El Salvador was the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender on September 7, 2021. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, stated in an opinion article that, contrary to allegations made by the mainstream media and rating agencies, his country is not collapsing due to its bet on Bitcoin.
✨ Exactly 1 year ago today, El Salvador becomes the first country to adopt #Bitcoin as legal tender 🇸🇻 pic.twitter.com/DxcROGEAHQ
— RIZZO (@pete_rizzo_) September 7, 2022
On June 5 2021, Zap Solutions (a Lightning Network-based Bitcoin payments firm) Founder and CEO Jack Mallers said at Miami’s Bitcoin 2021 conference that El Salvador’s government intended to approve legislation making Bitcoin legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar.
During his speech, an emotional Mallers presented a recorded video greeting from President Bukele and read a little portion of the proposed legislation. Mallers continued by stating that his company would build an innovation centre in El Salvador with the assistance of Blockstream.
On June 9 2021, the Legislative Assembly passed this proposed legislation (with 62 out of 84 voting in favour of it).
En la #SesionPlenaria7✍🏻, con 62 votos, #LaNuevaAsamblea aprobó la #LeyBitcoin con la que El Salvador adopta el #Bitcoin como moneda de circulación legal. pic.twitter.com/7IToTmnCwv
— Asamblea Legislativa 🇸🇻 (@AsambleaSV) June 9, 2021
Then, on June 25 2021, Reuters released a story stating that El Salvador President Nayib Bukele had declared on June 24 2021, during a national speech that the “Bitcoin Law” would go into force on September 7 2021.
On September 6, 2021, President Bukele said that his nation had purchased its first 200 bitcoins and intended to purchase a great deal more.
El Salvador has just bought it’s first 200 coins.
Our brokers will be buying a lot more as the deadline approaches.#BitcoinDay #BTC🇸🇻
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) September 6, 2021
El Salvador is predicted to have acquired 2,381 bitcoins since September 2021 after making eleven Bitcoin acquisitions. The final purchase of $BTC occurred on June 30 2022, when El Salvador purchased 80 coins with an average price of $19,000.
El Salvador bought today 80 #BTC at $19,000 each!#Bitcoin is the future!
Thank you for selling cheap 😉 pic.twitter.com/ZHwr0Ln1Ze
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 1, 2022
Although some opponents contend that El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has failed due to the country’s unrealised losses on its Bitcoin investments, many Salvadorans are ecstatic that their government has launched this adventure.
To pay his bills in El Salvador, Milton would have to spend an hour on the bus and another two hours in line. He now pays them instantly from his home with #bitcoinpic.twitter.com/B75DXg0u6z
— Documenting Bitcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) September 7, 2022
Today, Bitcoin Magazine published an op-ed by President Bukele, addressing in which he addressed the critics of El Salvador’s Bitcoin investments.
According to President Bukele, the most outspoken opponents terrified and exerting pressure on the country to change its choice are the powerful elites and those who work for or profit from them. They once owned everything, and they still do.
They are willing to battle, lie, defame, destroy, censor, confiscate, publish, and do everything else necessary to keep and expand their power over the “truth” and everything and everyone.
The claim that El Salvador lost around $50 million due to the plunging price of bitcoin on exchanges is patently incorrect because El Salvador did not sell any bitcoin.
El Salvador is very impoverished, yet it produced $28 billion in goods and services in 2021 alone. It is ridiculous to assert that a $50 million loss — less than 0.2% of its GDP — would ruin or even threaten its economy.
And even if the country were to accept that reasoning as accurate, it would be absurd to assume that a $28 billion per year economy will fail or collapse because of a 0.2% “loss” in one year, given that the economy of El Salvador expanded 10.3%, or $4 billion, in 2021.
In 2021, its GDP increased by 10.3%, tourism income by 52%, employment increased by 7%, new companies by 12%, exports by 17%, energy generation by 19%, energy exports by 3,291%, and internal revenue by 37%, all without a tax increase. In addition, this year, the crime and murder rate has fallen by 95%. These are the actual numbers, which are public information and can be easily located and verified.
“El Salvador is the epicenter of Bitcoin adoption, and thus, economic freedom, financial sovereignty, censorship resistance, unconfiscatable wealth, and the end of the kingmakers, their printing, devaluating, and reassigning the wealth of the majorities to interests groups, the elites, the oligarchs, and the ones in the shadows behind them, pulling their strings.”
“If El Salvador succeeds, many countries will follow. If El Salvador somehow fails, which we refuse to, no countries will follow.”
