Mark Mobius, the former chairman of Templeton's emerging markets team and known as the "godfather of emerging markets", believes El Salvador's bold move to adopt bitcoin is unlikely to cause other countries to follow suit.
El Salvador began adopting Bitcoin nationwide on Tuesday, a move that Mr. McPark said exposed the shortcomings of Bitcoin as a payment mechanism and curbed the possibility of its wider adoption.
"there is no point in using a bitcoin payment system when you can pay with your mobile phone," McPark said. You don't need bitcoin, you don't need cryptocurrency. "
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has said Bitcoin will help reduce the cost of remittances. In 2020, remittances accounted for 1/4 of El Salvador's GDP.
But others worry that the use of the unstable cryptocurrency as legal tender would endanger key financial aid negotiations with the IMF and undermine the country's already fragile economic fundamentals.
"El Salvador, let's face it," McPark said. "it's hard to cure. It has a real problem. This is a bankrupt country. They are using Bitcoin to catch straws. "
He also said that some countries with weak financial systems may follow El Salvador's adoption of bitcoin, but other countries are not expected to adopt bitcoin generally.
Asked what would change his mind, Mr. McPark said that unless the U.S. government allows taxes in bitcoin, it could make bitcoin an internationally recognized currency and make cryptocurrencies mainstream.
"but as things stand, I don't think it's going to happen any time soon," he said.