A day after El Salvador eliminated bitcoin as legal tender, the only government official to have spoken out on the matter entered a huge hotel room in San Salvador packed with cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Confronting people to whom a promise was broken might seem like a bad idea. But Milena Mayorga, El Salvador’s ambassador to the United States, came in fresh, as if nothing had happened, for a presentation entitled “The Global Race to Accumulate Bitcoin.”
“Welcome to the Bitcoin Country,” said Mayorga. She spoke in the present tense. “We are adopting bitcoin. We have a special law,” she said. That law, following the reforms of January 29, says that prices “may be converted into bitcoin.” It’s a truism: They could also be converted into euros or yuan or pounds sterling, without the need for a law. It is as legal to pay for things in bitcoin here as it is in Nigeria or Argentina, which do not have “special laws.”
But nobody batted an eye. The panel, which included people in serious positions, such as the mayor of Vancouver, nodded along as Mayorga gave her version of what happened. “We have the law, adoption, Chivo Wallet. You can go and buy a hamburger with bitcoin anywhere. President Bukele is buying one bitcoin every day. It’s hard for anyone to take our place. We are way ahead,” she said.
Mayorga lined up three lies in a row, or, let’s say, exaggerations.
The law she mentioned has no teeth: It prohibits the state from accepting bitcoin payments, one of the conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the disbursement of a $1.4 billion agreement. Although McDonald’s does accept bitcoin payments, it is not true that you can buy a hamburger with cryptocurrency anywhere. Adoption is a myth. According to a survey by the Central American University, 85 percent of Salvadorans did not use bitcoin in 2023. President Bukele admitted in Time Magazine that bitcoin “has not had the widespread adoption we expected.” And, according to one of its developers, the Chivo Wallet is a spectacular failure, causing “a hemorrhage of public money,” which the government has to eliminate or sell, under the terms of its agreement with the IMF.
Reforming the Bitcoin Law at the request of the IMF must be the least bitcoin-like thing there is. Bitcoin was created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. It is an invention of libertarian programmers, whose idea is to separate money from the state, to make financial transactions without intermediaries. The IMF is the bogeyman of bitcoiners, the symbol of the status quo, the ultimate video game villain. Max Keiser, Bukele’s top bitcoin advisor, said in early January that the IMF is “an organization of financial terrorism. They think they can print money and influence other people. What kind of sick fucks are they?”
But such technicalities of the truth have no place in Plan B Forum, a cryptocurrency conference that sold out tickets and decorated the Sheraton Hotel and the Marte Museum, in the San Benito neighborhood of San Salvador, in the orange color of bitcoin, murals of allusive art, a giant screen where code like that of the Matrix could be seen, and a statue of the mystical creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
According to Mayorga, there is one culprit for the failure of bitcoin to deliver on its promises: the media, which “scared people and there was a smear campaign internationally”.
The panel moderator followed the recipe, saying that El Salvador ranks third in the world in terms of countries with the highest amount of bitcoin per capita, after Bhutan and Ukraine, not exactly economic powerhouses.
Mayorga said it was difficult for anyone to take the country’s place. She added that President Bukele “has the personality to challenge the economic banks (sic), even the IMF.”
No one on the panel thought of the irony of saying that the president was challenging the IMF one day after approving a package of laws to obey the IMF. There were no questions from the audience, but perhaps it wouldn’t have helped much. Sometimes it seems that bitcoiners live in a bubble in El Salvador: Benjamin Turner, a Californian bitcoin user who was listening, told me that he didn't know that the law had been reformed the night before.
When the panel ended and Mayorga stopped taking photos, I went to ask her how she could say that El Salvador is Bitcoin Country if it is not even recognized as a currency anymore. “We already have a bitcoin reserve and we are going to continue buying bitcoin, that is why the country will always be known as a pioneer. Without a doubt, we have to adapt to the current situation,” said the ambassador, accepting defeat. Later, I asked her why she said that Bukele was defying the IMF when, in reality, he was obeying it. “The law is still in force. It is a challenge for the world because it is not easy to have a law that talks about bitcoin and its adoption in the country. We have bitcoin offices, digital asset offices, and a whole ecosystem to be able to adopt it even more,” she said.
Neither the president nor his legislators have said anything about the legal reform. Instead, Stacy Herbert, director of the National Bitcoin Office, told the propaganda newspaper that Bukele founded that her office will focus on the purchase of bitcoin as a “strategic reserve,” as well as educational courses for public-school students and government workers. But, whatever they say, El Salvador no longer recognizes bitcoin as a currency. The Bitcoin Law does not regulate anything; it only lists actions that one can take. Or not.
