Here’s Why El Salvador’s Bitcoin Experiment Will Be A Total Disaster.

8 min readJan 17, 2022

In 2021, we saw something in the crypto space that we’ve never seen before. The first sovereign nation in history decided to take the risky decision in adopting Bitcoin as legal tender — a move praised by Bitcoin maximalist yet despised by the Salvadorian people, and economists across the world.

Several months after becoming legal tender, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele hosted a promotional Bitcoin event in the small town of Mizata. During his speech, he announced his country would be developing the world’s first ever ‘Bitcoin City’ in El Salvador.

While many specifics about this project are still unknown, it does open a extensive list of concerns about the viability and success of such an outrageous idea. The announcement also conveniently came after a lengthy correction put all of El Salvador’s Bitcoin bets deep underwater, which begs the question as to whether this announcement was simply a marketing stunt in hopes of attracting new hype, which clearly didn’t work out well.

Bitcoin City is being sold to the public as this beautiful perfect city with zero taxes, and no carbon emission, but how realistic is this? Not a chance.

I have serious doubts this city will even be built, let alone be a supposed success haven for crypto bros and financial elites, which are already capitulating out of Bitcoin as the market mania cools down.

El Salvador is Anti-Bitcoin.

Despite many Bitcoin maximalists promoting this false idea of unity, and success with their Bitcoin experiment, the opposite is true.

Once Bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador, it immediately triggered thousands of massive protests across the country, and even resulted in the jailing of dozens of journalists and critics.