National Bureau of Economic Research claims El Salvador Bitcoin adoption is very slow

The National Bureau of Economic Research published its research on the slow rate of Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador. 

El Salvador became the first-ever country in the world, which adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the use of the US dollar. However, the government of El Salvador faced huge criticism from different countries’ agencies and also from some native opposition leaders but still, the El Salvador government introduced the Bitcoin law Act successfully. 

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) recently conducted a survey and noted that El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption rate by citizens is very slow because of some significant factors, as per the analysis. 

According to the report, NBER found that El Salvador’s citizens were not eager to go with the Bitcoin adoption plan and approximately 60% of the citizens didn’t download the government-backed Digital Bitcoin wallet Chivo. And 60% of respondents in the survey said that they downloaded wallets only to collect $30 worth of Bitcoin rewards, after that they never used. 

In the very starting, when the El Salvador president introduced the Bitcoin law and the Chivo wallet, he said that it will bring citizens to the level to accept international payments easily as a primary option and also will be cost-efficient. But the NBER report noted that only 3% of citizens used the Chivo wallet to receive foreign payments, while 83% of citizens never used this option.

The report also noted that the majority of the citizens are using traditional card-based payments and traditional ATMs instead of Chivo Bitcoin wallet & ATMs. 

NBER also found in its survey that 80% of the businesses in El Salvador, still don’t accept Bitcoin payments, while 71% of businesses, which uses Bitcoin payment methods, swaps Bitcoin in US dollars instantly to remain away from any kind of volatility. 

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