Official currency in El Salvador
Is the “Bitcoin Dictator” Blinding the Crypto Community?
By Céline Joufffrau and Andrea Sellmann
23.05.2024, 10:00 a.m.
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El Salvador is getting a new image: President Nayib Bukele is radically locking up criminal gangs and courting the international crypto community. But at what price? Will democracy fall by the wayside?
In September 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to introduce Bitcoin as an official means of payment. Since then, not only the US dollar has been accepted in El Salvador, but also the cryptocurrency. And the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, has other ideas. The country’s leader, also known as the “Bitcoin dictator,” dreams of Bitcoin City, a city that is financed entirely with Bitcoins and in which payments will only be made with the cryptocurrency.
For political scientist Christian Ambrosius, Bukele’s Bitcoin plans are rather vague ideas. In the podcast “Wirtschaft Welt & Weit” he reports on his recent trip to El Salvador. He hasn’t seen anything from Bitcoin City, and he’s also skeptical about the future: “I don’t know if anyone still believes in it,” Ambrosius doubts about the president’s ambitious plan in the new podcast episode.
Even though you can pay with Bitcoin on some beaches, the cryptocurrency has so far had a niche existence in the Central American country, reports Ambrosius. Getting the international Bitcoin community excited about El Salvador has a clear goal: it’s about “creating a different image of the country and perhaps also attracting other people and luring money into the country.”
For many years, El Salvador was one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Criminal gangs ruled many neighborhoods and a normal life was hardly possible, reports development economist José Salguero. Bukele successfully combated this gang violence with a large wave of arrests, but in doing so he also undermined democratic principles.
Do we have enough of an eye on this or is Bukele blinding the international Bitcoin community? What does the president stand for? How exactly is Bukele changing the country and what dangers does this pose for the future of El Salvador? Host Andrea Sellmann talks about these and many other topics with her guests Christian Ambrosius and José Salguero.
Christian Ambrosius is a political scientist and expert on Central America from the Free University of Berlin. José Salguero is a development economist and security and peace researcher. He grew up in El Salvador and has lived in Germany for nine years. He is currently researching the topic of re-feudalization and violence in El Salvador.
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