Storing bitcoin as a reserve and providing educational courses is very different from what the government promised almost four years ago. In 2021, Bukele used another bitcoin conference, in Miami, to announce its adoption as currency in El Salvador, before a fervent audience that began to applaud before Bukele had finished speaking, and a speaker who shed tears before donning a national soccer team shirt.
The idea was launched on the claim that bitcoin was going to make remittances cheaper, which represent a fifth of the Salvadoran economy. But only around one percent of remittances were sent in crypto-wallets, according to official figures from the Central Reserve Bank.
It was claimed that bitcoin was there to grow the economy. At the Sheraton conference, Minister of Tourism Morena Valdez said there are 504 companies in the country that accept bitcoin payments. By 2017, there were more than 70,000 registered companies in El Salvador; in other words, 0.7 percent of companies accept it.
It was claimed that bitcoin was also for financial inclusion and that the more than 200 Chivo ATMs installed in markets and municipal squares would bring financial services closer to the 70 percent of Salvadorans who do not have a bank account. Bitcoin bonds would also be sold, the profits of which would be used to build Bitcoin City, a futuristic city with skyscrapers by the sea, like Dubai, but in La Unión, powered by energy from a volcano. In May 2022, the president presented a golden model city. Bitcoin bonds would also be used to totally pay off the foreign debt in ten years, and to avoid loans from institutions classified as archaic, such as the IMF.
None of this is talked about anymore.
According to Ambassador Mayorga, the United States’ decision to establish a strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies is due to the Trump sphere seeking to copy El Salvador. Matt Gaetz, Trump's first choice for attorney general, said Mayorga may be the most impressive diplomat he has ever worked with. Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether, a cryptocurrency company valued at billions of dollars, said that he had a meeting in El Salvador that changed the course of history, and Bukele retweeted it. The country is a pioneer, an innovator, led by a visionary leader who adopted the best money in the world.
That was the tone of the conferences at the Sheraton, many of them in English. At three in the afternoon, a panel called “How to Survive the Apocalypse” took place, and it began to be a mixture of mysticism and bitcoin. Ardoino advised that before using any technology we should ask ourselves if it can survive the wrath of God.
But Plan B also had a Spanish side, in smaller rooms, in the Marte Museum. On one of the terraces, food stalls had been set up for lunch. The line to buy an al pastor burrito was delayed because two employees and two foreign diners were unable to process the POS to charge seven dollars in bitcoin to one of them. Even though they scanned the phone many times, they could not complete the payment. Finally, a third conference attendee paid with another phone. When it was my turn, I ordered a burrito, but they told me they only accepted payment in bitcoin. I argued, in vain, that the dollar is the only legal tender in this country, but the restaurant employees told me that those were the conditions they were given. So I went to get lunch somewhere else.
Until midday, the only discussion I heard at the entire conference where the law reforms were discussed was the one I started with a burrito vendor.
John Dennehy is a U.S. citizen who founded “Mi Primer Bitcoin” (My First Bitcoin), an organization that offers courses on financial education focused on bitcoin and has agreements with the Ministry of Education to teach in public schools. He did talk about the law reforms. On his panel, he said that if he had known three years ago that the reforms were going to happen, he might not have moved to El Salvador. He was perhaps the only bitcoin user who criticized the changes. On his X account, he wrote that “surely Daddy IMF is satisfied” with the reforms, and since then he has been answering bitcoiners’ questions about them. If someone from outside El Salvador has spent years reading about the energy of volcanoes, a golden city, and the successful adoption of bitcoin, it is normal for them to have questions like Susan’s: “Why does El Salvador need an IMF loan?”
Dennehy said that “the IMF was the enemy three years ago and it still is today.” He said that “El Salvador had the chance to create an alternative to a world dominated by the IMF and that is not going to happen anymore.” The reform, he added, has divided bitcoiners in El Salvador.
There are also bitcoiners who defend the benefits of an agreement with the IMF.
At the end of a discussion, a podcaster going by Luna asked Román Martínez, one of the founders of Bitcoin Beach and promoter of a real estate boom on the El Zonte Beach, what he would change with the reform. Martínez, in line with the government, pointed to the same culprit as the ambassador. “In reality, it was never as the media tried to sell it, that it was compulsory, mandatory. The bitcoiners who have been here three years ago have never experienced that. In practical terms, I don't think it changes anything. Bitcoin is still legal tender,” he said. Luna, however, was a more active moderator than his English-speaking peers. “Legally, it's not anymore. Now you have to pay taxes in dollars, no matter what. And now it’s not currency anymore, now it’s just another asset,” he replied. Martínez stumbled: “Er... There are many things that can be interpreted. It may seem negative, but it’s not. We’ve only talked about the IMF, but we have to see the doors that are opening up financially for El Salvador,” he said.
