Topic: El Salvador plan to make BTC legal tender (Read 788 times)

I think we need to wait and see, if it works then there is a possibility other countries could do the same.
and if it is the failure of a project, then the consequences for cryptocurrencies will be very negative.
However, with bitcoin being so volatile, only time will tell whether El Salvador has made a good choice or a terrible mistake, perhaps largely down to luck.
We just hope and pray that any positive news about bitcoin will be smooth and successful, and but this doesn't mean that it might not be a good move in the long run.
much of the success of the El Salvador bitcoin initiative will depend on the relative price of bitcoin over the period of time in which the various initiatives are carried out.

let's try to get clear the image El-Savador is trying to picture out in this regards, inviting other countries was not done in other for them to extend pity on him for regretting his decision neither does he took that step because he needed financial aid from then, he only sees an opportunity to share the ideas, plans and opportunities in the beauty of bitcoin adoption that if they can as well see along with him what he perceived as future in bitcoin, things could go more better for tomorrow, he never persuade Central African Republic to make adoption before they chose to all by themselves.

If this indicates anything, it indicates that the President of El Salvador is looking for a global incubator based on the decision he took, which I still insist on considering it a mere consumer decision to cast ashes in the eyes of the people who suffer from the economic crisis suffocating the country.

Has anyone thought about how El Salvador will be able to use Bitcoin in the global markets to purchase its needs if we know that 99 percent of providers do not accept Bitcoin payments?

Today, by inviting these countries, he is trying to find a way out that fits with his decisions by persuading them to adopt the same step, thus providing an appropriate ground in which he can use Bitcoin.

Well.. this is funny? Why should the World Bank even consider this request? They are a fiat based organization. It is like the government of El Salvador asking Coca Cola company to help them with the sales of Pepsi. If El Salvador wants to make Bitcoin more accessible to its population, then they need to work with the core developers, or third party companies such as BitPay, Binance and Coinbase. I don't think that organizations such as World Bank will be offer to extend any help, even if it is possible to do so.

It is a great omen for BTC, El Salvador will gradually become a more stable economy, I believe that the determination of the president was very audacious, also that it is noted that the Congress of El Salvador fully understands that this is an alternative measure to escape from the traditional economy, it is known that the biggest bubble is in the dollar, FIAT money, in the face of a global collapse, the infallible option for the safe haven of money is in BTC, BTC, Real Estate.

Because El Salvador is a country that has many operations based on remittances, BTC will have the leadership from now on, if they use LN it will be something much better, payment processors if they do not want to be left out of the game must move quickly to offer the best plans to include BTC in their payments.

What you just said now give me the feeling that you don't totally trust or believe in Bitcoin potential, why won't Bitcoin help El Salvador if their government use the tax they get through crypto very well, understand the risk involved in crypto and also train people about it.

Its expected to see that they said that since maybe they are afraid that USD will lose some value or its dominance will be lessen as the bitcoin is already hitting the major markets and in business sector. Maybe there mine will be change if El Salvador economy will be at positive side after they adopt bitcoin in their country.

World Bank stated that it won't support El Salvador as it has made Bitcoin legal tender. I wonder what kind of results will El Salvador get after using Bitcoin as legal tender for some time. If the results become positive, then maybe World Bank can change its mind, who knows.

They might be waiting for something before selling their bitcoin and I think that they will sell at some point but even though that can happen, pretty sure that it will still be beneficial for the whole market that there's bitcoin being sold. Plus, it's not a one man decision to sell those bitcoin so they might be having a hard time agreeing with each other.

Neither the media, nor the government want to admit that they have made billions of USD in profit by holding Bitcoins. On top of that, these coins were seized from a criminal enterprise, and there is a chance (although less than 0.01%) that the coins may ordered to be returned back to the rightful owners. But in the end, this turned out to be the best investment decision made by the Bulgarian government ever since it became independent in 1908. Can be compared to the purchase of Alaska by William H. Seward in 1867.

El Savador is a very small undebted nation, let's hope it helps them.

True to that.

Congratulations to Bulgaria though and the media should come up with articles that are coming from this country and how they've ended with that net worth.

Well, the same as the El Salvador news, this is going to refresh the community just as a bullish news mostly today, that we've got more new investors and institutions.

Well the reason that everyone talked about it is because it was announced when the whole world got their attention in bitcoin. If this was announced somewhere in 2019 then it wont get as many publicity as it currently is. Aside from getting positive publicity, less people seems to notice that El Salvador currently use USD as their legal tender as well

This means that their action of making bitcoin as legal tender could be seen as a threat to the USD and someday might force The US to crack down on bitcoin and stuff


https://www.coininsider.com/bulgarian-government-owns-3-billion-usd-bitcoin/. Read this

Is that for real? Bulgaria has Bitcoin in their Forex?

