Bitcoin usage in El Salvador underwhelming, while U.S. dollar dominates: NBER

Bitcoin's (BTC-USD) use as a medium of exchange in El Salvador, the first-ever country to adopt the most popular cryptocurrency as legal tender, appears to be off to a rough start due to an overall lack of trust in bitcoin and the government's BTC wallet dubbed Chivo, according to a recent survey by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research. The survey data was based on face-to-face interviews with 1,800 Salvadorian households. There has been a growing debate on the potential for bitcoin (BTC-USD) to replace the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. In a free market, a currency is defined as a form of money that acts as a medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value. Some argue that the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies generally do poor jobs of protecting consumers' purchasing power, while others suggest the opposite. And as consumer price inflation reached a