President Nayib Bukele is promoting Bitcoin use in El Salvador
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An initiative introduced by the country’s president will facilitate Bitcoin use in El Salvador by building a satellite network for citizens in rural areas to connect to the internet and the Bitcoin network in places where online connectivity is poor.
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, recently revealed that his country would build a “satellite infrastructure” for the use of Bitcoin in El Salvador in rural areas with poor connections to the Internet.
“A satellite infrastructure will be built so that Salvadorans in rural areas can connect to the internet and the Bitcoin network in places where connectivity is poor,” the president posted on his Twitter.
The Salvadoran president went on to add that the Blockstream Initiative “will contribute with its technology to make the nation a model for the world.”
This announcement comes after President Bukele communicated this past weekend that he would send a bill to the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly so that the cryptocurrency will be recognized as a legal tender medium of commercial exchange in El Salvador.
Bukele spoke of his plans at the recent Bitcoin 2021 Forum in Miami, Florida in early June. This event was the largest meeting in the history of virtual currencies. Bukele unveiled his proposed initiative during the session. This is in the hopes that Bitcoin use in El Salvador becomes a common currency by which to transact business.
Presently, Bukele has enough votes in the Salvadoran Congress to approve the measure. Making Bitcoin in El Salvador legal tender has generated mixed opinions among commentators and economists in the Central American country.
In El Salvador, the Salvadoran Colon, which was ceased to be used in 2001, and the U.S. dollar are presently legal tender. If the measure materializes, El Salvador will become the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency.
One of the uses that arise for this crypto-asset, according to President Bukele, is the transfer of remittances sent by Salvadorans in the United States. In this manner, individuals who send money to relatives in the country will avoid the payment of commissions that are charged on such transactions.
However, it has not been clarified how Salvadoran users would bypass the payment of the commissions that the Bitcoin network itself has established. Nor has it been determined what specific measures the country would take to prevent cryptocurrencies from being used for criminal activities.
Future Bitcoin use in El Salvador attracts initiatives
Following the announcement of Blockstream’s support, the President shared a message from Justin Sun on his Twitter account. Sun is one of the founders of the Tron Blockchain and the CEO of BitTorrent.
“El Salvador is now a crypto nation,” he wrote, adding that Tron “will become the first crypto organization to establish an office in El Salvador.”
Sun posted Sunday that “crypto investors and entrepreneurs will begin to move to the country as Bitcoin use in El Salvador proceeds.”
The Salvadoran president pledged that cryptocurrency investors would be granted “an immediate permanent residence.”
He added that among the attractions that El Salvador has for these people is that it is “one of the few countries in the world without property taxes,” and that it will not implement a capital gains tax for Bitcoin profits as the cryptocurrency will be legal tender.
Changpeng Zhao, chief executive of crypto-asset exchange platform Binance, one of the world’s largest, has expressed his enthusiasm over this development.
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