Wow this is really a Mind blowing idea, i have not even got crossed about this for information since then.

When was Bulgaria starts having this?

Well played, sir.

Everyone here is talking about El Salvador. But hardly anyone has mentioned Bulgaria. Let's not forget the fact that Bulgaria is the only country to have Bitcoin in its forex reserve. The government didn't purchased any BTC from the market. In May 2017, they seized a total of BTC213,519 from an organized criminal network. And unlike what the FBI did with the Silk Road coins, the Bulgarian authorities chose not to sell those coins. Back then, these coins were worth around $200 million. Now their worth has increased to $8.65 billion.

I also believe El Salvador will experience more growth in the coming weeks and for the rumor said about the President of the state owning some Bitcoin is what I dont know even if it was true, the bold move is what's important to we crypto community and I believe the news about El Salvador legalization of Bitcoin is what current impact the market.


Yes, it was a genius decision cause it was made when the market is experiencing some sump in price which could help the crypto adopter during the dipping price in the country and around the world. Besides, this legal tender decision will also advertise El Salvador and I can see some crypto enthusiasts relocating to El Salvador soon.

Now that El Salvador is on its way to bitcoin legalization, its economy will more likely to progress too. However, the President of this state got an issue that he's owning a large amount of bitcoin and he's only doing this to create bitcoin hype. I think whether its true or not, he's free to do things on his own as what crypto is all about, freedom. Hope this proposal will be approve soon because if this comes out positively, bitcoin would definitely be in a hype again.

Its more like a long term domino effect but alot of potential for the country. If somehow there is a drastic change in their Economy and GDP after making bitcoin as their legal tender in around 10 years or so, then some other countries might follow their steps. Some other low income countries are most likely going to monitor this before making the same decision


It was a bold move and on top of that, they made the decision while bitcoin is still one of most googled subject in 2021 so El Salvador got the full coverage about this news from all over the world. Genius indeed

I am really happy about El Salvador to move in making Bitcoin a legal tender and with their positive towards Bitcoin, I don't think it will be nice for anyone to consider their President not to be the best economist out there. However, this is wonderful by El Salvador cause more good things are coming their way.

Venezuela is a bit of a separate story, when political chaos, fueled in every possible way from the outside, is accompanied by economic chaos plus a difficult situation with oil revenues. When the central government is either afraid or unable to take control of the state's economic policy. In principle, with such a weak central government, it is difficult to talk about any economic policy and it is possible to declare any currency official without any real consequences. Therefore, I wish El Salvador every success in promoting bitcoin, but I do not think that this is a case that can be used as a successful example for everyone in the future.

Venezuela is still sticking with its shitty national currency (Bolivar), right? Bitcoin has no official status in Venezuela, despite being widely used for day to day activities. The government still sustains itself by printing Bolivar in huge quantities. First of all, they need some Forex reserve in their hand, to make some other currency as the legal tender. And right now the treasury and the forex reserves are empty. From what I have heard, the government tolerates the usage of cryptocurrency, and as far as I am concerned, that is good enough.

El Salvador plan to make BTC legal tender is a good news, such as when a traded company invest some of its balance sheet in BTC but let's remember it is an extremely small % of public Institutions, Governments and Wall Street firms that have a positive view on BTC.

If you are optimistic, you can say the potential is still enormnous.

This is great news for the crypto market as it constantly encounters FUDs from China, El Salvador making BTC a means of payment in their country is quite interesting and not only there are El Salvador but also many other countries that will accept BTC.

Seems to me, @Shasha80, that your framing of the El Salvador situation as opening up foreign connection opportunities (which surely is not untrue), under-appreciates the elephant in the room, which is that the mere creation of BTC transactional options within El Salvador is likely creating value in and of itself, in spite of whether money comes in from the outside, and sure, no matter what, the increasing of BTC adoption and use cases within a country, is not going to be able to isolate impacts as ONLY domestic - because even if El Salvador decides to facilitate BTC mining (governmental and/or private sector), BTC mining does not happen in a domestic vacuum - even if there may well be attempts to try to channel internalized El Salvador BTC mining in a way that builds and grows the local (ES) BTC infrastructure - but surely such ES BTC mining development would have a back and forth impact and probably result in a growing economic pie rather than merely moving one piece of pie from China (for example) over to ES.

When the us dollar is a legal tender that is not going to be THAT much useful because it is still requiring people to send each other money and that is rarely that easy, whereas in bitcoin world we have so many coins, you could literally send 30 cents to someone in the altcoin world, think about how rare that is, making money in crypto world is easy for people who live in cheap nations like us, we just have to work for it and we could make some money.

I need about 500 dollars to survive each month, sometimes I make that in crypto, sometimes I do not and have a bit of a hard month depending on how much lesser, but it is always around those levels, I do not make 100-200 dollars per month, and this is not even trading, it is literally working hard and in crypto people are willing to pay you over their own nationality people because why would you pay an american 1000 dollars for someone who can do it for 100 dollars, not like developer in usa is much better than developer here, there is really no difference and it is much cheaper.

