The smallest country in Central America, El Salvador is visibly poor. To improve its economy, the country followed an example of another Central American country, Panama, and in 2001 adopted the US dollar as its national currency. As in all countries in the region, Salvadoran immigrants working in the USA send dollars to their families. In 2021, El Salvador adopted bitcoin as their second legal tender and became the first country in the world to officially adopt cryptocurrency. This monetary move was intended to attract investors and help develop tourism, but economists believe it was a crazy move.
