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A bill to that effect will be introduced in Congress in the coming weeks, making El Salvador the first country in the world to recognize a cryptocurrency as legal tender.
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Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele Ortez made that commitment Saturday in a video message at the Bitcoin 2021 Conference in Miami. ‘It will create jobs and integrate thousands of people into the formal economic circuit.’ According to the head of payment service provider Zap, Jack Mallers, El Salvador will become the first country in the world to introduce bitcoin as legal tender.
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Bitcoin is the most famous crypto currency. It is not controlled by a central bank, but by a decentralized and particularly energy-intensive computer process, the so-called ‘bitcoin mining’. The cryptocurrency is considered a speculative currency and is subject to strong price fluctuations. According to most experts, bitcoin is therefore completely unsuitable as a means of payment.
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Danger to democracy
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele Ortez, likes to pose as a modern and unconventional head of state. He is very present on social media and likes to give his ministers instructions via Twitter.
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But critics see the 39-year-old’s authoritarian style of government as a threat to democracy. For example, the reaction was dismayed when he had soldiers marched into parliament in February 2020. He wanted to put pressure on the MPs to approve the financing of his security concept through a loan. His party became the largest in the last parliamentary elections.
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