There’s significant news coming out for Bitcoin’s adoption as the Latin American country of El Salvador has announced that it’s submitting a bill to make Bitcoin the legal tender in the state on 06 June. The announcement came before a mysterious little note from the official Twitter account of the Bitcoin Miami conference. Jack Mallers, founder of Zap Solutions took the lead and a message from El Salvadorean president Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez sealed it.
El Salvador is more or less a one-man show and the bill is likely to pass by Congress, however, there’s no definite confirmation yet. It doesn’t have its own currency and instead uses the United States Dollar. Bitcoin being the legal tender would mean that users will use it in El Salvador to settle public or private debts and to meet financial obligations in the country. This can include Bitcoin acceptance for tax, fines, contractual payments, and restitution in the country.
The news is significant in the sense that even though El Salvador GDP is small and 101st in the world by estimates. This paves the way for more countries to utilize cryptocurrencies as legal tenders and is likely the first push on a long list. Bitcoin surprisingly went down 2.3% on the news with the price now just above $35,000. It is unclear as to why the price hasn’t responded positively on the news, though the general bearish sentiment in the market might have played a role.
