El Salvador: The First Country in the World to Accept Bitcoin

The great news is coming from the country El Salvador that is going to be the first country in the world to accept Bitcoin.

El Salvador on Tuesday became the first country in the world to accept bitcoin as a legal tender, supporters of the real experiments said it would reduce commission costs of billions of dollars sent home from abroad but critics warned it could fuel money laundering.

The program, led by a young, kind, and well-known *President Nayib Bukele* aims to allow Salvadorans to save the $ 400 million spent annually on export commissions, mainly from the United States.

Last year alone remittances to El Salvador amounted to about $ 6 billion, or 23% of its gross domestic product, one of the highest in the world.

Voting shows that Salvadorans are skeptical about using bitcoin and are wary of digital currency volatility which critics say could increase regulatory and financial risks in financial institutions. Still, some residents are optimistic.

"It will be useful, we have a family in the United States and they will be able to send money for free, and banks charge a fee to send money from the United States to El Salvador," said Reina Isabel Aguilar, a store owner in El Zonte Beach, 49 miles (30 mi) southwest of the capital city of San Salvador.

El Zonte is part of the so-called Bitcoin Beach which aims to make the city one of the world's first bitcoin economies. In preparation for the launch, the government had already installed ATMs in its Chivo digital wallet that would allow digital currency to be converted into dollars and withdrawn without shipping, but Bukele on Monday is expected to almost expect immediate results and ask for patience.

“Like all new things, the El Salvador bitcoin system has implemented a new learning curve. All the roads to the future are like this and not everything will be available in a day, or a month,” Bukele said on Twitter, a platform she often used to talk to success or excoriate opponents.

On Monday, El Salvador bought its first 400 cryptocurrencies, temporarily pressing bitcoin prices 1.49% above $ 52,680. The cryptocurrency is notorious for its instability. Just this spring, it rose more than $ 64,000 in April and dropped to about $ 30,000 in May.

Some analysts fear the move to legalize bitcoin next to the US dollar could confuse El Salvador's demand for a more than Si billion-dollar finance agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Following the adoption of the bitcoin watchdog, Moody's rating firm reduced its debt to El Salvador, while the country's bonds were also under pressure.

But Bukele, who did not skip away from the controversy, on Monday re-recorded a video showing the most prominent face of actor Jaime Foxx in a scene from Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino's film about American slavery.

The video shows Bukela beating a slave dealer who had IMP marks on his face. His tweet said that "We need to move away from the past to step with the new era. El Salvador has the right to move to the first country."