The Congress of El Salvador has approved a law that will classify Bitcoin as legal tender in the Central American country, its president said, making it the world’s first nation to adopt a cryptocurrency.
“The #BitcoinLaw has just been approved by a qualified majority” in the legislative assembly, President Nayib Bukele tweeted after the vote late Tuesday.
The Salvadoran leader has hailed bitcoin as “the fastest-growing way to transfer” billions of dollars in remittances and to prevent millions from being lost to intermediaries.
Remittances from Salvadorans working overseas represent a major chunk of the economy — equivalent to roughly 22 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
In 2020, remittances to the country totaled $5.9 billion, according to official reports.
“This is a law that will put El Salvador on the world’s radar, we will be more attractive for foreign investment,” Romeo Auerbach, deputy of the Grand Alliance for National Unity party, an ally of Bukele, said.
The cryptocurrency market grew to more than $2.5 trillion in mid-May 2020, according to the Coinmarketcap page, driven by interest from increasingly serious investors from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.
Currently priced at $33,814, the volatility of bitcoin and its cloudy legal status has raised questions about whether it could ever replace traditional currency in day-to-day transactions.