The El Salvadoran legislature, on the 9th of June, 2021, voted in favour of the online digital currency popularly known as Bitcoin as a legal tender of El Salvador. ayokinews.com reports
The bill which was passed to law was won by a majority vote of 62 out of 84 votes cast by the legislature members following the proposal of the El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to make Bitcoin adoption a priority for the country’s financial institutions.
According to President Nayib Bukele, the bill will help boost the country’s financial economy as businesses would be made to accept Bitcoin for the transaction of goods and services while the government would play the merchant role of converting Bitcoin to U.S. dollars. He also noted that the government trust would be in possession of $150 million dollars worth of Bitcoin in reserve.
Speaking on the government’s role in the conversion of Bitcoin to dollars, President Bukele said, “if there’s an ice cream parlour, he doesn’t really want to take the risk, he has to accept Bitcoin because it’s a mandated currency but he doesn’t want to take the risk of convertibility, so he wants dollars deposited in his banking account, when he sells the ice cream, he can ask the government to exchange his bitcoin to dollars.”
He further stated, “Of course he can do that in the markets also but he can ask the government to do it immediately”.
This development comes in respect of the growing massive adoption of online digital currencies which includes Bitcoin, Etherium, BNB etc.
