{"id":65094,"date":"2022-07-29T16:46:49","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T13:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=65094"},"modified":"2025-09-06T18:04:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T15:04:53","slug":"el-salvador-cites-benefits-of-bitcoin-legalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/el-salvador-cites-benefits-of-bitcoin-legalization\/","title":{"rendered":"El Salvador Cites Benefits of Bitcoin Legalization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adopting Bitcoin as legal tender has brought benefits to El Salvador, even as the price of the cryptocurrency falls. Bloomberg<\/a> reported this, citing Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya.<\/p>\n

According to him, the rollout of the digital currency expanded access to financial services to a large segment of the population that had largely been left out of banking, attracted tourists<\/a> and investments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The minister acknowledged that the scale of using Bitcoin as a medium of exchange in El Salvador is realistically small. However he continues to believe in the prospects of digital gold:<\/p>\n

\n

“For some, this is something new that they do not fully understand. But it is a phenomenon that exists, is gaining momentum and will be with us in the coming years.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Salvadoran government began acquiring Bitcoin shortly before its legalisation in September 2021<\/a> using funds from a specially created fund of $150 million<\/a>. The country has 2,381 BTC on its balance sheet (about $56 million). Journalists estimate that the cryptocurrency is roughly 50% below<\/a> the purchase price.<\/p>\n

In March, authorities announced the issuance of Bitcoin bonds worth $1 billion<\/a>, but the issue was delayed<\/a> due to worsening market conditions. In June, Zelaya acknowledged that favorable conditions for the issue have not yet materialized<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The IMF criticised<\/a> El Salvador’s decision to recognise Bitcoin as legal tender. In January, the institution recommended stripping the cryptocurrency of this status<\/a>. According to former central bank head Carlos Acevedo, the adoption of digital gold “killed”<\/a> the relationship with the fund.<\/p>\n

Against this background, the country is negotiating with the IMF for a $1.3 billion loan.<\/p>\n

A study by the American National Bureau of Economic Research showed<\/a> that the majority of Salvadorans prefer to use fiat money. About 60% of those who downloaded the state crypto-wallet simply received a $30 signup bonus and did not return to the app.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Zelaya is convinced that digital tokens will play a significant role in the future.<\/p>\n

\n

“New technologies in recent years have shown how people feared things like websites and digital business, but over time reality asserted itself,” the minister said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Zelaya added that the government has not abandoned plans to issue the announced bonds, is steadily advancing the Bitcoin City project, and will soon announce new cryptocurrency initiatives.<\/p>\n

President Nayib Bukele urged not to worry<\/a> about the fall in Bitcoin’s price and said that investments in digital gold would grow immensely after the bear market ends.<\/p>\n

Read ForkLog’s Bitcoin news on our Telegram<\/a> \u2014 cryptocurrency news, prices and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adopting Bitcoin as legal tender has brought El Salvador benefits, even as the price of the cryptocurrency falls. Bloomberg reported this, citing Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1278],"class_list":["post-65094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-el-salvador"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"30","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65096,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65094\/revisions\/65096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}