Topic: El Salvador has become the first country to make #Bitcoin legal tender! 🇸🇻 - page 136. (Read 40721 times)

 It is great initiative taken by Nayib Bukele the El Salvador president and great news for all the residents who already are not having much bank accounts for the country population as per reports.This decision has came up in the time btc was struggling with all the FUD in the market and prices were tumbling.They are making it as legal tender which means giving it status of use like fiat and reserve assest instead of fiat and gold.So this can truly have major impact on the other small African nations as well in the coming time.Just HODL your coins safe with you.

Here comes the answer from Unites States as Trump just announced that Bitcoin is a scam, but this looks to me like someone is afraid that other countries may start to do the same as El Salvador.
Russia already removed dollar for all trading, and I am expecting that many other smaller countries will follow example of El Salvador accepting Bitcoin as legal tender and backup currency.
If something like this continue to happen it would be totally unstoppable, and no politician would be able to stop Bitcoin with false claims that it's a scam, because there is no bigger monetary scam than dollar now.
We surely don't need central global government to survive and prosper with Bitcoin.

This news has spread very quickly throughout the world...

we all have to agree that el salvador is the richest country in the world today. I don't know what obstacles the president of el salvador faced when he wanted to ratify this but he has managed to bring his country's reputation very well.

I feel sad reading your response and I am not kidding or spreading jokes. No need to be so agressive if you didn't recognise the message I told you.
That country has/is one of the most dangerous places in earth. If you really want to open a real business there (not virtual), you better study very well the situation there in addition to the market.
Good luck to whatever project you want to run. I am sorry for the misunderstanding and for thinking about your safety. I might be very influenced by the media and reports I read about the situation there.

Edit: /quote, for obvious reasons.

Nothing is official as of yet, and I would be rather cautious. All we have is a statement form the president (Nayib Bukele). A bill needs to be introduced in the parliament and passed, in order for Bitcoin to be declared as legal tender in El Salvador (it should not be a problem for Bukele, as his party is having a majority in parliament). But I will be vary of delaying tactics from the parliamentarians and regulations from the authorities. If in the end they impose all sort of restrictions on the usage of Bitcoin in remittance, then very few people may use it.

Please spare me from this shit. This is the most stupid comment I've received during my bitcointalk life.
If you wanted to be funny, well you weren't.
I'll take my risks in case and I don't need nobody to patronize me on what could I do or not.
Jeez.

Great news and very impressed to see a country like El Salvador is going to do that and the initiative came from its president which is exceptional.

Just a correction, it is no El Salvador the first country to legalize bitcoin but they're the first country to declare bitcoin as a legal tender. Being used legally and being declared as a legal tender are different or am I wrong with my understanding, cmiiw. But over all of it, very good news.

How will hey address the issue of people not having access to bitcoin though, I am sure that not everyone have a phone or electronic device in their country and probably they have a really big population that are below or in the poverty line. It's important but the problem is if they take it too hasty, they will probably experience the effects which are opposite of what they are trying to do.

It was only a logical thing to do. A large part of the Salvadorian population is working in other countries and they send billions of USD worth of remittance every year back to their home country. Bitcoin makes these remittance payments more affordable when compared to other services such as Western Union and Moneygram. For medium sized amounts, these services charge as much as 10% of the total amount (if we take in to account the fee and currency conversion charges). With Bitcoin, the these expenses go below the 1% level.

If the bitcoin bill is passed and becomes El Salvador's legal tender, it will be a great progress in the cryptocurrency and bitcoin industry.

Starting from El Salvador, it gradually influences other countries and finally the whole world. This is an important part of social and human development.

Can you share the source where you got 70% majority?

In any case, it appears Buleke is idealistic but backed by practicality. According to this article, to solve gang crime, his administration makes deals with gang leaders to help the country limit crime themselves. For his support in bitcoin, it appears that instead of criminalizing users, he wants to make it legal tender. This is very much similar to decriminalizing drug use in countries like Portugal.

Bukele’s move might also encourage other Latin American and South American countries to follow El Salvador. This might also unite them. This is something America does not want. The last person who wanted a united South America was Che Guevarra. The CIA killed him.



But there seems to be yet more to Bukele’s approach than a mix of tough enforcement, community development, and personal chemistry. In September, reports of secretive visits by government representatives to high-security jails, and unexplained movements of jailed gang members were confirmed in a bombshell story from the online news outlet El Faro, which cited concrete evidence of ongoing conversations between Bukele’s government officials and jailed MS-13 leaders. El Faro’s report added names and dates to the International Crisis Group’s findings published in a July report that questioned the government’s explanation of its security achievements — namely, that these were due to the Territorial Control Plan — and argued that a gang decision to scale back the use of violence was possibly part of an informal understanding negotiated with authorities.

Source https://warontherocks.com/2020/12/a-bargain-worth-making-bukele-and-the-gangs-of-el-salvador/

Depends on the laws of the country.

