The surfing hotspot town, El Zonte in El Salvador, popularly known as the “Bitcoin Beach” has celebrated the president’s decision to make cryptocurrency a legal tender in the country. This move also makes El Salvador the first Central American country in the world to do so.
After an anonymous donation of bitcoin three years ago, multiple businesses at the famous vacation site of El Zonte adopted the digital currency kickstarting the Bitcoin Beach Project.
In his advocacy for the national adoption of cryptocurrency, President Nayib Bukele has hailed the current use of cryptocurrency by Canadian tourists to perform transactions or construction workers to receive salaries.
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"We are all paid in bitcoin and for us it's better," said construction worker Gilberto Valenzuela.
A tourist from Canada agreed to it and said, "I pay almost everything here in bitcoin, so it is actually very, very easy.”
Advocates of bitcoin say that this move will boost the tourism-dependent economy of El Salvador by giving access to financial services for those who do not have a bank account and also save hundreds of millions a year in commissions for remittances.
On the other hand, critics believe that this can add fuel to the already burning fore of money laundering and cause financial instability. In a country where half of the population has no access to the internet, the poor will struggle in gaining access to the technology needed to make cryptocurrency work.
Chivo, the country’s newly launched digital wallet for bitcoin is managed by a cryptocurrency platform, Fintech Bisto.
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On Tuesday, Chivo digital wallet was unavailable for download from major app stores as the government had pulled it off to add more servers to deal with the surging demand.