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El Salvador may soon become the first sovereign nation in the world to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender, Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele announced Saturday.
“Next week I will send to Congress a bill that will make bitcoin a legal tender in El Salvador,” he said in a video broadcast at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. “In the short term, this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy.”
Officials there are partnering with digital payments application Strike to hammer out the logistics and build the necessary financial infrastructure to support bitcoin technology, according to Strike CEO and founder Jack Mallers, who presented Bukele’s video at the event. The blockchain-based application facilitates global transactions over the bitcoin lightning network, a payment protocol that speeds up bitcoin transactions by moving them off the blockchain, which also lowers associated fees.
Mallers, who said he was tapped by the government to help draft the bill, characterized Saturday’s announcement as a “shot heard ‘round the world for bitcoin.”