Nayib Bukele: El Salvador’s Bitcoin messiah

‘The coolest president in the world’ is transforming El Salvador into a Bitcoin wonderland. What can possibly go wrong?

In June, El Salvador became the first country ever to recognise the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as legal tender, just days after millennial President Nayib Bukele – who defines himself on Twitter as “officially the coolest president in the world” – announced his cool crypto-vision at a Bitcoin extravaganza in Miami. As of September, all Salvadoran businesses will be required to accept payment in Bitcoin as well as the US dollar, which was itself hurriedly adopted as the domestic currency in 2001 under similarly dubious circumstances. The new Bitcoin bill hurtled through the Salvadoran legislature in five hours – which at least meant Bukele did not have to send the national army and police into the parliament building to threaten lawmakers, as he did in February 2020 when he was not getting his way.