Bukele closes Bitcoin 2021: “El Salvador will be the first country to convert Bitcoin into legal tender”
TyN Magazine from the Mana Convention Center in Miami.
The closing of the event was attended by the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, in a message that was broadcast recorded in English.
“Next week I will send a law to Congress that will convert Bitcoin into legal tender in El Salvador,” said the president. “In the short term, this will create jobs and provide financial inclusion for thousands of thousands of people,” he continued.
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The message was issued during the presentation given by the founder of the payment platform Lightning Network Strike, Jack Mallers, who revealed that he has worked with Bukele to carry out this legislative initiative. “More than 70% of the workforce in El Salvador does not have a bank account. They are not in the financial system,” Mallers said, during a presentation in which he recounted that the project arose during a three-month stay in the Central American country and added that, within the framework of this project, it will provide an open source guide called Bitcoin for countries.
The status of legal tender will also mean that any creditor will be obliged to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. Currently, the legal tender in El Salvador is the US dollar.
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“Adopting a native digital currency as legal tender provides El Salvador with the most secure, efficient and globally integrated open payments network in the world,” said Mallers.
“Either way, it is a move that is likely to reinforce the image of Bitcoin as the ‘currency of the future’ and President Bukele’s position among supporters of him as an innovator,” he says.
