El Salvador, first country to legalize bitcoin as currency

Yes, El Salvador, a "small" Central American country, has been the subject of much discussion in recent days, and for good reason: it is the first country to officially accept bitcoin. In other words, this means that it is the first in the world where you can "legally" pay for your cigarettes, tomatoes and taxes in bitcoin.

This is quite revolutionary because until now, we only had countries that "accepted" bitcoin, considering it as a financial asset like any other. For example, in France, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are tolerated (and not prohibited), and like all other investments, you have to pay taxes, etc., without it being an officially recognized currency for national payments. Do you understand better how Savaldor clearly stood out from other countries?

After being approved by a "supermajority" (62 votes out of 84) in the El Salvador congress, the latter became the first country in the world to accept bitcoin as a state currency. The country has made history! And, it certainly announces other countries that will follow this trend...

After this good news, the president Nayib Bukele even went even further by showing that he is also concerned about the ecological question of bitcoin which gives rise to so much passionate debate... We can clearly see the effects of having a young president (Bukele is 37 years old, the youngest president of Latin and Central America) and who is then better able to understand the challenges of the contemporary world.

He asked a public geothermal electricity company to use this energy from the country's volcanoes to use it in bitcoin mining.

Here is the tweet which shows his enthusiasm:

Want the translation? Hehe, here it is: "I just asked the president of @LaGeoSV (our state-owned geothermal power company), to put together a plan to provide bitcoin mining facilities with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable energy, 0 emissions from our volcanoes."

His idea is to create a huge hub that would provide green energy which would be used, among others, by mining companies and farms.

This is a very important decision because let's remember, when El Salvador made this declaration, it was in the middle of a dark week for cryptos, which followed Musk's devastating tweet which declared that Tesla would not accept no longer payment in bitcoin because of its energy-intensive aspect etc. Rowdy articles followed showing that bitcoin consumes as much energy as a country likeArgentina, etc. In short, it is in this tense climate that El Salvador announced that it now accepted bitcoin.

(We are preparing a dense article to clarify the debate, but for now, let's start with the news from El Salvador, eh)

It was therefore necessary to justify its decision and it also had to show its desire to do things according to the rules of the art, that is to say, by reducing its ecological impact.

You should know that mining companies are already turning (the percentages vary from 20 to 70%) towards green energies like in Iceland or Norway for example where miners use hydroelectric and geothermal energy which is cheap. In China, this is also the case, let us remember, there is indeed renewable energy and not just coal-fired energy!

Moreover, the fact that bitcoin rewards (with halving in particular) are reduced over time, it goes without saying that to maintain their profitability, mining companies will naturally turn to this type of energy, which is less expensive. .

We can think that with this announcement, El Salvador will interest many mining companies to establish themselves there and even crypto-millionaire who want to spend their cryptos legally..

It seems that El Salvador is a pioneer and that it is one of the rare countries that has understood that in the face of the march of history, it is useless to resist, and that the time has instead come to cooperate. with bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, for a more prosperous future…

Will other countries follow?

Who knows?

[Editor: In 2022, it is the Central African Republic which legalized Bitcoin and even launched its own MNBC : the sangocoin]

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