In fact , it is. El Salvador is classified as lower middle income country and the smallest country in Central America so in order to survive, they need to do everything that they could do. Crypto and bitcoin in particular is kinda the spotlight right now so they made that decision, if somehow The Chinese Yuan is the main spotlight for the past few months then they would have done the same thing as well


Its more of a long term effect rather than a short one probably atleast 10 years to see the effect of this decision. If it turns out to be a great decision then we can expect alot more low income countries to follow their steps

As you say we will have to wait and see, however at El Salvador the US dollar is also legal tender so it is not like this is the first time it happened there, to me this seems like an attempt to bring money to the economy and if they keep passing laws like that which are very friendly to bitcoin then we could see a huge movement of businesses related to bitcoin bringing a lot of investment to this small country while at the same time other countries try to raise the taxes to the bitcoin profits you have made.

I agree with you, El Salvador accepts Bitcoin not replacing the old system. But with the government accepting Bitcoin, it can be a bridge
for El Salvadorans to get jobs and income from abroad without having to leave their country. This will of course have a positive impact
on the El Salvador economy, so accepting Bitcoin is not a substitute for fiat. But apart from being used for alternative payments,
Bitcoin also makes a big impact, for the country of El Salvador by opening up opportunities for the residents of El Salvador to earn a source of
income from Bitcoin. Things like this should be exemplified by other countries, especially third world countries whose residents need a source of income.

Of course problems won't go away simply by adding Bitcoin as a new payment option. Thing is though that it's not simply like adding a new payment option this is making bitcoin legal tender which is much more.
This is not only for rich people, with LN they are trying to use it where its needed the most.
Without speculating on what it'll be let's just wait and see how this will play out.

For people of El Salvador that means that they could work for other nations, they could work online and they would be very capable of changing that income into fiat and live there as well, or just use crypto if they want to. They could work for an american company, get paid very very little compared to an american worker, but get paid a ton for someone in el salvador then they could use that income and live a very good life.

If enough people can do that it would mean that the nation would have more and more dollars and they would have a better economy as well. In the end what makes a nation stronger is how much money they can get from other nations, this could be done by selling some product to other nations, usa sells a ton of products and services, germany has all those cars, basically every strong nation does that, if Salvador can do that with its people, they could get a strong economy as well.

Yup, there is a good side for the society. When they can learn about BTC, and earn some BTC not only for transaction but also as an investment. Look at the trend history of BTC, the government decision will make its society become richer than before. Based on many article that in this country, 70% society dont have bank account. It means that the society is poor and this is a great ocasion for them.

If you just add a new currency/asset/mean of exchange (call crypto as you like) what did you do?! They didn't replace the old system with something better and improved, they just added one more payment option! Which is a good thing, for rich people, or for the people who have a lot of coins... but what this means for ordinary people in El Salvador who don't have money or coins?

I agree that everything must start from somewhere and that somewhere should be from the root of the problems! And I simply don't see this like that... call me pessimistic, but I live in a third-world country, and I know what kind of problems we have! These problems can't be solved just by adding new payment options! When I see some country making a decision to replace the old system and go full crypto, everything on-chain and transparent, I will see that as a good start that can make big changes! Like this, it's just putting a patch on a gun wound!

I believe that that congress had a majority votes for this so this was not a plan but already a reality.

you just love the country because of being pioneer in accepting Bitcoin?

Everything must start from somewhere? What if this is the opportunity for Salvadorians to improve their life and start getting rid of all those 3rd country problems?
I don't like when people tend to focus always on the bad sides while don't recognizing the true good value that such a move would bring to the country.

Yea, I like El Salvador too... but from a big distance! I wouldn't go there even if you pay me for that!

If we can call it a country, it's small, run by gangs... MS 13! The documentaries about them that I watched are crazy, literally! Who will follow this god-forsaken place?

I mean it's OK what they are trying to do... but the reality is hard for them! And I don't think that Bitcoin can help them, they need to change many other things first! Maybe this can be seen as the first step towards some bigger changes... maybe! Time will tell, but I am not so sure about that!

I must say i like El Salvador, this country creates a history, making BTC as the country's legal tender, i can't help but wonder if more countries will follow suit, even if still small country, i believe a single spark can start a prairie fire.

From what I have heard, there are 11 countries apart from the United States that use the US Dollar as the national currency. They are - Ecuador, El Salvador, Zimbabwe, Guam, USVI, Timor-Leste, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Marshall Islands. Out of these, 4 are dependent US territories (Guam, USVI, Am.Samoa and N. Mariana). Another three are heavily dependent on the US for balancing their budget (Micronesia, Palau and Marshall Islands).

