To exchange bitcoin for cash at a bitcoin ATM, one must pay a bitcoin ATM fee. Athena lists its
bitcoin-sale fee at 5%, plus whatever network fees are being charged at the moment. These
network fees are the cost of confirming and executing the sale. To facilitate more rapid
transactions, Athena recommends paying higher network fees. On Athena’s website, it even
recommends to “err on the side of higher fees.”19 It is worth mentioning that bitcoin transactions
may never be consummated unless a large enough network fee is paid. That’s why Athena
recommends paying higher fees. So, the “remittance cost” when El Salvadorans exchange their
bitcoin for dollars is at least 5%, even before factoring in the network fees, the travel costs
associated with going to an ATM, and the safety and security costs associated with using an
ATM in El Salvador.
BUKELE’S BITCOIN BLUNDER
Steve H. Hanke, Nicholas Hanlon, and Mihir Chakravarthi
Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics,
Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise
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