The change is not only in the law, but a complete turnaround in Bukele's attitude toward the Fund. On Jan. 25, 2022, faced with an AFP headline reading “IMF urges El Salvador to remove bitcoin as legal tender,” Bukele reacted with a meme of a scene from The Simpsons in which Homer, with the IMF logo on his face, is walking on his hands and his mother says to him: “I saw you, IMF. Very cute.” Three years later, Bukele is selling an agreement with the very institution he made fun of as a success. Following the logic of the meme, he not only paid attention to Homer's pirouette, but also followed all of its conditions —perhaps borrowing from Bukele’s public oath in his June 2024 inauguration speech— to a tee, without complaining.
The sudden change of course may seem surprising to bitcoiners now, but in his sixth year as president, Bukele has already done this many times. He promised to fight corruption, but eliminated an International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES) when they began to investigate his government. He condemned politicians who made deals with gangs, but he did the same. He complained about dictators who change the constitutional rules to allow themselves to be re-elected and... Bukele also played fast and loose with the bitcoiners.
One of the most eagerly awaited speakers appeared at 4p.m. on the first day: Chris Pavlovski, founder of Rumble, a kind of YouTube for the U.S. far right. But it’s not entirely fringe: A company co-founded by now-Vice President J.D. Vance invested in it in 2021, and Vance personally chipped in $100,000, according to the New York Times.
Pavlovski and Rumble claim to be defenders of freedom of expression. Pavlovski boasts of having been the only social platform that did not sanction Donald Trump after the failed insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of supporters of the now-president tried to prevent Joe Biden from being sworn-in. Truth Social, the social network that Trump founded when his Twitter account was shut down, is hosted by Rumble, which also operates a cloud storage service.
On January 10, Rumble announced a cloud storage agreement with the government of El Salvador. No-one in the government has explained how this is compatible with the agreement with Google, announced in 2023, which also includes Google Cloud storage services. But this is normal in El Salvador: With Bukele it’s usually on to the next shiny thing.
On January 14, I sent an email to Rumble to ask for an interview. I wanted to know about the deal with the government, but also about freedom of expression. Pavlovski came to preach freedom to a country where more than 60 percent do not express their political opinions, according to Latinobarómetro, and which has dropped 67 places in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking since 2018.
No one replied to my email, but this is a small country. Shortly before 11a.m. I found Pavlovski entering the Sheraton, alone with a companion.
“Hello, my name is Nelson and I'm a journalist. Since you're here to talk about freedom of expression, I'd like to ask you for five minutes to talk about freedom of expression.”
“I'm late for a meeting and I have a very busy schedule.”
“How about later today or tomorrow?”
“I have a very early flight tomorrow. If you see me in the hallway we can talk, but not now.”
On his panel, Pavlovski said, “I used to be a sucker for accepting interviews with corporate media.” On the panel, Pavloski shed some light on how he understands freedom of expression.
The interviewer was Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, who has just bought two properties in El Encanto, a private complex with a golf course 15 minutes from San Salvador. In December, Tether announced a $775 million investment in Rumble. Ardoino introduced Pavlovski as “the best CEO of the best company”. The investor interviewing the president of his new project.
Pavlovski, whose company started in 2013, complained that YouTube’s algorithm prioritizes big influencers and corporations, without taking into account that the company that has just injected almost $800 million into Rumble is bigger than Uber or Nike.
Pavlovski is the standard-bearer for the discourse of a Right persecuted around the world. He said that he was personally being persecuted by all corporate media, activists, and governments. “We don’t obey governments that tell us to censor creators,” he said, adding, “Freedom of expression is defended when it is difficult, not when everyone agrees.” He said he is still afraid to go to certain countries.
But not everything is so terrible for Pavlovski. He said things have changed since Trump’s election: “Elon Musk has been great for creators. He promotes freedom of expression and helps Rumble grow.”
Rumble has disinformation videos with millions of views about how Covid-19 vaccines have caused numerous deaths, or about how there was massive fraud in the election that Trump lost in 2020.
On the panel, Pavlovski complained about his critics. He said he doesn’t even know what hate speech is, that no one can define it, even though the mainstream media mentions it all the time.
“I have the toughest skin of anyone. Allowing people to speak is a human right. We are not going to stop fighting. If it weren’t for us, who?”
The audience applauded.
Outside the pleasant air-conditioned rooms where the bitcoiners lauded their exploits, a man stopped his cart to offer bread, cigarettes, and gum. I paid him $0.25 for some mints.
“Do you accept bitcoin?“ I asked him.
“Not yet,” he said. “We don't understand it.”