That leaves a total of 4 countries where there is a chance of Bitcoin being declared as the legal tender in the near term - Ecuador, El Salvador, Zimbabwe and Timor Leste. Now that El Salvador has taken this step, the other three would at least consider it.

And they did what they said. It's a good news. At least now they can boast that they were the first country to make bitcoin a legal tender when bitcoin actually goes mainstream. I have also heard that other countries in Central America will also eventually follow this step. It's a good start to be honest. Though I must admit, they will face some complications and its going to take them some time to understand and integrate bitcoin into the mainstream businesses. I am also curious to know how will they be tracking everything. I mean, if a company starts paying in bitcoin, how will the government track them.

I have a high respect now to El Salvador for recognizing Bitcoin as a legal tender and this law offers a lot of opportunities to those who are with cryptocurrency and planning to have their own business in El Salvador. Yes, there will be a lot of adjustments on implementing this law but this is a step closer to achieve the mass adoption. We can expect now other countries to make Bitcoin legal instead of banning it, this is indeed a good news to the whole crypto market.

should there be an example of success for a country that has adopted BTC? Isn't there already a Venezuelan country that several years ago experienced severe inflation that made the country's economy crumble? but it is the people themselves who are trying to find a solution by switching to cryptocurrency digital currency. in fact if there is research on it then there will be bright hope for BTC in the future.

They made history as they become the first nation to have bitcoin legalized and they are even promoting foreign people who are crypto enthusiast to go to their country and get a free citizenship. This will be huge step up for bitcoin specially if in case it works out well for their country. If ever they successfully got help from bitcoin to improve their economy, other countries will surely do the same thing and it will give off a chain reaction until crypto finally dominates the whole world. Still there will be a lot of adjustments before that happens yet there's a possibility we will see it in the future.

They are the first country to do so and make Bitcoin legal tender which means you can use it like fiat and every service provider have to accept btc from the customers.The small nation where many users have mobile phones btc is best suited decentalized currency for them and hold them in their wallets.The memes have also iniated with this like one of the meme was that El Salvador is now having most valuable currency globally worth $35k at this time.So this was one of the main step in bitcoin adoption which can be support to El Salvador also.

For the development and acceptance of bitcoin it's indeed help, it shows more and more people will adopt

and business will soon realize the help of this system, with this news, interest coming from those who are

not aware yet will increase, especially from those people who resides from El Salvador and neighboring

countries.

Anyway what the government of El Salvador is doing by legalizing bitcoin as a means of payment is a good thing,
I hope that with something like this, other countries will also make that decision.
because if that happens it is certainly good for the development of cryptocurrencies

Is not all the countries that will adopt the policy using cryptocurrency generally or Bitcoin in particular as a legal tender immediately, from my observation i notice that it's a something that will take place with a gradual process, and it can only come in existence when the caliber of people living in the same geographical environment or area, massively notice the important of Bitcoin.
Because this scenario is trying to let us know that using Bitcoin as a legal tender, it's obvious that any of their financial transaction should be carried out through cryptocurrency, which might be Bitcoin or altcoins.

There do not seem to be any special taxes in El Salvador that comes from the passage of that law, at least so far.  Of course, while implementing there likely are going to need to be monitoring of revenues and business and even to see if the El Salvador economy might be benefiting or being burdened by their decision to go in the bitcoin as legal tender direction.  Of course, any infrastructure changes cost money, so whether the government has to pay or if there are private companies paying or maybe some combination of shared funding would surely be implementation concerns for any seemingly BIG change like this.  You might need to research into this matter if you believe that extra tax burdens on citizens would be an issue.. because my off the cuff understanding is that there are no extra taxes and probably normie folks would be advantaged by some of the clarity that has been provided with the bill, but surely some businesses are going to have some burdens in learning how to accept bitcoin payments, so there may well be some learning involved (including making sure that they have some kind of way to accept payment - some technology involved, probably).



Seems like their decision to pass such a bill and the governments stated commitment to invest in some infrastructure in the direction of facilitating bitcoin usage has a lot of potential to help citizens overall, especially in the remittance department, and likely in other transactional and/or providing abilities to save areas as well.


Apparently they already had bitcoin beach going on for a couple of years, so I am not sure why they need to conduct some kind of education campaign prior to implementing the law.  In other words, why cannot they implement the law and educate citizens at the same time?  Sure, some people take longer than others to learn, but bitcoin has been around for 12 years and it's an evolving space anyhow, so seems to be no reason NOT to go down the "why not both?"  approach to the matter, no?

It's an interesting news that El Salvador is trying to make bitcoin as a legal tender in their country. However, what's the catch though? I hope it won't be taxed as much.

It's nice to read that amongst all the countries trying to avoid accepting bitcoin, there's a country willing to try to make it as one alternative for paying debt. Bitcoin can help them gather future investors which can result to slowly improved economy that can help their citizens.