In the US the dollar might be viewed as legal tender but not every merchant is forced to accept your coins and bills, in other countries like France or Austria, or the Czech Republic every merchant has to accept any banknotes issued by the central bank as a form of payment, they are the only recognized legal tender, the only thing they can refuse is payment in more than x coins, same for China and Japan although I don't know their policy on coins.

Those laws vary even inside the eurozone (well, a bit less now with the whole UK mess out of it ) so god knows what Honduras policy will be and what legal tender will mean there.

Legal tender does not mean that it must be accepted for goods and services.


In the U.S., for example:

This is the thing that bothers me a little, and the border example was perfect on spot with the differences and the choice merchants have.

The moment you approve it as legal tender then everyone must accept it and I doubt Salvador will have the money and the logistic necessary to achieve this, even dealing entirely with plastic cards it's still a near-impossible dream even in most advanced countries so I think for starters they will add a few exemptions for it, first implementing this in administrations and then for payment processors like kiosk and ten chain stores with a minimum annual revenue over x.

But ignoring the challenges ahead that will come with this it's nice to finally have some news about increasing usage not just stockpiling and "investing", using BTC exactly for what one of its key points was, seeing and receiving payments without a third party.

Pretty decent stuff. Thanks for sharing. I'm still never really truly convinced about this "banking the unbanked" stuff. People who need financial services or banks usually don't find Bitcoin as the probably solution for many reasons, technology and access at the heart of it. I've seen in East Africa for example where mobile phone fintech has worked wonders (talking about SMS -based $5 phones on GPRS network, not even smartphones that Bitcoin wallets need right now). Nevertheless, El Salvador isn't a place I know a lot about and if Bitcoin works there, certainly a case study for the naysayers.

And yeah, Japan's not quite "legal tender" apparently as even Reuters had to retract their earlier statements suggesting the same. So yeah, El Salvador CAN take the "first"... but they're not nearly there yet until it's set in stone in the legal books.


Let's see if legislation (or legislators) does indeed catch up. Can see the US Feds keeping an eye on it too. They might prefer LatAm to remain in the financial dark age.

It would be very nice for Bitcoin. It will expand demand for Bitcoin, once all population of Salvador (+6mi) would adopt Bitcoin for all transactions. For many people, it may looks something small, but the most people in Bitcoin Community uses bitcoin only as store of value and buys a small amount of your equity. However, if El Salvador uses it as a Bitcoin Standard, almost all population would use it as the most part of their equity.

Wow. The author really did a lot of work to be the devil's advocate.

Yet, I think it is important to see the background against which this has happened. Jack Mallers of Strike went and helped spread LN payments as a method for remittances, which are like 20% of their GDP and people get charged a lot for transaction etc.

Most people don't have access to banks and a country that just 3 years ago was fighting mad violence in the streets can't be expected to suddenly put the pedal on financial inclusion. (branches, bank staff, ATMs, getting people onboard). All of that is possible with a mobile wallet in an instant.

So, when the President decided to put his weight behind BTC, he is essentially just declaring the country Bitcoin friendly and even ASKED the bitcoin community to invest in BTC infrastructure (which Blockstream and others have already committed to). This isn't like they are suddenly buying a lot of BTC and will put them in their reserves to fight debt.

The idea is more about promoting financial inclusion and letting the BTC warriors (Not the 'number go up' degens of the past years) fight the good fight to make positive economic changes to the people's lives. I think, to begin with, this is going to be about the Bitcoin community helping out the people in terms of knowledge and infrastructure support.

To that end, I suppose it'd be a good idea for @Theymos to have a dedicated sub for the El-Salvadorians, if there are any on the forum, or if they ever catch up and come here.

It may sound like a nice idea on paper but don't get to excited about this news and check out this article written by Vlad Costea explaining why adopting Bitcoin may be a bad idea for El Salvador citizens and for bitcoiners worldwide:
https://bitcoin-takeover.com/why-adopting-bitcoin-is-a-bad-idea-for-el-salvador/

That's not correct. Japan recognize bitcoin as legal "property". They do not recognize it as "legal tender". El Salvador is the first in this regard. "Legal tender" has a very specific definition which make the wide reaching implications of this significant, such as the knock on effect on how other countries treat bitcoin. Lots of countries have some kind of definition of money or currency which includes the legal tender of other countries. And as soon as bitcoin is classified as money and no longer as property or an asset or something similar, then it becomes exempt from a wide range of taxes, it becomes far easier to buy and sell, there is far less accountancy headaches or paperwork for large firms and businesses to buy/sell/trade it, and so on.

You know, the day of the inauguration of your business will be the day of closure too after being visited by a gang. El Salvador has one of the highest crimes level in the world, instable economy and people taking the way to neighbours countries and to USA mainly. Not my intention to ruin such a good news of course but keeping an online business might work, since I doubt even mining firms could survive with such poor security conditions there.

Indeed, I assume the same too unless for people reading much news or from neighbouring countries or maybe the ones loving geography.