INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Nayib Bukele has been accused of eroding democracy.Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele stepped in on Wednesday to manage the fraught roll-out
of a payments app that underpins the nation's adoption of bitcoin as legal tender, and called on users to report any problems on his
Twitter feed.Adopting language similar to IT departments in offices around the world, Mr Bukele asked users to close and restart the app if
a "currently under maintenance" error screen appeared.The historic adoption of bitcoin as legal tender by the Central American country has
been beset by problems that have contributed to a rout in the value of the digital currency globally.Bitcoin continued to lose ground on
Wednesday, closing at $46,000, down by 1.7%."Any financial innovation on this scale is going to come with teething problems
However, if we've learnt anything from watching the markets in the past year, it's that bitcoin maximalists will seek to push the digital
currency back up just as quickly as it has fallen," said Michael Kamerman, chief executive of Scandinavian-owned fintech company
Skilling.Some market watchers see a bullish future, with a new cryptocurrency research team at Standard Chartered predicting bitcoin will
hit $100,000 by early next year and could be worth as much as $175,000 longer-term.Mr Bukele has sent a stream of Twitter messages over the
past 36 hours instructing users on how to download the government-backed Chivo app which promises commission-free transactions and which his
administration hopes will be adopted by the unbanked.Overnight the president said the app, a digital wallet, was being disconnected for the
second time to "improve user experience and the problems it had during the day.""We hope that tomorrow will be much better," he wrote in a
tweet.Several users replied in his comments section to report ongoing installation problems.Douglas Rodriguez, head of El Salvador's
central bank, said during an event in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa that the "eyes of the world" were on his country and that the bitcoin
adoption was a process that needed time to "mature."Addressing concerns the digital currency could encourage illicit activity, Mr Rodriguez
said the rules set out by the bank for using bitcoin were designed to meet money laundering standards and were well received by
international authorities.El Salvador's bitcoin law states the market will establish the exchange rate between the cryptocurrency and the
United States dollar, the nation's other legal tender
It says all prices may be expressed in bitcoin and tax contributions can be paid in digital currency, while currency transactions in bitcoin
are not subject to capital gains taxes.Fine TuningNotwithstanding technical hiccups, the app's rollout created some waves in El Salvador,
in part due to a government handout of $30 in bitcoin to every local user who signs up, and despite polls that show many people are wary of
bitcoin's volatility.On the El Salvador edition of Apple's App Store, Chivo was the No
1 downloaded financial app on Wednesday.Mr Bukele earlier said only a few phone models would initially have access to the app on Alphabet's
Google Play to avoid a rush that could collapse the system.On Wednesday afternoon, he wrote on Twitter that Google Play was available for
Alcatel smartphones and that more models would be added, though it was important "not to saturate the servers" with too many registrations
at the same time."We are still fine-tuning small details," he said.Reuters could not immediately determine how many times the app had been
downloaded.JP Morgan Chase said in a note on Wednesday that some technical snags are to be expected."These technical issues should not be a
surprise given the country had only three months to prepare for this grand experiment," the bank said
"In sharp contrast, China has been preparing/testing its digital yuan for years and has yet to officially launch it."Global retailers
operating in El Salvador were accepting bitcoin at some stores, including McDonald's Corp and Starbucks Corp, along with several local
outlets.Mr Bukele, 40, who is doing well in opinion polls but has been accused of eroding democracy, has heavily used social media to govern
and engage with Salvadorans.
