[davidgerard]

This is why I'm disappointed that Chivo seems to be a wasted opportunity - there's a lot of businesses in El Salvador that would really like a widely-accepted form of electronic money, and would like Chivo to actually work reliably, which it absolutely doesn't. I think a lot of them are the ones in that 9%, because they want electronic money that much.

In a country where only 30% of the population have bank accounts - and that's with a national ID card, and you can get a basic bank account for the asking with your ID - a government-backed electronic payment system that was reliable and trustworthy could have been a game-changer.

Instead, they got a dysfunctional system written by political cronies and plagued with fraud.

It is possible they'll fix Chivo. But that's the bit I talked about as a failure, 'cos it is. When your system is so bad that people start setting fire to stuff in the streets, I'd be hard put to call that a success.

(The headline was written by the editor, but I'd agree that bitcoin has failed with the populace. Anyone asserting "it's early days yet!" has to account for what's happened so far, and explain why this volatile nonsense would work as actual currency, and not just for the few local Chivo bitcoin day-traders.)