El Salvador purchases its first 200 BTC
Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s President, has confirmed that officially, the government has purchased its first set of 200 Bitcoins (BTC) as the country becomes the first to roll out cryptocurrency as its legal tender.
Bukele affirmed that the brokers would be purchasing “a lot more” as the deadline approaches for the full implementation of the new BTC legislation.
The 200 BTC purchase is a part of an upcoming $150 million Bitcoin fund that was passed by El Salvador’s Congress the previous week. This fund will be utilized in facilitating conversions from BTC to USD in the follow up to the implementation of the new law. According to current pricing, the government’s BTC purchase was worth over $10.36 million.
El Salvador has created history by being the first country to adopt digital currency as legal tender. Even though the decision was met by criticism from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the Bitcoin community welcomed this move. Also, internal opposition was witnessed through countrywide protests against the Bitcoin Law.
Meanwhile, Bank of America has highlighted the potential benefits of El Salvador embracing Bitcoins. In one of its reports published in July, the Bank has listed streamlining of remittances, promotion of digitization of finances, open market for foreign investors and greater consumer choice as some immediate upside of BTC as the legal tender.
According to the new Bitcoin Law, citizens of El Salvador can now hold digital assets either as long-term investments or withdraw cash in any of the 200 ATMs across the country.
Salvadoran President also informed that the country is investing in building infrastructure for supporting a state-issued Bitcoin wallet, which would be called Chivo. The Chivo wallet is set to have independent ATMs enabling citizens to withdraw cash without having to pay commissions.
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