El Salvador Bitcoin payment option mandatory but people can decide to accept fiat
What some people do not like about El Salvadorian government move is that they made bitcoin a legal tender, that it should have just been a legal form of payment instead of making it a legal tender. In El Salvador, anything government make a legal tender can be used as payment of goods and services while marchants and other dealers must accept it as a form of payment. But when I read
news today, I later knew that Bitcoin payment is mandatory but yet optional, the payment can be in Bitcoin but marchants can decide to either accept Bitcoin or fiat, the transaction will be processed automatically in accordance to what chooses by the recipient.
https://m.elsalvador.com/noticias/negocios/bitcoin-criptomonedas/876042/2021/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=deportes%20&utm_campaign=organico&fbclid=undefinedGovernment: it will be mandatory to receive Bitcoin and businesses are exposed to infractions of consumer law
According to the legal advisor to the presidency, Javier Argueta, it will also be mandatory to have the virtual wallet and once it is, the business is obliged to receive the cryptocurrency as a form of payment.
“You, having the electronic wallet, must accept the transaction. The ‘shall’ is the transaction obligation… you are required to have the electronic wallet. What is mandatory is the transaction, ”said Argueta, explaining the validity of the Bitcoin Law, which formally begins as of this September 7.
The journalist Federico Zeledón asked him about the virtual wallet: _For the sake of clarity, then, what I am obliged to do is to have the electronic wallet? To which Argueta replied: "To have the electronic wallet," he affirmed, to later explain that with it the costs are negligible and that the state's Chivo Wallet wallet is free.
Later he said that when making the transaction, then the businessman will be able to decide whether to accept his payment in Bitcoin or in dollars and again, in a play on words, he gave an example: “If I buy you 1,000 shirts that cost $ 200 and I'm going to pay you in Bitcoin, you have the wallet, but in the transaction, when you do it, you have the will to receive Bitcoin or dollars, that is why it is voluntary, "he said. And once the wallet is downloaded, the merchant is obliged to make the transaction: "If you acquire that wallet, you can make the transaction," Argueta said. According to Argueta, all businesses are obliged to make the transaction in Bitcoin and despite the fact that neither the law nor the regulations clearly state it, if the business does not accept it, it is exposed to referrals of infractions to the Consumer Protection Law.
In my opinion, I think this is a welcome development, it can be said that El Salvadorian government are not making Bitcoin payment mandatory (although mandatory) even as it is a legal tender because the payment can be in Bitcoin while the receiver can choose to receive it in fiat and processed automatically.