El Salvador's President Proposes Bill To Legalize Cryptocurrency Transactions

Bitcoin illustration (doc. Between)

JAKARTA - El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele will approve Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as legal tender in his country. This is contained in a bill that will be submitted to Congress next Sunday.

“In the short term this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands of people outside the formal economy,” Bukele said in a video shown at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami.

Strike, a mobile payments app that launched in El Salvador in March, said in a statement that it welcomes the legislation and is working with the country to make the use of bitcoin technology successful.

“This is a boom that is heard around the world for bitcoin,” Strike founder and CEO Jack Mallers was quoted as saying at the Miami conference.

"Adopting native digital currencies as legal tender provides El Salvador with the most secure, efficient and globally integrated open payment network in the world," said Mallers.

Apart from El Salvador, several other countries are also planning to accept financial transactions via bitcoin. Payments using cryptocurrencies have also begun to be applied by Apple and Tesla in purchasing devices.