El Salvador passed the law to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the United States dollar back in June.
El Salvador has formally adopted Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender alongside the United States dollar. President Nayib Bukele announced that the country had purchased up to 400 BTC as of yesterday, estimated to be worth approximately $21 million. Bitcoin price is up 1.6% in the past 24-hour and traded around $52,582 at the time of reporting according to metrics provided by CoinGecko. Notably, Bukele noted that the country will be adding more Btc to its reserves with time. “Our brokers will be buying a lot more as the deadline approaches,” Bukele explained.
However, as of reporting time, App Store, Play Store and Huawei had not officially launched El Salvador’s official Bitcoin wallet, Chivo. “Release him!,” Bukele tweeted with anger. The government promised everyone who will use the country’s Bitcoin wallet will get $30 in BTC. The move has attracted huge support from the global crypto community who have alleged to show solidarity by purchasing similar or higher amounts.
El Salvador just bought 200 new coins.
We now hold 400 #bitcoin#BitcoinDay 🇸🇻
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) September 6, 2021
Some Bitcoin proponents like Tahinis Restaurants have opted to purchase a higher amount of Btc every hour today. “We heard that Bitcoiners are organizing to buy $30 worth of #Bitcoin tomorrow to support El Salvador bitcoin law. Tahinis Restaurants will buy $300 every hour tomorrow to support this cause,” Tahinis said.
Additionally, a Brazilian crypto community with over 3 million members unanimously upvoted to purchase Bitcoin worth $30 to show solidarity with El Salvador.
El Salvador Adopting BTC as Legal Tender
El Salvador passed the law to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the United States dollar back in June. In a bid to help the citizens convert Bitcoin to the United States dollar easily, the country previously passed $150 million to facilitate the process.
The process to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender in El Salvador has been met with notable resistance from different global sectors. Among them, the IMF has warned of a possible financial crisis due to the high crypto volatility and future uncertainty.
However, El Salvador will be viewed as a test case, whereby its success will determine if there will be a domino effect in other countries. “Bitcoin isn’t designed to be a means of exchange so this is an early experiment for the currency,” Philip Gradwell, chief economist at data platform Chainalysis, told CNBC’s “Capital Connection.”
“I think the main use in El Salvador is going to be around remittances and people using it to save some wealth and perhaps just to be some competition to the dollar in the country.”
Other countries in the region including Brazil and Panama are preparing to draft a bill on crypto assets and possibly Bitcoin adoption.
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