarding some of the various ways that bitcoin is being used there, and I would imagine that there are some locations that have more bitcoin related businesses than other locations - so surely it is not going to spread evenly throughout the country.
Many of us likely heard of Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte.. so I supposed the capital of San Salvador might be another possible place where spread of bitcoin related transactional options increase, and surely there could be some ways that people are interacting that you do not know about such as using Local Bitcoins or Paxful.. and like I said if they are transacting wallet to wallet using Blue wallet, Breeze, Muun or some other wallets that would allow for direct interaction between bitcoin users using the lightning network or other kinds of on chain bitcoin wallets.
Bitrawr lists 6 different exchanges in El Salvador if that information might have some correctness.
I had heard that there are some bitcoin-friendly areas forming around
bitcoin lake in Guatemala and another one in some cities in Honduras that has been dubbed as Bitcoin valley (
link 1,
link 2), and then apparently Honduras also has a
Special economic zone for bitcoin on what seems to be a private Island so surely there could be circles of bitcoin users that you do not really know about but those circle of users may well be making efforts and progress in terms of expanding outwardly, too.. and maybe it is not widely know which wallets or ways of transacting might be used in each location or if some of the hype about various available transacting abilities might be overblown as compared with what can be seen to be happening on the ground.
If the civil unrest keeps increasing they might need to find a compromise to give into the protests.
What are you talking about? The protests were in 2021. The biggest danger is that Bukele changes the Constitution, so he can remain in power beyond 5 years. He has like an 80% approval rating, so many are likely to support it. He showed up in the Legislature, during session, with the military and surrounded the place. After that, there were talks of changing the Constitution but it has all been in secret. If changes were made to the Constitution, nobody yet knows.
My understanding was that there was some ambiguity in the language of the El Salvador Constitution, so sometimes there can be a reinterpretation of already existing constitutional language or like you said another possibility might be to change the language (which also might be framed as a clarification of language that is already there). I could attempt to find a newer source, but
this article from last year seems to describe that there already is an ability for Bukele to run again in 2024.
It may be best we wait until the next bull run before coming to such a conclusion of failure. These things take time and it's easy to deem "failure" in a down market. Funny how tunes on El Salvador will change when the crypto market is on fire again.
It is almost a year after bitcoin was officially declared a legal currency, but the country of El Salvador has not been able to improve their country's economic situation, most likely it is true as you said maybe they still need time to wait for the next increase, because the price of bitcoin is now falling much differently with the price that nayeb bukele bought when legalizing bitcoin in 2021 last year, although many say bitcoin adoption failed in El Salvador, opinion polls show that there are still very many people who support nayeb bukele..
Do you have evidence to either show that El Salvador's economic condition has not been improved in the last year or at least that it is not worse off as compared with other countries of similar stature who had not adopted bitcoin.. so even if El Salvador happens to be worse off economically this year as compared to last year, do you have evidence connecting that to bitcoin, besides "other people saying that" in their wishful-thinking kind of way?