Advertisement
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele plans to make bitcoin legal tender in his country
- Bukele said recognising the cryptocurrency will make it easier for Salvadorans working overseas to send money home
- ‘By using bitcoin, the amount received by more than a million low-income families will increase,’ he said
Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele plans to send a bill to Congress next week to make bitcoin legal tender in the Central American nation, touting its potential to help Salvadorans living abroad send remittances home.
Advertisement
“In the short term this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy,” Bukele said on Saturday in a video shown at the bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami.
Strike, a mobile payments app that launched in El Salvador in March, said in a statement that it welcomed the legislation and was working with the country to make using bitcoin technology a success.
“This is the shot heard around the world for bitcoin,” Strike founder and CEO Jack Mallers, who introduced Bukele’s video, was quoted as saying at the Miami conference.
“Adopting a natively digital currency as legal tender provides El Salvador the most secure, efficient and globally integrated open payments network in the world.”
Advertisement
Bukele, 39, is among the region’s most popular leaders, according to public opinion polls that show him with an approval rating of more than 85 per cent. He has a strong social media following and charted an unconventional route to politics, working at his father’s marketing agency before serving terms as mayor of San Salvador and a suburb.
Advertisement