Topic: El Salvador rolls out 200 Bitcoin ATMs in a bid to speed-up nationwide adoption - page 5. (Read 819 times)

I am not surprised by the news because I think it is mandatory if they have adopted bitcoin as a legal currency then steps to accelerate its adoption can be considered as soon as possible and one of them is the spread of bitcoin ATM in various regions. A thing that will have a positive impact on bitcoin which mean there will be a lot of increase in its demand. If there are only 200 ATM to be installed in various regions then I think that's still quite a bit, but it may be true as DdmrDdmr said that this is the first step for accelerated adoption.

Frankly speaking, this is such kind of news where we should feel excited about. We always wanted to see granular level adoption of bitcoin. Didn't we?

I mean, it's much much better than a corporate investing billions of dollars in bitcoin. It is much much better for bitcoin to be circulated within a proper economy through masses instead of sitting idle in corporate coffers. Possibly El-Salvador will be written in history for their contribution towards the digital currency adoption.

I’m slightly confused. Not long ago, Athena claimed to be working towards installing 1.500 bitcoin ATMs in El Salvador (see https://www.reuters.com/technology/athena-says-will-install-1500-cryptocurrency-atms-el-salvador-2021-06-25/), and the headlines today talks about 200 (which I believe are supplied by Athena). Perhaps it’s the initial roll-out, which will be expanded over time to those 1.500 bitcoin ATMs. We’ll see.

This article (in Spanish), claiming to be acting as a sort of "ChivoLeaks", displays an alleged image of the Chivo Wallet’s architecture:
The article is not too sure on the veracity of the above, being the source attributed to El Tapudo (https://twitter.com/eltapudosv/status/1429870227899174912), who is apparently a comedian that opposed the Bitcoin Law there. No detail explanation either, but note that it references the Lightning Network. As mentioned, we need to take this with a grain of salt.

Here I’m referencing a document (in Spanish) I found, with technical rules to facilitate the implementation of the Bitcoin Law:
https://www.bcr.gob.sv/regulaciones/upload/Normas_Tecnicas_para_Facilitar_la_Aplicacion_de_la_Ley_Bitcoin.pdf
The document was released a week ago, and if valid, it states on page 12, article 27 that (translated):
It does not explicitly mention Chivo (or else), and to add a bit more confusion, the article comes under a section called "ATM from bitcoin to dollars and vice-versa".

Leaving ATMs aside,  the article, which I’ve only skimmed through, does place a lot of focus on AML, GAFI recommendations and so forth. Page 21 article 51 for example talks about entities needing to retain and forward information on TX sender, receiver, amounts, etc. Perhaps it only applies to TXs over 1K $ (explicitly mentioned in article 50).
Here I’m confused (yet again) as to the scope. It references financial institutions, but I’d really like to properly understand whether this all applies to Chivo (which I suspect it does), and what will happen if someone wants to make a purchase in a store from their own non-Chivo wallet for quantities both below and above 1K.

All in all, the more I read, the more confused I get, so I either stop reading, or I need to read through the references 20 times to try grasp the proper content. I’m more lenient to the former, and I’ll await the roll-out to read through the experience/issues/limitations/controls then …

Edit: This came to mind:

Good for them, another way to increase support and sentiment of the public towards their adoption of bitcoin. Hopefully this can soften up the people and have them feel that bitcoin is their friend. Hopefully this doesn't cause rallies or protest in El Salvador.

Well this is good news for bitcoin, the market as a whole and El Salvado in particular, this is their good attempt to close the gap to the hard exposure that comes from the educational preparation of  How to use bitcoin in a better, more friendly way.  200 ATMs is an impressive start for a country as small as El Salvado, but their momentum is immense. In my opinion, it is reasonable to start promoting equipment to build infrastructure to serve the use / exchange / payment bitcoin for people.
I am glad to hear the positive, effective actions and signals from them!

It shows the power of Bitcoin network and Bitcoin transactions. They are built for everyone, and they provide borderless transactions with cheap transaction fees when network is not congested.

Bitcoin will become legal tender in that nation, just a few days left. Let's count it down.

Bitcoin is first then I expect Lightning network adoption in El Salvador. Bitcoin ATM has Lightning Network as far as I know.

I was also really skeptical initially. But since the usage of the "official wallet" is optional as far as I know(people are free to use other Lightning wallets), then I guess it's not as bad as we'd expect.

Maybe first set of Bitcoin ATMs did not have means of verification, with what I know about the recent Bitcoin ATMs, it depends on the amount you are transacting. For example, some will only verify your mobile number if transacting below $2000 (this will depend from ATM to ATM), any amount above $2000 will then require ID card or any other identity verification.

But the amount of transaction fee on Bitcoin ATM is always appropriately 10%, this is too high in my opinion, will El Salvador make it reduced in their country, I mean the transaction fee?

Is this Bitcoin ATMs regulated or monitored because I know that most Bitcoin ATMs don't have any way to track the people that use them so is it going to be different? This is a good move for El Salvador, it can help boost the adoption of bitcoin when they finally launch out all of the ATMs.

Great news  Just a small concern with the the ‘State backed crypto wallet’ - but I suppose they have to do this to increase mass adoption.
Interestingly ‘ chivo’ is slang for ‘cool’ .
Good luck to El Salvador BTC

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele confirmed in a tweet that the nation will be roll out about 200 ATMs and prepare 50 bank branches across the nation to allow residents to exchange crypto for fiat easily.


Image credit

Some few facts



Bukele, also said that adopting Bitcoin will save Salvadorans $400 million per year in fees for receiving remittances from abroad


What do you guys think about such a move by El Salvador?

Personally, I have mixed emotions when it comes to the part of a state-backed crypto wallet but a side from that, I think in general, it's a good thing for the citizens and Bitcoin adoption alike. This is a little a break from the news of other different nations banning trading and mining of cryptocurrencies and discouraging citizens from using them.

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1. https://www.ndtv.com/business/el-salvador-to-install-200-bitcoin-atms-as-part-of-the-governments-plan-to-make-the-token-legal-tender-2517158
2. https://forkast.news/headlines/el-salvador-bitcoin-atms-nationwide/