Illustration credit: Edward Smith / Getty Images
(CNN) -
El Salvador could be the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, announced the president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele in a video exhibited during the Bitcoin 2021 conference held in Miami.
"Next week I will send a bill to Congress that will convert bitcoin into legal tender," Bukele said, according to conference organizer Bitcoin Magazine.
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Bukele said El Salvador partnered with digital finance company Strike to establish the logistics of the decision.
Nayib Bukele photographed on May 29, 2021. Credit: MARVIN RECINOS / AFP via Getty Images
«More than 70% of the workforce in El Salvador does not have a bank account.
They are not in the financial system, "said Strike CEO Jack Mallers.
"They asked me to help them write a plan and that they saw bitcoin as a world class currency and that we needed to come up with a bitcoin plan to help these people."
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El Salvador currently uses the US dollar as its official currency.
BitcoinNayib Bukele
