El Salvador will be first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador announced over the weekend that he plans to introduce legislation that will make his country the world’s first to adopt bitcoin as legal tender along with the US dollar.

Bukele made the Saturday announcement in a video shown at Bitcoin 2021, a multiday conference in Miami that was marketed as the biggest bitcoin event in history. “Next week I will send to Congress a bill that will make Bitcoin a legal tender in El Salvador,” Bukele said. “In the short term this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy and in the medium and long term we hope that this small decision can help us push humanity at least a tiny bit into the right direction.”