Announcement! The President Of El Salvador Distributes A Bitcoin Airdrop Worth $ 135 million For Its Citizens

(Screenshot of the president's profile photo @nayibbukele, Twitter)

JAKARTA – El Salvador legalized Bitcoin as its official medium of exchange. President Nayib Bukele plans to distribute Bitcoin cryptocurrency worth $ 135 million (equivalent to IDR 1.9 trillion) aimed at adults in El Salvador. Everyone will receive free Bitcoin worth $ 30 (IDR 434 thousand).

The announcement was made by President Nayib Bukele some time ago. In addition, citizens wishing to receive Bitcoin are required to create an account on the government's official crypto trading app, Forbes reports.

Launching Reuters, El Salvador will officially announce in adopting Bitcoin as a legal transaction tool on 7 September. The adult population in the country is estimated at around 4.5 million people.

An on-chain analyst named Willy Woo said if 4.5 million El Salvadorans decided to accept the Bitcoin airdrop then the network of BTC cryptocurrency users would experience a growth of 2.50 percent.

Dailyhodl reports that the plan to give Bitcoin worth 30 US dollars is part of President Nayib Bukele's efforts to convince citizens to make Bitcoin legal payments.

However, Bitcoin is an optional means of payment other than US dollars. El Salvadorans don't necessarily switch to Bitcoin entirely. Now El Salvador has two official currencies namely the US dollar and Bitcoin.

The President emphasized that the effort to introduce Bitcoin as an official means of payment is not the same as the process that occurs when the state makes the US dollar the official currency of the state.

He also added that citizens can choose to keep using US dollars or Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. In the process there is no compulsion to accept Bitcoin if the citizens do not want BTC. The free bitcoins will be converted to dollars for citizens who choose to stick with US dollars.

“The use of Bitcoin is optional, no one will accept Bitcoin if they don't want it… If someone accepts payment in Bitcoin, they can choose to receive it automatically in dollars".

President Bukele revealed that one of the reasons for adopting Bitcoin as a legal medium of exchange was to simplify the process of sending money from abroad to its citizens living in El Salvador, as reported by DailyHodl.

After adopting Bitcoin as the official currency of the country, President Nayib Bukele often posts uploads of photos of himself with laser eyes implying that he is a whale or the owner of large amounts of Bitcoin. He also uses a profile photo with a laser eye on the Twitter account @nayibbukele.