I hope before they proceed to implementation of making bitcoin as a legal tender, they would educate their constituents about btc first. It's going to be a big leap for their country, but I hope it will turn out great in the long run.

Being a legal tender means that they are recognized as a way to pay transactions so I fully support this move by the government of El Salvador, although I am waiting on what's going to be the catch though.

El Salvador doesn't have a national currency and that is how they could implement this policy with such easiness. Before 2001, Salvadoran Colon was the national currency, but then they decided to go for Dollarization. For all practical purposes, USD became the national currency from that date. If another currency becomes the legal tender, the competition is for US Dollar and it doesn't directly affect the government or the economy of El Salvador. In most of the other countries, that is not the case and they have their own national currencies.

Whether this was done for political interest or not should not be the point, what people should consider is the fact that this news has put btc in the spotlight once again in the period where some undesirable fudders were being unprofessional,  

El salvasor is a small country which many probably don't know about but this single announcement has brought attention towards them and increases the awareness about this small country,  I say one step at a time, this is better than those countries banning btc all the time for selfish interest.

when other countries are still in the stage of considering bitcoin, but elsalvador seems to dare to appear first as a country that legalizes bitcoin. besides the tourism sector, I think that elsalvador's goods will be easier to reach all countries with this system. So hopefully in the future the country will be more developed

Let's see where this leads, although to be honest, it all looks a bit like pure populism. Although, the fact that the country is small and the economy, respectively, also gives some chances for a positive outcome of the experiment. Let's hope that the government of the country has provided for all the negative consequences of its decision and the positive consequences will outweigh the negative consequences. In any case, this is positive news and from the theoretical reasoning in the style of, and what would be, we will be able to see a concrete example of the embedding of bitcoin in the economy.

Good alternative has been made by their government since it can open more opportunities to their citizens and investments.

Now that they accept it their country got the spot light and this is a great boast not only with their financial system but in tourism also since I believe rich Bitcoin holder will possibly visit the Bitcoin friendly country.

Yesterday the bitcoin law was passed at El Salvador making it the first country to proclaim bitcoin as a legal tender, this is a step on the right direction and it is a sign of things to come, it is going to be interesting what happens during the next years, if El Salvador remains as the only country to declare bitcoin as a legal tender then there is a chance that a great deal of businesses related to cryptocurrencies decide to move to El Salvador bringing a lot of money to their economy.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/09/el-salvador-proposes-law-to-make-bitcoin-legal-tender.html

It is interesting that El Salvador has made this determination, honestly the president of El Salvador has always been a very reasonable person and worthy of doing great things. In 2020 the pandemic was just beginning, it was the only country to lock itself up on time, and there was not a single infected, now if with this measure the country opens up in economic matters, since it will be the pioneer country in the adoption of BITCOIN, it is something that many countries do not have the decision and determination to do, this can bring much more volume to the market, a wise decision for this country.

Now as it says in the article, it is necessary to wait for the congress to only give the go-ahead and they can prepare for a large number of movements through Bitcoin, this can give a great pump to Bitcoin, it will undoubtedly be an engine to boost the economy and will have a great tool for them to cope with inflation.

These type of things are not what will change bitcoin world forever, these are small stuff that will not have too much impact on crypto, Venezuela type of places having the same issues were basically the same thing, they wanted to use crypto and I said the same thing there as well, these are not the instant impact stuff.

However what these do is that if it really helps el salvador and they actually use it in a way that will help the nation, then other small nations having financial problems will see this and they may want to test it as well, and in return you could have 10-20 nations like these who all use bitcoin as legal tender because it helps the nation a lot. That is what matters here in crypto world, the future, because we are not thinking about just today, we also think about 10 years from now, and whatever helps bitcoin in long term also helps us as well.

Yes this will definitely be a challenge for such country that isn't really technically advanced. For the beginning, the masses with less knowledge will suffer not only about trying to understand and use bitcoin but there will be alot of scam and phishing as you have pointed also. But on the long effect, bitcoin adoption will keep raising with this kind of news anyway.

We all need to remember one thing. This is not the first time that El Salvador has made a foreign currency as the legal tender. Back in 2001, as a part of dollarization, they gave that status to the United States Dollar. And ever since then, the national currency (Salvadoran Colon) has become more or less obsolete. So in case they make Bitcoin as the legal tender (which they haven't done yet), then there will be three currencies with the status of legal tender in El Salvador - Salvadoran Colon, US Dollar and Bitcoin.

Interesting.

In regards to the bolded, That would be typical paper fiat currencies. Does not really preserve value long-term.
If we use Gold as money (or other similar things) that's are difficult to print or requires hardwork to print "a lot of it" their supply will be limited and the money won't be losing value like it typically happens with paper fiat.
Gold or others like it will be good Store of Value for users mainly because their price would increase long-term, making holders more valuable money rather than less. Typical modern currencies tend to make holders/savers less money long-term even if interest is paid.

