Many are still buzzing over the Bitcoin conference that was held in Miami over the weekend, but while cryptocurrency continues to be greeted with skepticism in the U.S., one Central American country is taking it next level.
El Salvador will apparently be the first country in the world to officially recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, announced at the Bitcoin 2021 conference that he would introduce legislation to make it official, proposing it as a way to help grow the nation, as well as help the cryptocurrency find stability.
Besides, a big chunk of those 6 billion dollars is lost to intermediaries.
By using #Bitcoin, the amount received by more than a million low income families will increase in the equivalent of billions of dollars every year.
This will improve lives and the future of millions.
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) June 6, 2021
The other legal tender in El Salvador, it’s important to note, is the US dollar. The movie is generally seen as positive for Bitcoin, especially in the wake of the currency taking a big tumble in recent weeks as China announced policy against it. But according to Yahoo, some investors don’t think the decision will much impact the market.
“Crypto is seen as a way of hedging against political turmoil, but it will need to reach critical mass. El Salvador’s move is unlikely to counter China’s given its relative size,” Santiago Espinosa, strategist at the independent investment research firm MRB, said in an interview.
El Salvador has a gross domestic product of $27 billion versus Argentina’s $445 billion or Brazil’s $1.8 trillion. China’s GDP was $14.2 trillion in 2019, according to the World Bank.
It’s a big move in crypto regardless of its impact on the market, as even a designation that it’s an official currency is a big step toward giving it legitimacy. But what impact it has on the currency’s value, it seems, remains to be seen.