Authorities in El Salvador ponder bitcoin’s payment potential

According to Diario El Salvador newspaper, El Salvador’s President Nayib Buquele made a statement at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami that he intends to send to the country’s congress next week a bill that focuses on giving bitcoin in El Salvador the legal ability to serve as a payment financial instrument. The head of state motivated this intention by the fact that it will help increase employment in the economy, as well as expand financial sector services to more people in that country.

Jack Dorsey, the head of social network Twitter and cryptocurrency company Square, also spoke about the importance of bitcoin for the development of finance on a global level. Dorsey said during his speech at Bitcoin 2021 that he doesn’t consider any other digital assets as possible competitors to bitcoin: “all other cryptocurrencies don’t play any role for me”.

He continues to see the No. 1 cryptocurrency itself as the financial instrument of the Internet in the future. In the case of El Salvador, Dorsey’s statement takes on a practical meaning: as analyst Lark Davis points out, “70% of the country’s residents have no access to banking services, yet everyone has an average of 1.46 cell phones,” many of which have Internet access.

During the Banking the Unbanked panel discussion, Dorsey also stated that “the bitcoin phenomenon is multidimensional, affects a lot of things in my life, and I don’t think there is anything more vivid in my professional life than working with the innovations that are built around this cryptocurrency.” He emphasized that “if it wasn’t for Square or Twitter, I’d be working for bitcoin.” Dorsey also noted that if bitcoin needed “more support” than Square or Twitter, he might consider leaving those organizations to concentrate “on working for bitcoin.”