It's almost the same as you because that country is not as popular as other big countries, so I think it's only natural that we don't know him.
but apart from that the steps taken by the country by legalizing cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin as legal tender, of course it was good and quite surprised me,
We'll see if other countries will follow suit or not

Honestly, I have never heard of this country before though it is good to hear more and more countries recognising and accepting BTC as a legal currency regardless of whether the country is a small or big country.

Drops add up to form an ocean basically. I hope this positive chain-reaction that is helping improve BTC adoption rates continues for a long time in the future.

Makes a lot of sense if your current legal tender currency is foreign anyway.

But honestly, legal tender status means next to nothing. No one goes to court these days to settle debts. Actual adoption will still depend on grassroots interest as opposed to any sort of bureaucratic legalese.

Though, I do expect BTC being incorporated into a lot of countries' reserve asset portfolios. That is a real possibility given its status of a store of value that has emerged in recent years.

This is exciting news and they will be the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender! All of these steps add up for mass adoption! 

Well, by using dollar as official currency they are already much better than most america's countries. Since they have the dollar stability probably bitcoin will be mainly used as investment, like you said. As I see, the idea of adopting bitcoin by El Salvador's president is due to the fact the country has considerable percentage of its income coming from foreigner countries (probably people native from El Salvador who live in USA and other countries sending money monthly to their relatives) being heavily taxed by banks. They saw in bitcoin a potential solution for this issue, so people can send money from any place of the world paying less fees, avoiding the eager banks' taxes.

A few countries in Latin America have now resorted to use the US Dollar as the national currency, because they are unable to control the devaluation of the national currency. Apart from El Salvador, Ecuador is one of the countries that have made USD as the legal tender. And in El Salvador, US Dollar is legal tender since 2001. In theory, the Salvadoran Colon is the national currency, but it is very rarely used nowadays (and I guess no longer printed). I guess Venezuela would also do the same, in the near future.

It's a very good plan that El Salvador plans to have a BTC legal tender but it's a very small country and a lot of people may have no idea about bitcoin. This can take a long time but he plans to submit a bill next week to recognize El Salvador’s bitcoin as a legal tender at the bitcoin 2021 conference in miami bitcoin is the greatest reserve asset of all time and a superior financial network. Holding bitcoin provides a way to protect the developing economy from the potential impact of fiat currency inflation.

Imagine if Salvador becomes wealthy bc it adopts Bitcoin, the free market and low taxes that will attract wealth and entrepreneurs.

That is exactly the reason on what hinders a full-blown implementation of BTC as a valid legal tender.

In order for someone to use their BTC for transactions, it is essential that they either have a hardware wallet or at least an electronic gadget in which your coins are stored. Unfortunately, almost majority of the population of the world still live under poverty which lacks the access to this kind of technology.

Seeing that El Salvador has plans to make BTC as legal tender is definitely good news for long-term usage. Other countries might also mimic this move as BTC may be the future of transactions.

So they are having issues with their economic structure and so is the reason they are using Bitcoin as a legal tender hopefully to overcome the inflation or economic situation. There are many countries that are struggling to overcome inflation and other economic situations and those governments can come up with the plan of using Bitcoin as well as legal tender.

Even if El Salvador is a small country this is good news, big and powerful countries may admit that bitcoin is an asset and try to regulate it as such but El Salvador is taking a step further and making it legal tender, obviously I do not think this means they are going to replace the US dollar as their main currency but maybe we will begin to see some regulation which is attractive to businesses related to cryptocurrencies and maybe some exchanges may decide to move their offices there.

The price didn't move much. That is not because El Salvador is a small country, but because it is just an informal statement. We don't know whether the president (Nayib Bukele) is serious about it. I hope that he is serious and will introduce the bill in the parliament, but from what I heard he has a history of flip-flops. And getting the bill passed in the parliament is not going to be easy. As we all know, the politicians form one of the most Bitcoin-skeptic group of people in the world.

Overall the reception is quite good, but the price doesn't move much, probably because it's a small country. That being said, it seems like more countries (especially the small ones) are following El Savador in this move. Just read that Portugal is following the same steps, but it's still a rumour. Not surprised if more rumours come up and being recycled later on, just like the China fud news.

Just did some little research after I read the news. On the one hand, it is good to see the first country calling Bitcoin a official payment option. On the other hand, El Salvador is a small country where cash is pretty widespread because the infrastructure for bank or mobile payments are pretty bad and underdeveloped. Thus, the question will be to what extent the vast majority in the country will be able to use Bitcoin or pay with it at all.
It may be an option for tourists, but whether the acceptance in the country itself will be so great, I dare to doubt.

