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Over 1.6 million El Salvadorans or roughly 25% of the population are now using the country’s official Chivo Bitcoin wallet, according to President Nayib Bukele on Twitter.
1.6 Million Salvadorans Now Using the Chivo Wallet
Just last weekend, Bukele said that Chivo wallet’s adoption has grown by over 31% in just three days, adding that the country will be able to bank more people in 1 month than what nationalization and privatization of traditional banks could do in 40 years.
“1.1 million Salvadorans already use @chivowallet (and we haven’t enabled 65% of phone models yet). It seems that we will be able to bank more people in 1 month, than they did with nationalizations and privatizations of traditional banks in 40 years.”
Prior to adopting the Bitcoin standard, over 70% of El Salvadorans were unbanked but now all this will be changed. With Bitcoin banking, the unbanked, over 1.6 million El Salvadorans will now have access to savings accounts via Bitcoin (BTC). With the latest figure, it seems that over 25% of the population is now already banked.
Defying IMF and the Work Bank Over Bitcoin
President Nayib Bukele recently announced that the country had purchased 150 bitcoins over the weekend worth $6.7 million at the current price shortly after the cryptocurrency's price dropped from $48,000 to $46,000. The total amount of Bitcoin (BTC) El Salvador now holds is 700 BTC.
President Bukele defied the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank by declaring Bitcoin legal tender despite warning countries against adopting digital currencies.
However, despite the enthusiasm surrounding El Salvador accepting the leading cryptocurrency many Salvadorans do not trust bitcoin with the majority of people 70% stating that they do not want to use Bitcoin for everyday transactions.