Opinion | El Salvador’s Bitcoin Paradise is a Mirage
Bitcoin is the regime’s currency, primarily designed for foreign crypto enthusiasts. Some of them are VIP attendees at the president’s private parties. They go out in helicopters or beyond surfing and fishing tripsoften escorted by the policeand is taken on private trips to public facilities. They even give advice on public policy.
It is obvious that their use of the currency was part of Mr. Bukele’s intentions. A large number of the president’s messages about Bitcoin are in English because they are designed for Bitcoin believers, not the Salvadoran people, even though the project is funded by taxpayers’ money. Salvadorans know this too. A national poll in December showed that only about 11 percent of respondents thought that the main recipients of the Bitcoin law are the people, while about 80 percent thought it was either the rich, foreign investors, banks, business people or the government.
When major players in the world crypto market – such as Brock Pierce, a founder of Tether, and Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike – come to El Salvador and sing Mr Bukele’s praise to the media, they act as de facto ambassadors for the regime. Missives like theirs fill social media and crypto-friendly English outlets with propaganda about how good Bitcoin is for El Salvador, how nice it is to live here and how bold and rude Mr. Bukele is as a leader. Some have suggested that it is good for the country to get these crypto-influences to reshape the image of El Salvador before the world, that it’s a kind of invaluable rebranding that happens when someone pays for a coconut in Bitcoin. It’s a mirage.
The stories Bitcoiners spin about our country are often blatantly false. In February, Stacy Herbert, a Bitcoin and Bukele promoter, saw it “Mass emigration out of El Salvador has stopped” even though U.S. Customs and Border Protection kept an average of 255 Salvadorans daily at the U.S. southern border that month. The Bitcoin Beach project, run by Mike Peterson, a California surfer, tweeted that El Salvador is a “children’s paradise, even though it is a country where 90 percent of rapes against minors remain unpunished. President Bukele retweeted it, adding “We are building a place where your children can live the life you lived when you were a child.”
The life that Mr. Bukele builds looks markedly different for Salvadorans. Over the past three months, the government has used a state of emergency to imprison nearly 40,000 people, often without defense. Mr. Bukele has begun cracking down on press freedom, through a gag law banning the reproduction of gang messages, and his government has not investigated the illegal use of Pegasus spyware to monitor dozens of journalists covering El Salvador, including me. from independent news channels between 2020 and 2021. Reporters have already fled the country, for fear of reprisals for doing their job.
Mr. Bukele has used his infamous crypto-brother persona to distract the public from other condemning scandals. On the campaign track, he had promised to fight corruption by cooperating in an international commission against impunity organized by the Organization of American States. After the election, he withdrew from the agreement. The next day, he announced his Bitcoin law, presumably to distract from resentment against his withdrawal. In May, a new scandal emerged. My investigative site, El Faro, published details of covert negotiations between the Bukele administration and MS-13 to reduce homicides. When the agreement fell, 87 people were killed in retaliation. Instead of addressing the issue or even denying allegations that he was aware of the negotiations, Mr. Bukele tweeted about Bitcoin. His government has not yet commented on the investigation, which has been widely read.