El Salvador has been using the US dollar long before Venezuela and if this happens Bitcoin will also be a legal tender together with the US dollar. With that being said I don't think that their citizens will be inclined in choosing a volatile currency like Bitcoin as their main mode of payment as compared to just using USD for their daily transactions. The recognition of Bitcoin will just give them an option but they will most likely see it as an investment rather than a currency. This will also depend if how the businesses will react to this kind of change whether or not they are prepared to adopt Bitcoin as a mode of payment.

     I feel sad for the people there. I wish the politicians would do more to improve the quality of life in El Salvador for the sake of it's people specially the children. Although I am impressed by this innovative step, I still do not think that this is enough to fix the economy. If the government does nothing about this and continue to turn a blind eye to the issues at hand, even bitcoin or any other crypto currency won't be able to do much to improve the lives of the people there. I hope the president understands this well and care enough for his fellow countrymen to actually act now.

For small poor countries it's a smart move to adopt bitcoin as currency, because they have nothing to lose. For this reason the volatility is an acceptable risk to be taken. On the other hand, if more countries like El Salvador adopt bitcoin as well, the volatility tends to decrease along the time, as millions of people will be consistently entering this ecosystem to deal with bitcoin in a daily basis.
I hope these news coming from El Salvador aren't just propaganda and that the legislative house accepts the president's proposal to make bitcoin official there. The world will be watching this crypto experience closely.

el Salvador even though it is a small country in the eyes of the world but a very big country in my eyes...

Being the first country in the world to make Bitcoin a legal tender was not an easy decision. The big countries around ES will definitely try to disturb them. but I believe the president of El Salvador is a wise man, he knows Bitcoin is the 'way of freedom'

So by making btc the legal tender of that state means that every citizen will be using btc as means of transaction, am wondering how this will happen with all the possible challenges that could happen like the lack of understanding of using btc, the possibility that many of the people will be prone to scam and phishing site while trying to shop online and all that, that will also means everyone one will be have the knowledge to operate a smart device and understand how crypto and blockchain works.
it is good news but there will be lots of challenges.

Great news,  And I encourage El Salvador to attempt to break mangle and corrupt bitcoin as their money!

Why you might ask?


Very simple.   Have you invented all ways to mess with money?  I know I haven't.  So while everyone who says "bitcoin will fix everything!"

I am more sciency about this! lets find all the ways we are wrong.  And fix them if possible.   I am very very much a freemarket of ideas. Bitcoin needs true testing the only way it gets that is heavy application of Reality meets Idea situations.

SO lets GO EL  Salvador.  Do ET!

For science!  of course.

This is interesting news for crypto enthusiast. Finally, there is a country which is serious to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender for the government currency. Indeed, this will not give much difference for market because this is just a little country which have only 6.516.498 population.

The population of the country is only 2% of US population. But, this will be a history for Bitcoin milestone. I'm not really surprised if Elsavador has a pretty out of the box state discourse because they have a president who is still relatively young and can see a lot of potential that not all presidents have.  Why did the government draft a law related to the ratification of BTC because 70% of the country's population does not have a bank account, because the majority of the population is unbanked so that with BTC, this will make it easier for people to have a better financial system in the future.  There is no requirement to have a BTC wallet, unlike banks which have to have many requirements to open it.

This is an example of using BTC as an economic driver for the poor in a small country.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/el-salvador-population

Also heard about this news from another thread in bitcoin discussion topic the other day and was happy to see a government making btc as legal tender and keeping it as reserve assest.El Salvador is a country where most of people don't have bank account but 146% mobile phones meaning 1.46 mobile phones per person which is why Bitcoin is best suited for them according to them.Moreover the market cap of Bitcoin can give boost to their economy with investment in Bitcoin is other factor of attraction for them.They have taken a bold step for which they will have good returns in future as revenue from taxation will also increase and infrastructural development can be made in the country.It's good to hear such news which can push btc prices upwards even if the percentage is less.

Acceptance as a legal tender is a bit too much to expect. The step from El Salvador really surprised me. It would be unthinkable in most of the countries, as making cryptocurrency legal tender would make it a direct competitor to the national currency. And in case of countries with weak national currencies, it can lead to fiat inflation. I don't really expect the other countries to follow El Salvador's example, at least not in the near future. Also, it needs to be seen whether El Salvador implements this measure without any obstacles.

This is indeed a history in the making where the government is making Bitcoin a legal tender, while most of the countries worldwide are classifying it as a security along with the other altcoins. It’s not easy for other countries to follow suit, as they are not ready to fully accept Bitcoin as legal tender in open arms.

Indeed, this is great news for Bitcoin and the entire crypto community. But this did not happen for a reason. With its foreign policy, the United States itself contributed to the fact that many countries of the world began to look for a replacement for the US dollar and, of course, this news from El Salvador is the result of this policy. I will say more, many large countries are already using BTC and other cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and services. So this kind of news is the beginning of the introduction of BTC and crypto in the world as finance in exchange for the US dollar.

