El Salvador is the first nation in the world to recognize bitcoin as legal tender. The country is now forcing businesses to accept this crypto as payment. The move sparked widespread anger among citizens and businesses. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is not on the sidelines of the protest.
El Salvador does not respect the fundamentals of bitcoin
For the co-founder of Ethereum, many Bitcoin users forget that the government of Bukele is not very democratic. According to him, it is an administration that does not have great potential with regard to the respect of freedoms. He also criticizes members of the Bitcoin community who support the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Indeed, some of the most influential people in bitcoin applauded Salvadoran bitcoin law. It is a law first published at the Bitcoin Miami conference in June 2021. However, many cryptonauts criticize Bukele’s government for its well-known authoritarian tendencies. They regret the forced nature of its adoption of Bitcoin.
An opportunistic decision
The introduction of the Salvadorian law on bitcoin appeared with the recent bullish trend of cryptocurrencies. Simply put, it was when the price of bitcoin scraped a high of over $69,000 in November. Unfortunately, the cryptocurrency market is collapsing today. As a result, bitcoin is down more than 76%.
For Buterin, the plan for Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador is based on the assumption that prices will continue to rise. However, as the value of bitcoin is falling, it just looks ugly and not many people use it.
In essence, according to Buterin, the adoption of bitcoin, which was very top-down, was ultimately not particularly sustainable. On the other hand, the government of Bukele still has the will to adopt bitcoin. Despite the drop in its price, he claimed last week that El Salvador would start buying one bitcoin a day.
Nevertheless, Vitalik Buterin believes that forcing businesses to accept bitcoin as a means of payment goes against democratic fundamentals. Yet it is the ideals of freedom that form the very essence of crypto existence.
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