In less than two weeks, El Salvador will become the first country to adopt bitcoin as a national currency. No one knows what comes next.

The government of the impoverished Central American nation aims to spend up to $75m as part of a plan to hand out $30 to people who sign up to an e-wallet called Chivo, or ‘Cool’. That software-based system would allow an estimated 2.5 million Salvadorans to buy goods or pay for services in US dollars or bitcoin, El Salvador’s two official currencies as of 7 September.