That's my expectations though since Africa has been a big crypto hub for awhile now but this is a pleasant surprise that a Central American country is going to be the first of the many to initiate something innovative and controversial.

Good job El Salvador and with that declaration I think that there's no longer tax on it as I've said on a tweet. If there's no more tax on El Salvador I think it's going to be the next bitcoin/crypto haven, a country that's fully welcomed bitcoin.

It's a dream come true for the bitcoin community and finally aside from those countries that welcomed bitcoin and didn't imposed a ban. We've got El Salvador that treats it as a legal tender. Another achievement has been unlocked. 

Great! I'm actually surprised that El Salvador will be the first one, I expected such a move more of African countries, or somewhere in Europe.
The president is right that legislation will attract investors, but I don't see how will that create new jobs.
This is interesting, let's wait to see what Congress will have to say on this matter.

It is great news, but I could see some complexities. The vast majority of the Salvadorian expats live and work in the United States. And cryptocurrency regulations are quite strict in the US. For example, each and every transaction needs to be reported to the IRS, while filing the tax return. So if someone originally from El Salvador wish to send remittance to his family back home, there is a hell lot of paper work involved. Anyway, this is where PayPal could be useful. They have recently approved cryptocurrency withdrawals to third party wallets. So the expat could just purchase BTC using fiat, and then withdraw it to a wallet back home.

Now many states have already legalized cryptocurrency, and this means that in them cryptocurrency has become a legal tender and a means of making a profit, and therefore such activities in many states are taxed, or they are going to do it in the future.
The President of El Salvador is actually trying to make bitcoin the main means of payment in this country. Since there is no national currency there, it is quite possible to use bitcoin for this purpose during some transition period. However, in the future, El Salvador will still have to think about its own national money, since this is how it is possible to raise the economy of the state.

This part is quite confusing to me. It's redundant. I don't believe that currency should work like that. It gives more power to those who control it and it's just centralized at that point. It won't preserve the current value if it continued to print.

Anyway, I still want every type of support to BTC so that more and more people would understand how it should be. It's still early to tell but it's good to continue buying BTC for the long run.

I found out about this news last night and was thinking about it all day.
"Trying" This might be the reason why it didn't reflect with the market. It is just a proposal up until now.
There are even rumors that the President of El Salvador bought Bitcoin at a high price like $60k per piece that's why he is creating a new hype for a pump.
Elon Musk victim.

But I don't believe that rumor. Thanks to BIT-BENDER sharing the old thread.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.57171592
It had been proposed years ago and they are just re-opening it because there is no movement about it. What could be the best time to resurface it? Yes, it's now. Counter the effects of what the billionaire did dumping his bitcoins while the issue is still hot.

I can't tell it's a great news, but it's an interesting news nevertheless.
It's interesting because it's a "good news" about Bitcoin and may convince other countries go on that path (although I do have my doubts).
I won't call it great news because I get on the daily basis news about politicians planning to do this and that, of which very few actually get to get implemented. So it will become a much better news when it'll say " has just made BTC legal tender".

They can probably just use both, it's a difficult task to convert the population of El Salvador from using fiat to using cryptocurrencies because there's going to be some people that will be left behind because it's not like El Salvador is poverty free country. But nevertheless, both options will always be beneficial for bitcoin.

Now the thing is, BTC would slowly grow in the future and even if it did not they would succeed in collecting the experimental data of the Crypto community being integrated as a whole in a state, which would help the government for the long run. There is no benefit of the government is not willing to take chances and help their own people. I know it would definitely attract a lot of criticism from other people and governmental bodies but this is necessary, one cannot always expect the fiat to keep going strong, it also have some flaws and they did not make it a national currency etc. They just made it a legal tender which I honestly think is long overdue.

This is a great news, and if actualized it may bridge the gap between government and bitcoin, although this topic was posted on the bitcoin discussion earlier. Here is the link

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/open-peachbitcoin-buy-sell-bitcoin-p2p-sig-campaign-kycfree-5133015
And since then I have been following the news update, and as of now I don't think it has been passed into law, but just the enthusiasm from the El Salvador president is a good encouragement for bitcoiners especially those in that country.

A credible outlet and others have given credit to this news. El Salvador is one of the Central America countries that could be considered a failed state. Little rule of law, an immense number of gangs with thousands of members... The president is probably not the best economist out there, but he may be right in choosing bitcoin as legal tender and even right on the reasons to choose it. After all, having a currency only works if you can print a lot of it and preserves its value and nowadays those are only the USD, EUR, RNM and perhaps the sterling pound to a point.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57373058

The current legal tender, USD, is managed by the FED and ultimately by the US government and perhaps is justified to change that to a decentralised network that has less political motivations under certain perspective.