When El Salvador officially made Bitcoin legal tender in September 2021, José Bonilla was one of the first citizens to sign up for a government-backed digital wallet that lets anyone use the cryptocurrency. The 23-year-old Salvadoran, who runs a shoe store with his family in the tourist town of Concepción de Ataco, was looking forward to trying out the technology. He'd heard that it would reduce costs and speed up payments.

After a few days of overcoming technical glitches, Bonilla was up and running and accepting payments in Bitcoin from customers.

But the shine soon wore off. By February 2022, Bonilla's list of complaints about Bitcoin was long: the only available Bitcoin ATM was too far away, the government helpline was slow, and the price was too volatile. One day, he lost a $25 transaction from a customer to technical issues and never heard back from the digital wallet's customer service team. "I decided not to use it any more," he said.