i think you mean the president of El Salvador would disagree. it is quite an unpopular policy amounst the people of El Salvador.

So unpopular that people are protesting in the streets https://twitter.com/Crypto_Daily/status/1432715470902284306/...

This is more what I was referring to, I haven't heard of any protests.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/majority-salvadorans-do-n...

The gdp per capita of El Salvador is $3798 USD which is about $10.40/day.[1]

To have a bitcoin transaction mined within roughly an hour on sep 6 2021 costs $11.44[2], making bitcoin unusable for many Salvadorans, especially for small transactions. Yes, lightning network and centralized payment platforms exist on top of Bitcoin, but these defeat the purpose of bitcoin and add complexity.

1 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... 2 https://bitcoinfees.co/

> Yes, lightning network and centralized payment platforms exist on top of Bitcoin, but these defeat the purpose of bitcoin and add complexity.

It's important to note that the "centralization" of lightning (a statement that I somewhat disagree with, but can understand the basis of) doesn't mean that other parties can steal your money. You the sender decide what route your payment takes, and as such the worst a participant can do is block your payment from arriving at the destination. And, if this occurs, you can just find another route, or open a direct channel to the node you are trying to send to.

I would assume that the ability to receive remittances at practically zero fees without any intermediaries and a monetary supply that can't be censored or controlled by the government is more valuable to the people of El Salvador than the fact that they are transferring Bitcoins over a layer 2 network (Lightning Network) instead of the much slower and more expensive layer 1 network (Bitcoin blockchain).