Bitcoin crashes as El Salvador’s world-first adoption gets off to bumpy start
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Bitcoin crashes as El Salvador’s world-first adoption gets off to bumpy start
The world’s number one digital asset, bitcoin, plummeted after El Salvador officially adopted the crypto as legal currency. The historic adoption was beset by protests on the streets and technical problems online.
The price of bitcoin dropped as much as 16% to around $43,100 after breaking through $52,000 late Monday. The cryptocurrency has managed to rebound since then, and was last down over 13% to trade at $45,512.
The fall has been attributed to a technological glitch that forced El Salvador’s government to take the country’s new digital wallet Chivo offline while it boosted server capacity.
“We have disconnected it while increasing capacity of the image capture servers. The installation problems that some people had were for that reason,” President Nayib Bukele tweeted, commenting on the setback.
Meanwhile, a group of protesters rallying against the new bitcoin law took to the streets of the capital San Salvador. The activists were reportedly marching against the move due to lack of knowledge about the cryptocurrency and how the new bitcoin law will be implemented.
El Salvador sent shock waves through the crypto and wider world earlier this year after President Bukele announced plans to adopt bitcoin as legal tender alongside the US dollar, which has been used in the country since 2001.
